Research On High-school English Teachers’ Conceptions Of Textbooks Under The Background Of College Entrance Examination Reform

Teacher’s conception has long been a top concern in the field of education research. With the recent issue of college entrance English examination reform policy, English teachers, as the main practitioners of the reform, their conceptions of high-school English textbooks will affect the implementation of the new curriculum reform positively or negatively which is closely related to English learning. We often hear voice of English textbooks’ analysis from experts and scholars, but rarely focus on textbooks in teachers’ eyes. In this case, the study of teachers’ conceptions of textbooks in practice will surely contain both theoretical and practical significance.The core of the research is teachers’ conceptions of textbooks in real situation, which reflect teachers’ basic perspectives and value identities on textbook’s objective, content, structure and instruction, namely four dimensions. On one hand, researcher tries to analyze and conclude types and characteristics of high-school English teachers’ conceptions of textbooks, compare their differences and similarities. On the other hand, researcher tries to dig out teachers’ views on college entrance English examination reform as well as whether their conceptions of textbooks will be affected by the reform. Teachers’ real conceptions of textbooks are hidden and complicated. As a result, the adoption of qualitative research method and case study strategy should be the best approach. Researcher investigates three English teachers in a municipal high school in a costal city of East China for half a year while collecting data through interview, observation and document collection.The research finds that three teachers agree on modularized structure of English textbooks which involves topics and grammar items. They hold their own opinion on textbook’s content, and usually it is influenced by different objectives. They acknowledge the importance of traditional vocabulary and grammar, while differ on the point whether content should be real-life-oriented. Of all four dimensions, the biggest diverge appears on the instruction. Teacher J keeps an open attitude to textbook’s instruction, teacher L is much conserved, while teacher D stands in the middle. As for English college entrance exam reform, it seems that the influence brought by the reform does exist, but is reflected in different dimensions. Meanwhile, teachers’ conceptions of textbooks in practice are different from typical ones due to the fact that they have no absolute boundaries and are mostly overlapped. In order to accelerate teachers’ positive change of conceptions on textbooks, it is necessary to revaluate four dimensions from postmodernism perspective to reconstruct teachers’ conceptions of the textbooks and to offer reasonable suggestions of textbook compilation according to choice of language material, rule of language learning, presentation of language knowledge and cultivation of students’ independent learning ability.