An Evaluation Of The Reading Materials In The Set Of Coursebooks English Based On Students’ Needs Analysis

Coursebook plays a vital role in language teaching. ―The language material provided by the coursebook act as the main source of students‘ language knowledge learning and language skills development; the activities and exercises in the coursebook are the major ways and processes for students‘ knowledge learning and skills development.‖(Cheng Xiaotang, 2011) It needs to point out that in English coursebook reading material takes a large proportion. Moreover, reading is the main aspect of English teaching and kinds of examinations. To make the most use of the reading materials in the coursebook, it is necessary to conduct coursebook evaluation.Many experts both at home and abroad have proposed various views on coursebook evaluation. Some of them consider that the main purpose of coursebook evaluation is to check whether the coursebook satisfies the requirement of the syllabus and the needs of teachers and students. English coursebook evaluation not only can provide teachers‘ practical teaching knowledge, but also can make both teachers and students aware of the important features of coursebooks. In the process of coursebook evaluation, two main princ iples should be followed: effectiveness principle and effic iency princ iple. Moreover, coursebook evaluation can also be seen as a matching process between the subjective analysis and objective analys is. It should take into account that whether teaching is consistent with the course syllabus, whether the teaching effectiveness is distinct, and whether cours ebook evaluation is conducted from different perspectives. In recent years, an increasing number of experts and English teachers devote themselves to exploring an appropriate way of coursebook evaluation suitable for their country.This thes is focuses on analyzing the reading materials in Compulsory Education Coursebook English(The old version is called Learning English), which is published by Hebei Education Press in cooperation with DC Canada International Communicative Center based on students‘ needs analysis. In accordance with the newly revised National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(NECS), the coursebooks English(Grade Seven to Grade Nine) went through new round of revision. By 2013, the revision of the set of coursebooks had been basically completed. This study aims to evaluate the reading materials theoretically followed by an investigation about how the materials meet students‘ needs, to identify particular strengths and weaknesses in the reading materials of the coursebooks, and help teachers to adapt or adjust materials in the actual teaching practice based on the evaluation result.The subject of this research inc ludes 300 students and 8 teachers who are chosen from No.14 Middle School in Handan, Hebei province. Firstly, the author makes a theoretical analysis of the reading materials in the set of coursebooks in accordance with Cunningsworth, Cheng Xiaotang and other experts‘ theory. Then a survey of two questionnaires and interview are conducted respectively. One of the questionnaires is for the general information of students‘ needs in English reading, and the other is used to learn about the students‘ opinions on the reading material in the coursebooks English. The interview for teachers aims to learn about how they deal with the reading material in practical teaching and get their opinions on the reading material.The result of this study shows that both students and teachers think highly of the set of coursebooks and the reading material in the coursebooks generally meet students‘ learning needs. To most students, most topics in the reading material are close to their life. The coursebooks give introduction of other nations‘ cultures and also strengthen the education of the socialist core value, the Chinese traditional culture, patriotism education and moral education. Through texts students can learn about the cultures of foreign countries as well as the traditional Chinese culture. In general, most students hold a positive view on the reading material in this set of coursebooks in terms of the design and choice of the topic, genre, content, cultures and other aspects.At the end of this study, the author puts forward some suggestions about how to improve teaching and learning of English reading for the teachers and students.