An Evaluation Of New Century College English From The Users’ Perspective

Textbooks are the teaching materials---he most essential yet fundamental source from which students obtain knowledge and information during their learning. They play a fundamental role in learning and teaching a course. New Century College English (NCCE) is the first textbook which completely depends on the College English Curriculum Requirement (CECR) in China, marking that China’s college English idea is shifted from exam-oriented education to practical and interesting education. Published in2007, NCCE is the one of the latest and few newly published textbooks. But publications concerning the evaluation of NCCE are so few that it is necessary to have a comprehensive assessment on its using effect.According to the College English Curriculum Requirement and comprehensive reviews about the textbook evaluation at home and abroad, the author makes an internal evaluation and external evaluation of NCCE based on the evaluation criteria of Cunningsworth. The internal evaluation is now aiming mainly at the textbook itself and the inner rationality and validity. The external evaluation is aiming at the applicability of groups using the textbooks. The author carries out a questionnaire survey and interview to find the condition of using the textbooks.The study employs qualitative and quantitative methods. The evaluation is conducted through questionnaires to investigate100students who were selected randomly from three different colleges in Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and through interview to the course teachers. The thesis is trying to provide answers to the following questions:(1) Do the design, language points, skills, topics, and methodology of the textbook correspond to College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR,2004)?(2) Does the textbook accommodate the learners’needs?(3) What are the main features of this textbook, including merits and demerits?(4) What implications and suggestions can be proposed?The findings of the present research are as follows:NCCE has comprehensively implemented the teaching principles, teaching content and teaching methods put forward by the CECR, which has adhered to the students-oriented education, encouraged students to carry out the autonomous activities outside and inside classroom, and helped students become actualized persons. The set of textbooks possesses reasonable arrangement, provides large amount of language input and advocates the learners-oriented cooperative learning. And it has adapted to the needs of the college English teaching reform, and to a great degree it has met teachers and students’needs. However, the textbooks themselves have some weaknesses:the translation exercises are monotonous, there are no English-Chinese translation exercises from Book II, and the native culture is neglected.Based on the summarizing the evaluation results, some constructive suggestions on how to use the textbooks are put forward in the last part. The author gives some related suggestions to both teachers and students. The hope is that this study can make teachers focus on textbook evaluation, master some evaluation methods and adapt the textbooks from students’demands and the development of society.