Coursebook Evaluation Of New College English

The Ministry of Education issued College English Curriculum Requirements(trial) in 2007, which makes new demands on teaching vocabulary and highlights the cultivation of communicative competence. Revisions of college English coursebooks thereby began to boom and New College English made a first radical revision as well. In recent years, nearly all colleges of Xinjiang University have adopted the second edition of New College English. Under the new requirements and reality, it’s necessary to conduct an evaluation of the second edition of New College English.English coursebook evaluation begins in the 1980 s as a study of measuring value and application effects of coursebooks. Many evaluation approaches and checklists have arisen in past studies. After reviewing previous studies both at home and abroad and related second language acquisition theories, the present study conducts a preliminary and in-use evaluation with qualitative and quantitative approaches in Xinjiang University in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of integrated cousebook 1-4(student’s book) of New College English(second edition) from the aspects of new vocabulary, topics, culture and tasks. In preliminary evaluation, Cunningsworth’s checklist was used to evaluate new vocabulary, topics and culture in passages of the coursebooks. And Littlejohn’s task analysis sheet was applied to analyzing tasks. During in-use evaluation, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 600 sophomores of none-English majors from 20 colleges of Xinjiang University and interviews among 10 experienced teachers to draw their opinions towards the use of the coursebooks.After a comparison and summary of preliminary and in-use evaluation, the strengths of the coursebooks are concluded as follows. First, the coursebooks have adequate new vocabulary, varied interesting topics and eight categories of culture proposed by Byram. Second, tasks of the coursebooks emphasize language meaning, promote language use, and encourage interaction and meaning negotiation; therefore, considered from the interaction hypothesis, the coursebooks are helpful in preparing students for being communicatively competent. Third, much learning value is found in tasks. Also, the weaknesses of the coursebooks are concluded as follows. First, except book 3, in the other three volumes, the average proportion of new vocabulary in passages has exceeded the boundary of 5%, which is not helpful in providing comprehensible input for students. Second, the culture included in passages puts too much emphasis on American culture. Besides, comparisons between different cultures are rarely found. Third, the task of text comprehension is inadequate to arouse students’ interest.The present study can help teachers have a deep insight into the second edition of New College English so that they can make necessary adaptation when using it. Moreover, the present study enriches coursebook evaluation and deepens the understanding of the situation of current college English coursebooks’ use in China. Therefore, the present study is helpful in making the compilation of college English coursebooks more accord with requirements and learners’ need.