The Construction Of Materials Evaluation Framework And Its Application To New Horizon College English

College English is an important required course in higher education in China. As a major component in the implementation of College English course, materials are best seen as an essential factor in contributing to the accomplishment of syllabus, the organization of teaching activities, the enhancement of students' language knowledge, language skills and strategies. Nowadays, College English education has stepped into a new period of the reform, which is a big challenge to its further development. Especially, more and more College English materials with different levels have poured into the market. How to choose a suitable set of materials becomes an important problem demanding prompt solution. Thus, materials evaluation must be enforced.On the basis of thorough analysis and comparison of many studies on materials evaluation both at home and abroad, a materials evaluation framework has been constructed from two aspects: internal and external. The internal evaluation focuses on the internal accountability, the logical arrangement and effectiveness of the materials. It covers seven aspects of materials, including guiding ideology, instructional objectives, materials package, materials design, language content, topics and development of skills. The external evaluation focuses on the applicability of the materials, that is, whether a set of materials is suitable for a particular group of users (students and teachers).New Horizon College English published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press was chosen for analysis, in terms of its compilation and application of NHCE, by means of qualitative and quantitative methods, with the newly-developed evaluation framework. Concerning the participants, 340 sophomores from 8 disciplines and 30 teachers from College English Department in Qufu Normal University are involved in the questionnaires or interviews respectively. Data obtained through internal and external evaluations were organized and analyzed. Findings were discussed from seven aspects respectively, that is, guiding ideology, instructional objectives, materials package, materials design, language content, topics and development of skills. According to the results, NHCE is basically suitable for most non-English majors in College English education reform of China. NHCE highlights putting people first and tries to meet the needs of students' development. It aims to develop and integrate listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating well in order to cultivate the students' capabilities of comprehensive language use. As a set of three-dimensional materials, it also does a good job in the organization and design. In NHCE, the selection of content and topics focuses on comprehensiveness, authenticity and interest. However, there are still some limitations, such as the heavy vocabulary in reading passages, the less practice of listening and speaking, the lack of task design of Teacher's Books and so on. Besides, the research itself needs improving for the limited subjects.This research is not only to construct a materials evaluation framework and further gain profound insights into the nature of NHCE but also to generalize some implications for the selection, adaptation and evaluation of other materials used for College English teaching and learning.