An Investigation On The Use Of The New Senior English For China Student's Book 1

Good teaching materials are favorable for bringing about a striking effect on foreign language teaching and learning. Coursebook plays a vital role in the reform of foreign language teaching. In recent years, the evaluation of coursebook is no longer limited to evaluating the coursebook content itself; the focus is shifted to how the coursebook is being used. The implementation of coursebook is the key step in practicing the new curriculum because the merits and demerits of teaching materials can only be found through application. Therefore, through the investigation on the use of the coursebook, the users can have a proper perspective on the coursebook so as to make efficient use of the coursebook.New Senior English for China Student's Book 1 was implemented in August 2007 in Jilin Province. At present it is on a trial stage.Basing on the theories of education, linguistics, language teaching and coursebook evaluation, this paper aims to investigate whether this new edition coursework—New Senior English for China Student's Book 1 satisfy students'and teachers'needs successfully, and whether it can meet the requirement of the new English curriculum standards or not. In addition, the merits and demerits of new edition coursebook will be discovered. The research methods of this study include questionnaire and interview. Questionnaires are handed out among550 students and 50 teachers in several senior high schools in Jilin province and 12 teachers are interviewed.The research shows: the new edition coursebook embodies advanced teaching notion, positive social and cultural values and flexible layout of contents. Meanwhile, the problems of the new edition coursebook are uncovered when it is in use: teachers still use the old teaching methods, students lack of autonomic and cooperative learning in their learning, and some problems do exist in contents.At last the author makes an attempt to give some advice on how to make full use of it, namely, optimizing teaching methods, changing teaching notion, making comparision between Chinese culture and Western culture, dealing with the contents of coursebook flexibly and calling on educational department to increasing educational investment.