A Comparative Evaluationy Of Two Types Of Reading And Writing Textbooks

Textbook plays a significant role in the college English curriculum and teaching goals implementation. It's an important tool to organize the teaching activities and develop language skills of learners. In recent years, with the development of college English teaching reformation, numerous English textbooks are compiled and revised in the market to meet the requirements of the new College English Curriculum Requirement and the needs of users. Thus evaluating textbooks and choosing a suitable set of textbooks for users becomes a problem that needs urgent solution.Based on the new College English Curriculum Requirements (2007), this thesis intends to evaluate two sets of college English textbooks (reading and writing) that are being used in a key university of Hunan province and investigate how well they gear with the new edition of College English Curriculum Requirement (2007), as well as evaluate the applicability and flexibility of the textbooks.This research adopts Hutchinson and Waters's evaluation model as a working model and evaluates seven aspects of textbooks according to Cunningsworth's evaluation checklists:Objectives and compiling principles, organization design, topic, readability, language content, language skills, CD-Rom and online course resources. Hutchinson and Waters's evaluation model mainly includes two steps:preliminary evaluation and in-use evaluation, the former one refers the evaluation of the textbook itself. Two items, the readability and vocabulary are mainly evaluated with quantitative method which can make the evaluation more operational and reliable. The latter one refers to the survey on textbook users.300 students and 30teachers are the subjects of the survey. This is a supplement of the preliminary study of text books evaluation because users can propose valuable suggestions to the use of textbooks. Finally, the results are summarized by matching the objective and subjective evaluation results.The evaluation results of the two sets of textbook indicated that:1) Both of the two types of textbooks are in accordance with the new College English Curriculum Requirements, including the objectives of course, three levels of teaching requirements and teaching models. Both of them are three dimensional textbooks that combine the technology and information. They absorb the essence of latest language teaching philosophy. The organizations of the two types are well designed and the content is novel and rich. The teaching model is student-centered and learners'autonomous learning abilities are cultivated. But there are also some limitations. For example, some specific requirements are not well embodied in CEIC. It does not classify vocabulary according to three levels and attach enough attention to core vocabulary.2) Both of the two have their own advantages in the reading materials selection, authenticity of language, richness and comprehensiveness of topics, development of reading and writing skills and online course resources. And get a great success in the aspects of the richness and comprehensiveness of topics selection, authenticity and readability of reading materials, writing exercises and online course resources. But there are also some defects on the aspects of attractiveness of textbooks, exercises, vocabulary, translation skills development and introduction of autonomous learning strategies, and the control of text lengths of CEIC still needs to be improved.3) Analysis of the questionnaires shows that users are satisfied with the utility, flexibility and richness of course resources. But they also show dissatisfaction with the design of grammar, exercises, core words and expressions, translation skills training and utilization rate of course resources.4) This evaluation also reveals that the textbooks are not perfect. Users have different needs because of different learning backgrounds, interest, learning styles, methods and attitudes. This requires teachers to better understand textbooks and then better use the textbooks.This evaluation study has significant implications on the evaluation, selection and utilization of textbooks. Firstly, based on the new College English Curriculum Requirements (2007), suggestions to users and compilers of textbooks have been put forward. This will help teachers to understand the curriculum requirements, identify the advantages and disadvantages of textbooks and make better use of the textbooks. In addition, in terms of methodology of textbooks evaluation, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods can ensure the objectivity and comprehensiveness of the results. Owing to the condition limits, the author could not apply enough quantitative methods in the evaluation and only 300students and 30 teachers in one university are involved in this research. Thus further research is needed.