Application Of Interactive Principle In English Textbooks Of Primary School

In this study, the author chose Shanghai Education edition Oxford English textbooks and PEP edition New Starting Line textbooks as the research object, and examined the application of the interactive principle in the English Curriculum Standards (trial version) and English Curriculum Standards (revised version). Three dimensions of the textbooks are analyzed, the choice of content, the way content presented, and the approaches to apply the interactive principle in the textbooks. The author contrast and compare the similarities and differences regarding three dimensions between the two edition textbooks. The main findings are as follows:1) Both of them contact with the reality are close to students’real life in terms of the topic and content. Both adopted various interactive activities, including dialogue among many students, pair work, and group work. Two editions follow the training goal in the curriculum standards strictly. Meanwhile, there are many learning plates, which contain not only the basic aspects of speaking and writing, but also activities of role play and other hands-on tasks.2) Due to the writing ideas and the using regions are different, there are many differences on the structure of two texbooks, such as, the way content presented and the choosing of teaching materials of two edition textbooks.3) Two editions textbooks reflect the interactive principles from the way of learning and content presentation. In the way of learning, two editions used group work and focused on the interaction during the process of students learning. Both of them reflect the content through playing games and role play to make students interactive with each other actively.4) Due to the different structure, the content arrangement and the way of interaction are different from each other as well. The picture dictionary in the Oxford textbooks is an important reflection of meaningful learning in interactive principles, but there is no such a reflection in PEP edition. The Oxford textbook not only focuses on the interaction among students, but also on the interaction between students and teachers, even among students and people around. Beyond classrooms, students are expected to interact with others anywhere in their life. However, the PEP edition emphasizes the interaction of students much more than Oxford and the interactive sites are often limited to the classroom.The presented study also found that there were still insufficient application of interactive principles reflected in the two editions. It was mainly expressed as follows:the application way of interactive principle is monotonous and inconspicuous. Based on these, the study is proposing the following improving strategies:1. Providing extra-curriculum activities.2. Adding learner evaluation, and3. Increasing the proportion of performing.