An Analysis And Evaluation Of New Senior English For China

Materials are an important part of curriculum reform. With the implementation of English curriculum reform and the National English Curriculum Standards (NECS), more and more English materials have come out on the market. In the situation, how to use and evaluate the textbooks which are the main components of materials has become a big concern for many teachers and researchers.Since 2007, New Senior English for China (NSEFC) has come into use in Changchun city, Jilin Province. In order to investigate whether this set of new textbooks reflect the philosophies advocated in the NECS and whether they are suitable to different levels teachers and students in this area, the study has been designed and implemented. The thesis applies both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. First, it analyzes the textbooks from the perspective of overall language ability, including language knowledge, language skills, learning strategies, cultural awareness and affect, to get the information to what extent the textbooks meet the requirements of the NECS. Then, in order to make the study more objective, surveys have been carried out among teachers and students to discover their attitudes towards NSEFC.The thesis adopted the systematic evaluation method proposed by Cheng Xiaotang in English Materials Analysis and Design to evaluate the in-use situation of NSEFC in Changchun area. The instruments used in the surveys are mainly questionnaires designed by referring to Grant's checklists and Professor He Anping's Assessment of English Materials in Senior High School. The author distributes 45 questionnaires to teachers and 293 questionnaires to Grade Two students in three senior middle schools of different levels: a key middle school in the city, a non-key middle school in the city and the non-key middle school in the suburbs. The following are the major findings emerged from the study:1. Generally speaking, NSEFC is in full agreement with the NECS requirements.2. Topics in NSEFC are diverse, but they are not very attractive to students.3. The difficulty level of NSEFC is appropriate, except for the listening part. Only teachers and students in the key middle school think it suitable while those in the non-key middle schools feel it too hard.4. Students'attitudes towards activities in developing their language skills are generally neutral, but those in the non-key middle schools towards listening and writing activities are negative.5. NSEFC pays attention to cultivate students'learning strategies, but the design of learning-tip is not very practical.6. NSEFC increases students'cross-cultural awareness; however, the distribution of cultural knowledge needs to be balanced. More social customs and communicative rules should be introduced to help students overcome communicative barriers.7. NSEFC helps students set up correct views and values towards life through learning materials.8. In general, this set of new textbooks match to the teaching level and the exams in Changchun area.9. Facilities in the key-middle schools can fully meet the need of teaching while those in the non-key middle schools still need to be improved.And finally, several suggestions have been proposed for teachers and compilers.For teachers, they should carefully study the NECS which provide the guiding principles of textbooks compilation. Only by doing this can they better implement the philosophies in their practical teaching. Besides, they need to adapt the textbooks flexibly according to practical situations. Teachers can supply, delete, replace, expand or reorder the contents of the textbooks so as to improve teaching effects.For compilers, they need to incorporate more interesting learning materials to stimulate students'learning motivation. Furthermore, they should pay attention to language recycling, reduce the difficulty level of listening materials, integrate learning strategies with learning process and balance the distribution of cultural contents, which makes NSEFC better facilitates teaching and learning.There are also some limitations of the study. Because of the limited time and energy of the author, the survey was only done in three schools in Changchun city. For more generalized and convincing results, more teachers and students should be involved.