Construction And Application Of Evaluation Criteria For English Majors’ Literature Textbooks

As an artistic embodiment and a significant carrier of language and culture, literature is an essential part that can never be ignored in EFL teaching and learning. Although many literature textbooks on British and American literature, a compulsory course for Chinese English majors, have been published, there are no proper criteria to evaluate them. Due to the unique features literature learning possesses, literature textbooks are distinguished from other EFL materials in design and compilation. Hence, the aim of the present study is to explore the field of materials evaluation on literature learning.The study is made up of three major parts. First of all, by referring to related theories and former studies, the theoretical evaluation criteria of literature textbooks were summed up. Then, a needs analysis was conducted to collect learners’ideas about literature learning and literature textbooks to complement the theoretical criteria.106 master candidates and 237 undergraduates majoring in English who had taken or were taking British and American literature courses participated in the survey. After the survey, by comparing and integrating the theoretical evaluation criteria and learners’ needs, the practical evaluation criteria in the form of checklist were constructed and put into practice by evaluating the two sets of literature textbooks (British Literature (Revised Version) & American Literature (Revised Version) published in 2010, and Selected Readings in English Literature and Selected Readings in American Literature published in 2013), which are specially designed for English majors’ literature course.The attempt made in this study to construct a systematic framework of evaluation criteria for literature textbooks considering learners’needs tries to uncover the unsatisfactory aspects of current literature textbooks and to shed light on the evaluation of literature textbooks. Furthermore, it offers guidance to the compiling of future literature textbooks to better facilitate literature and language acquisition.