A Study On Criteria For Evaluating Business English Comprehensive Textbooks In China

Economic globalization, cultural diversity and educational professionalization haveboomed the market for English textbooks in China. Actually English textbooks’evaluation researches have long been a study point in FLT (Foreign Language Teaching)and a range of evaluation criteria are explored, practiced and perfected. Surprisingly,there are very few about BE (Business English) comprehensive textbooks in China.Therefore, this dissertation aims to explore a systematic, practical and effectiveevaluation criterion pertinent for BE comprehensive textbooks in China to optimizetheir edition, publication, adoption and adaptation as well as BE teaching and learning.Through literature review on English textbooks’ and BE textbooks’ evaluation, thisdissertation summarizes textbook evaluation is an analytical matching process betweensubjective needs and textbook’s static quality and dynamic adaptation. Therefore,evaluation criterion for BE comprehensive textbooks in this dissertation is based onsubjective needs for BE comprehensive textbook’s static quality and dynamicadaptation. Then, this dissertation proposes an evaluation-questions list on BEcomprehensive textbook’s static quality and dynamic adaptation to represent thisevaluation criterion.Students and teachers are selected from two universities as study subjects. Basedon questionnaires and interviews, the results and findings are as follows:1) The current situation for BE comprehensive textbook evaluation is not satisfying.That is, BE comprehensive textbook’s evaluation researches and evaluation behaviorsare not popular. Therefore, there is a necessity to explore an evaluation criterion for BEcomprehensive textbooks. For textbook evaluation can optimize BE comprehensivetextbook’s edition, publication, adoption and adaptation as well as BE teaching andlearning.2) BE comprehensive textbooks’ evaluation criterion is based on subjective needsfor BE comprehensive textbook’s static quality and dynamic adaptation. Textbook’sstatic quality refers to textbook’s physical characteristics, teaching requirement, designand structure, language content, business content and teaching exercises. Textbook’sdynamic adaptation includes methodology, teaching and learning procedure, textbook’srelationship with students and textbook’s relationship with teachers.3) This dissertation proposes an evaluation-questions list as concrete evaluation contents. This evaluation-questions list includes43evaluation questions. Theseevaluation questions refer to ten evaluation aspects on BE comprehensive textbook’sstatic quality and dynamic adaptation. Based on these, evaluation participants can doanalytical matching evaluation between subjective needs and BE comprehensivetextbook’s static quality and dynamic adaptation to shape and develop BEcomprehensive textbooks.To sum up, evaluation criterion pertinent for BE comprehensive textbooks in thisstudy is the outcome from theory to practice. It is hoped that it will bring certainfavorable enlightenment to BE comprehensive textbook’s evaluation and developmentas well as BE teaching and learning with prosperity of BE discipline, BE teaching, BEresearching and BE comprehensive textbooks in China.