Evaluation And Analysis Of Business English Comprehensive Coursebooks Based On Needs Analysis

Until2010, the Ministry of Education has granted BA Program of Business Englishto15universities in China. As the Business English major has been established,important issues such as the components of students’ knowledge and abilities,requirements of proficiency levels, course design, teaching methods, coursebookevaluation, etc. are made necessary and urgent. Whether the current use of BEcomprehensive coursebooks meet the learners’ needs or not, and whether the current usecoursebooks can meet the cultivating objectives of BE major, these are also importantissues to discuss.Coursebooks of Business English (BE) in China have gained a rapid developmentnowadays, which is reflected in their large quantity and variety. However, there havebeen few domestic scholars making research specifically on these coursebooks, letalone the BE comprehensive coursebooks, which does not conform to the boominggrowth of Chinese BE teaching and development of BE coursebooks. Concerning thissituation, the author believes that it is of practical significance to explore BE teachingand learning in terms of the coursebook. The practical significance can be presented inimproving the BE teaching effect, better realizing the cultivating objectives and givingsuggestions to the future BE material adaptation and development.This paper intends to take two BE comprehensive coursebooks, namely, BusinessEnglish—A Comprehensive Course (Model Book1) and The Market Leader: CourseBook (a new language course for tomorrow’s business leaders)(Model Book2) asresearch objects, taking McDonough&Shaw and Hutchinson&Waters’ coursebookevaluation studies as theoretical basis, along with the help of Hutchinson&Waters’framework of needs analysis, and attempts to evaluate two target BE coursebookscurrently used by BE undergraduates and the author do a more systematic evaluation.Through a more systematic evaluation (external evaluation, internal evaluation andoverall evaluation) on the target coursebooks, this study intends to check whether thetwo target coursebooks can satisfy the learners’ needs and the cultivating objectivesspecified by the Curriculum for BE BA Program. This study collects research datathrough questionnaires. Questionnaires were handed out to315BE learners and35in-service employees in companies to investigate their learning needs and target needsrespectively. Through data analysis and evaluation, this study got results and findings as following:Based on the newly set-up criteria in this study, the results of the evaluation showthe two BE coursebooks couldn’t fully satisfy the learners’ needs and the cultivatingobjectives of the Curriculum. In terms of external evaluation, the merits of the ModelBook1were mainly reflected in a wide range of topics related to daily life andcomprehensive exercises; while in Model Book2, the subject matters mainly concernedwith business practices. In terns of internal evaluation, Model Book1can developlearner’s linguistic competence, while Model Book2can develop learner’s businesscommunication skills. In terms of overall evaluation, Model Book1is more usablewhile Model Book2is more flexible. The major problems existed in not containingbackground information (business knowledge) of the two target coursebooks; in ModelBook1, problems are too much contents in each unit, lack exercises of developingbusiness skills; in Model Book2, problems are lack of translation practice and thecontent is too easy for BE undergraduates.Based on the above study, some suggestions for further study are brought out,including enlarging the scope and quantity of the BE learners’ needs and in-serviceemployees’ needs, necessities of the needs analysis and interviews for BE teachers,inviting the experts and BE teachers to give scores of evaluating materials and so on.And it is hoped that this study gives certain implications for further development andadaptation of BE comprehensive coursebooks.