| This paper sets out to provide a contemporary record of the evolution of English textbooks for senior high school curriculum in China from 1990 to the present day. It approaches principally through analyses of the English language textbooks produced by the People's Education Press (PEP). Although the paper is largely about textbook issues, it also traces the history of English language education in China, with particular emphasis on education policies, syllabuses, and pedagogical thoughts, and involves interviews with teachers who have used or are using such textbooks.Major data were produced by the analyses of the textbooks, which are shaped by considerations relating to three components at the level of design, which are:·foundations: curriculum standards, syllabuses, and pedagogies;·constructional style:outlook design, catalogues, appendices, and components of activity items in each lesson or unit;·content: themes, instructional texts, and linguistic components (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, topics, functions and language skills.)The findings of this paper suggest that during the evolution of English textbooks, multiple-syllabus tends to be adopted, and there is a significant increase in linguistic and communicative information, which is the source of comprehensible input, and the opportunities for interaction, which promotes two processes of negotiated knowledge adjustment and negotiated skill adjustment. More attention has been focused on psychological demands of learners and integrated language skills. Nevertheless, new curriculum textbooks enforce a requirement for language competence of learners and professional skills of teachers.Finally, the author develops a new model to account for the three-dimensional structure of textbooks, analyzes the three phases of textbook evolution, and accordingly constructed the idea of "parallel teaching material series", which provides defined teaching materials and encourages the autonomy for both teachers and learners. |
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