An Overall Evaluation On Contemporary College English: Intensive Reading

Intensive reading class is an important part of basic stages of English teaching profession no matter in the sessions of classes, students'devoted learning or teachers' attention. In view of this, intensive reading is always of great concern by English teachers and learners. Therefore, choosing a suitable material is crucial to English intensive reading class. Contemporary College English:Intensive Reading is one of rather popular at present and used extensive English textbooks for senior students. This paper tries to investigate the pedagogical value of CCEIR.The research is carried out based on Cunningsworth's evaluation standard, including impressionistic evaluation and in-deep evaluation. By way of evaluation questionnaires, needs analysis questionnaires and teachers' interview, this paper attempts to evaluate CCEIR from the aspects of layout and design, language materials, language skills, activities, methodology and overall evaluation with the aid of data analysis tools.The results of the research indicate the Contemporary College English:Intensive Reading 1) presents substantial language input, which is authentic, culture-specific and diversified; 2) provides reasonable treatment of language skills including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating; 3) emphasizes on students'self-study ability. However, there is not sufficient section in integrated skills training. The lack of learning competence and strategies is also the insufficiency of the textbook. Some implications for teachers and compilers are also given on the basis of the conclusions in evaluating the books.The thesis is constituted by five chapters:1) Introduction,2) Literature review,3) The design of the research,4) Results and discussion, and 5) Conclusion.Chapter one is a brief introduction to the present study. It deals with the background of this paper, the purpose of the research and general structure of the thesis.Chapter two reports the related theories in the domain of textbook evaluation. It starts with a discussion of the role of textbook in relation to other factors in the whole English language teaching system. And it also discusses about the learners' needs.Chapter three illustrates the design of the present research. It provides a detailed description of the objects, the subjects, the instruments, the data collection procedures.Chapter four is devoted to the analysis of the data collected from the questionnaires and interviews. Based on the results, discussion is carried out from the aspect of layout and design, language materials, language skills, activities, methodology and overall evaluation.Chapter five concludes the paper by summarizing the major characteristics of the chosen textbook and proposing some suggestions for the future use. Limitations of the present evaluation and the recommendations for further study are also listed in this part. The author hopes the thesis serve as a reference for future compilation of intensive reading materials in China. Besides, the questionnaires and the interview scripts are attached to the back of the paper as appendices.