Senior High School English (New Standard) And Intercultural Communication Competence Development: A Textbook Evaluation

Guided by Curriculum Standards 2003 issued by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, this project studies the values of Senior High School English (New Standard) published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press for the development of students' intercultural communication competence, which is one of the major purposes of English teaching in senior high schools. Textbooks have a crucial role to reach that goal. So far, there are few reports on senior high school English textbook evaluation with a focus on intercultural communication competence development. This study may lend references to understanding the roles of textbooks to reach that end.This study employs two research methods. They are literature study and questionnaire survey. The Senior High School English textbooks are the major target for analysis. A questionnaire survey conducted with 200 senior high school students provides supplementary information to the documentary study.This thesis contains five chapters. Chapter I is introduction. It contains the following contents:The key terms, the importance of intercultural communication competence, introduction of Curriculum Standards 2003, the necessity of textbook evaluation, and the research question. Chapter II is a literature review in which the theoretical and practical studies on English teaching materials at home and abroad are summarized. Based on the weaknesses found in senior high school English textbook evaluations in China, the subordinate questions are proposed. Chapter III discusses the methodology. It presents the research subjects, the instrument, the methods, and the procedures. Chapter IV reports the findings. Chapter V is the author's reflections. The author believes that Senior High School English (New Standards) meets most of the requirements of intercultural communication competence development in Curriculum Standards 2003. However, there are some weaknesses. Based on the findings, the author gives suggestions on textbook revision and textbook use. The necessities for further studies are also pointed out.