A Comparison Of English By XU Guozhang VS New Concept English

Textbooks say about themselves. Along with the development of the modern theory of linguistics, modern psychology, ELT and theories of intercultural communication, textbook writing and evaluation also go along with multiple perspectives. This paper tries to use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research method to compare and evaluate two sets of English textbooks once very popular in use in China since 1960s from the perspective of culture in detail: English chiefly edited by Xu Guozhang first published in 1962 and New Concept English by L. G. Alexander in 1967.After a brief review of English textbooks in China, this paper defines culture and analyzes that the differences between Chinese mainstream culture and Western mainstream culture lie in three aspects: natural environment, history and philosophical hypotheses; value system and thought pattern; and Chinese and Western English learning pattern. The relationship between language and culture is exemplified in the theoretical formulations of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In the domain of material evaluation, this paper introduces and combines together Cunningsworth's checklist for material evaluation and McDonough & Shaw's two stages of material evaluation: an external evaluation and an internal evaluation and Jaan Mikk's main aspects of textbook quality through qualitative research, compares and evaluates the two sets of English textbooks in two stages: an external stage and an internal stage. In the external evaluation and comparison, this paper compares the cover design, the writers, the guidelines on textbook development and aims and approaches from the angle of ICC by quantitative research. And in the internal evaluation and comparison of the two textbooks, this paper compares the contents, topics, skills, methodology, exercises and layouts of the textbooks by quantitative research. After careful comparison and evaluation, this paper finds out that these two sets of English textbooks are showcases of correspondent cultures. The author finally concludes that a good English textbook should go along with the development of the time; a good English textbook must employ the latest theories and approaches in ELT and the society to help the learner learn better English; through authentic materials in the textbooks, learners of English can learn good language as well as the culture of the target language. In the future English textbook writing and ELT, cultures of both languages should be involved to satisfy the needs of Chinese learners'international cultural communication.