A Study Of English Picture Books As Teaching Materials In Primary Schools

Picture books,new types of teaching material,are receiving an increasing amount of attention in the field of English teaching nowadays.English teachers in primary schools would like to adopt picture books to improve students’ language proficiency and broaden their horizons.Also,students are curious and expectant with picture books in class.However,there are still some problems in the actual use of picture books.For example,some English teachers who have adopted picture books only following the heat trend,and some of them do not know how to use picture books effectively,so they just read the story to students.These phenomenon will make the students lose interest on them and the employment of picture books in English class cannot work well,so as to lead to students’ low enthusiasm in English learning gradually.Therefore it is necessary to conduct a research on picture books used as English teaching materials.This thesis discusses picture books used as teaching materials from three aspects,namely,the differences between traditional textbooks and English picture books,the rationalities and irrationalities of English picture books used as teaching materials from internal and external evaluation approaches,and the recommendations for effective use of English picture books.The research lasts for six months from Jul.1st to Dec.31 st in 2016.The teaching material is level seven in Project X which is published by Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.The research subjects are 100 students in Grade Five and 10 English teachers from Jiaozhou Experimental Primary School,Jiading Road Primary School and Taidong Six Road Primary School.Quantitative and qualitative research instruments such as questionnaire and interview are used in this research,questionnaire and interview are designed for both teachers and students.Questionnaire and interview for teachers is based on Cheng Xiaotang’s internal evaluation approach,namely the theoretical assumptions behind teaching materials,teaching methods,selection and organization,make-ups,design and the authenticity of teaching materials.Questionnaire and interview for students is based on external evaluation approach,namely students’ target needs and learning needs.The results of this research are as follows: firstly,English picture books are different from traditional textbooks in the number of pictures,stories and the language expression.But it is difficult for some teachers to deal well with the relationship between picture books and traditional textbook as they don’t deeply analyze the characteristics and functions of picture books.Secondly,from the perspective of internal evaluation approach,picture books can be used as primary school English teaching materials because the theoretical assumptions behind picture books,teaching methods,selection and organization,the makeups of picture books,the design of picture books content,the authenticity of language are the rationalities of picture books.However,teachers often consider more the characteristics of teaching materials and teachers than students when select teaching methods.Thirdly,from the perspective of external evaluation approach,because the application of picture books can satisfy students’ target needs and learning needs to some extent,so picture books used as teaching materials have its rationalities.But there are some irrationalities,that is,students don’t have many chances to choose picture books they like,and the number of picture books and reading time are limited.As for the above results,the following recommendations are needed: at first,teachers should make a better balance between traditional textbooks and picture books in class.Then,teachers need to make sure that the teaching method is suitable to students.Furthermore,teachers ought to take students’ interests and needs into consideration when select picture books.Finally,teachers should provide students with more picture books and adequate reading time.