A Systematic Evaluation Of English For Junior Middle Schools In Jiangsu

This study is intended to evaluate English for junior middle schools in Jiangsu systematically, aiming to find out whether they are in accordance with the English Curriculum Standards (2011) and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The evaluation framework used in this study is systematic evaluation, which was put forward by Cheng Xiaotang. Through the evaluation of English, it helps teachers recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks so as to make better use of them. Besides, it provides compilers with some reference to revise the textbooks or develop better ones.The systematic evaluation of English includes two parts:the internal evaluation and the external evaluation. The internal evaluation is made of English in terms of its guiding principles, its structure and content. The external evaluation is made of teachers’and students’ opinions about the textbooks with the help of two questionnaires. The questionnaire for teachers is conducted in terms of the compiling principles and arrangement of different parts; and the one for students is conducted from the perspectives of the language knowledge, language skills, emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness.This study has yielded three major findings from the internal evaluation as follows:First, the guiding principles of this set of textbooks are right and basically meet the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards (2011), with a focus on students’moral education and comprehensive language ability.Second, both the structure and the content of the textbooks are arranged systematically and scientifically, from modules to units, and all the eight parts in each unit are designed around a topic, with a sequence of from input to output. Students can improve their comprehensive language abilities step by step through the study of each unit.However, the size of vocabulary in the textbooks is a little beyond the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards (2011). Besides, the reading tasks in the Reading part are basically too superficial, without any open-ended questions.Also this study has yielded two major findings from the external evaluation as follows:First, from the teachers’point of view, this new set of textbooks is in line with the four compiling principles advocated in the English Curriculum Standards (2011). And all the eight parts of a unit are arranged scientifically and reasonably except that the arrangement of Self-assessment probably should be reconsidered since many teachers have not made full use of it.Second, from the students’point of view, the textbooks help them improve a lot in the aspects of language knowledge, language skills, emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness. And it would be better if the content can be more interesting and the repetition rates of words and grammar items can be increased.There are also some limitations for this study. First, the number of participants in this study is relatively small, especially the teachers. Therefore, the results can not be generalized to all textbook users. Second, the two questionnaires are confined to whether they agree or disagree with the statements, without detailed information about their reasons.