An Empirical Study On The Redevelopment Of Junior High School English Textbooks

Textbooks, as the carrier of knowledge, are the core part of curriculum resources. With the teaching material policy shifting from “One Standard, One Textbook” to “One Standard, Multiple Textbooks”, more and more versions of English textbooks have come into the market. At the same time, the concept of “teaching textbooks” has been replaced by “teaching with textbooks”, and the requirement of using textbooks creatively and flexibly has been gradually accepted by teachers. However, compared with the teachers’ concepts renovation, the transformation of their behaviors still lags behind.This study reports an empirical research on the redevelopment of the textbook Go For it!, in order to answer the following questions: 1) What are the problems in English teachers’ textbook redevelopment in Junior High School? 2) What are the critical factors in teachers’ textbook redevelopment? 3) How do students’ evaluations on the textbook develop? First, 30 classroom observations were done to find the major problems existing in junior high school English teachers’ textbook redevelopment. Then, based on the guidance of the New Curriculum Standards, the data analysis of students’ needs and textbook evaluation collected through questionnaires and interview, the author carried out her textbook redevelopment from language systems and language skills respectively by using various methods. At last, the author used a T-test to show the effect of the textbook redevelopment.Through this research, the author finds: 1) Without the guidance of the redevelopment theories, most of the teachers’ redevelopment practices are teacher-centered and exam-oriented. 2) The requirement of the New English Curriculum Standards, the textbook evaluation and the students’ needs analysis are the three main factors influencing the textbook redevelopment. 3) The redeveloped textbook can suit the students’ needs better, especially the redevelopment of the phonetics and pronunciation. However, as a novice teacher, the author’s textbook redevelopment still has a way to go to full maturity. There still exist some problems with the appropriateness of the textbook redevelopment, the students’ participation in the textbook redevelopment and the improvement of the teacher’s quality. These will be the focus of the author’s future study.