A Comparative Evaluation Of Two Editions Of Senior English Coursebooks

Coursebooks are important components of the English curriculum practice. Choosing and using the suitable coursebook is one of the vital factors to complete the teaching contents and achieve the teaching goals. With the implementation of the New English Curriculum, the Educational Authorities will gradually carry out the policy to diversify versions in coursebooks under the guidance of National Curriculum Standards, which allow and encourage experimental areas to compile and choose coursebooks according to the actual situation and the need. Coursebooks are supposed to strictly implement the guiding ideas of the New English Curriculum and serve for the achievement of teaching goal, and give consideration to both the "learning" of student and "teaching" of teacher. Facing the diversifications in coursebooks, therefore, a new problem has arisen among teachers, schools and related authorities, that is, what they should do to evaluate the quality of coursebooks scientifically, to identify the particular the strengths and weaknesses of coursebooks, and then to make a reasonable and sensible decision.This thesis aims to do a comparative evaluation of the two English coursebooks widely used in senior high schools which were published immediately after the New Curriculum Reform. They are New Senior English for China published in 2004 by People's Education Press, and Advance with English co-published in 2004 by Yilin Press and Group of Phoenix Publication Medium. This thesis focuses on the five compulsory coursebooks and makes a comparative evaluation from macro and micro aspects of coursebooks, meanwhile gathering static information from the two coursebooks themselves and dynamic opinions from users in practical and using both qualitative and quantitative methods to comparatively evaluate the two coursebooks and comment on how well the two coursebooks agree with the New Curriculum Notions and the law of language learning and teaching. Some suggestions of revising and using coursebooks for coursebook editors and users are proposed.This thesis consists of five parts: The first part is an introduction, which focuses on the background information, the purpose, the significance of the research.The second part systematically presents the related theories of coursebook and coursebook evaluation, including the definition, the roles of the coursebook and the definitions, purposes, principles and criteria of coursebook evaluation. At the end of this part, the general research situation on coursebook evaluation both at home and aboard will be introduced.The third part is concerned with the evaluation framework. Inspired by theories of English coursebook material evaluation and combined with the New English Curriculum, the author sets up an evaluating model for the current study which contains the evaluation approach, evaluation criteria and evaluation method.The fourth part is the main part of this research, which compares and evaluates the two coursebooks from both the macro and the micro dimensions. From the macro aspects, the guiding ideologies, general structures and exterior design of the two editions are compared and evaluated. From the perspective of micro, differences of language knowledge, language skills, cultural awareness, emotional attitude, and learning strategy contained in the two coursebooks are analyzed.The last part discusses the findings on the basis of the previous analysis and concludes the whole thesis in which similarities and differences are summarized, the strong points and weak points are pointed out, and suggestions and advice for compilers and teachers on how to improve and better use coursebooks are given. At the end of this thesis, limitations of the present research and suggestions for further researches are put forward.