Textbook Evaluation Of Application-oriented English Course—Based On Needs Analysis Of Students And Teachers Of Independent Colleges

With the popularization of higher education in China, independent colleges have become one of the main forces of higher institutions. After ten years of development, College English, as a compulsory course, has been greatly reformed, but the textbooks have been underdeveloped. Administrators of many independent colleges usually use the textbooks, originally compiled for students of key universities, as the textbooks for their own students. These textbooks can not really help realize the talents-cultivating objectives of independent colleges. Application-oriented English Course textbook made its appearance in2009, which is claimed to be specifically written to cater to the needs of students of independent colleges.In order to investigate whether the needs of students and teachers of independent colleges have been satisfied, the author conducted this study by two questionnaires respectively for students and teachers, who have used the Application-oriented English Course textbook for learning or teaching. Data collected from the questionnaires were used to know students’and teachers’ view on the textbook in use and were helpful to find out whether the textbook has met the needs of students and teachers, and to what degree it has matched the needs.The results indicate that generally the textbook has matched the needs of students and teachers, in terms of its learning or teaching objectives, difficulty, learning styles, etc. But as to the interestingness of the texts or exercises, both teachers and students complain most of the texts are not interesting enough, especially texts in Part Two which is about professional English. They also hold that the exercises lack variety and are very monotonous and boring.