On Investigation And Evaluation Of New Centuiy Vocational College English

With the economic globalization and the hot international competition, more and more attention has been paid to the English language teaching and learning in higher vocational colleges. As one of the main sources of the language input for learners as well as the medium of the interaction between teachers and learners and the cultural acquisition, foreign language teaching materials play a vital role in foreign language teaching and learning. With the reform of English instruction in higher vocational colleges, a variety of textbooks have run into market. One of them, the New Century Vocational College English (NCVCE, henceforth), has been popularly adopted by plenty of higher vocational colleges since its first publication in2000.This study is intended to make a case study of NCVCE from two aspects:a preliminary evaluation based on the overall comparative analysis of the textbook and an in-use investigation by means of questionnaire and interviews. The study is to find out how NCVCE meet the Basic Requirements for Higher Vocational English Course(the Basic Requirements, henceforth) and also the reflection on this textbook from its users. The research is to answer the following questions:(1) To what extent does NCVCE meet the Basic Requirements?(2) What are the merits and demerits of NCVCE?(3) What difficulties do teachers and students encounter in practical use of NCVCE?The author started her research by a textual analysis on NCVCE in terms of teaching objectives, language contents and skills, teaching methodology and teaching assessment. She then conducted a questionnaire among160students and an interview among7teachers from Yangzhou Vocational College of Environment and Resources. In the research, the quantitative data was analyzed by SPSS17together with Excel and the qualitative data were analyzed by summarizing and synthesizing.The result of the research indicates three major findings.(1) NCVCE is a set of textbooks that basically accord with the Basic Requirements in terms of teaching objectives, teaching approach and assessment. It facilitates the development of students’ability to use English for practical communication as basic language knowledge and skills.(2) It is a coursebook positively accepted by most users, teachers and students as well. They hold that the selection of the topics is of variety and covers widely. The language in NCVCE is justified in terms of the level of difficulty and is well arranged from simplicity to complication. It also supplies sufficient basic knowledge and supports the development of the integrated skills. However, the research also indicates that NCVCE also possess some weaknesses:lack of native culture and training of listening and speaking. Some information and themes in the book are out of date and the exercises in the textbook are in fixed forms.(3) Teachers may meet some difficulties in instruction in its practical use, for example, short of class-hours and multimedia equipments. And the cooperative learning and learner-centered activities recommended in the book are not practically designed to be implemented in classroom instruction. Based on the study, the author recommends some advices for its revision as well as some practical suggestions for the teacher to adapt the textbook to meet the needs of his class.This study, by a case-study of NCVCE, has generalized some implications for selection, adaptation and evaluation of other English textbooks, and in turn, it might help to improve English language teaching in higher vocational colleges. However, the result of the present study may not be completely convincing due to the limited number of subjects and author experience with foreign language teaching and textbook evaluation.