A Comparative Evaluation Of Three Editions Of English Textbooks Used In Senior High Schools In China

To meet the needs of social development, the National English Curriculum Standardschanged the course contents according to the improvement of the society and times. TheNational English Curriculum Standards puts forward new requirements for high school Englishteaching. As an important methods to impart knowledge and the main tool for teachers’ teaching,English textbooks are increasingly becoming an indispensable part in both teaching andlearning activities. Teaching materials clearly embody the requirements of the National EnglishCurriculum Standards and provide enormous help for teachers and students in teaching andlearning English. Researches about these materials have become more important than ever.Textbook analysis and evaluation not only provide reference for the administrative institutionsof education in choosing textbooks but also bring suggestions for compilers’revision oftextbooks. Textbook analysis and evaluation are beneficial for teachers to regulate the contentsin their teaching practice and draw up explicit targets to help students learn English better.This study selects three editions of textbooks which are widely used in most senior highschools in China: The New Senior English for China published by People’s Education Press,Advance with English jointly published by Yilin Press and Group of Phoenix Publication, andSenior High English published by Pearson Education Asia and Beijing Normal University Presscooperatively. The author conducts a detailed comparative evaluation of these textbooks frommacroscopic and microscopic dimensions. Macroscopic dimension focuses on guidingideologies and structure arrangements of three editions of textbooks. Microscopic dimensionpays more attention to evaluate these textbooks from language knowledge (phonology,vocabulary, grammar), language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and culturalawareness. All the static information that are collected can reflect the quality of aimed editionsof textbooks in analysis and evaluation. Combining these information with dynamic conditionsin actual process of using these three editions of textbooks, qualitative analysis and quantitativeanalysis are used to evaluate whether three different editions of textbooks conform to learningpattern and the requirements of the National English Curriculum Standards. The results ofdetailed evaluation of these three editions of textbooks indicate that all these textbooks generally meet the requirements of the National English Curriculum Standards. However, eachedition of textbooks has its own weakness in the respect of vocabulary volume, difficulties ofmaterials and arrangements of grammatical structures. After making a detailed comparativeevaluation of NSEFC, AWE and SHE, the author puts forward certain suggestions. It is hopedthat these suggestions will be useful for textbook compilers and users in the future.