| Given the prominent role that textbook plays in English teaching and the significant contribution vocabulary makes to students' learning,this study aims to evaluate and compare two sets of junior middle school English textbooks of the SEP Edition and the PEP Edition via a corpus-based approach,especially focusing on the coverage of level 5 vocabulary in the National English Curriculum(2011)(NEC)and the distribution of vocabulary in each volume.The research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:1)What are the differences between the SEP edition and the PEP edition in the coverage of level 5 vocabulary in the National English Curriculum?2)What are the differences between the SEP edition and the PEP edition in the distribution of vocabulary in each volume?3)What are the advantages and disadvantages of the SEP edition and the PEP edition from the aspects of vocabulary coverage and distribution?By applying a corpus-based approach,the author compiled two corpora of the SEP edition and the PEP edition respectively.Two instruments are employed in this study,namely,Range and Wordsmith tools 4.0.Range is used to check and compare the vocabulary coverage of the two sets of English textbooks within the base word list from the NEC.While the Wordsmith tools 4.0 is employed to determine and compare the distribution of the vocabulary in each volume of the two sets of English textbooks.Detailed analysis and discussion yields the following findings:Firstly,the SEP edition and the PEP edition are different in their coverage of the level 5 vocabulary in the NEC.As for word tokens,90.10%of the tokens in the SEP edition are in the coverage of the NEC.In the PEP edition,91.92%are in the coverage.In terms of word types,58.36%of the types in the SEP edition are in the coverage of the NEC,and 69.58%of the types in the PEP edition are in the coverage.Therefore,the PEP edition enjoys higher proportions of word tokens and word types than the SEP edition as required in the NEC.Secondly,the two sets of books also exhibit differences in their distribution of vocabulary in different volumes in spite of some similarities.The two sets of English textbooks both manifest a general tendency of rise in word tokens,word types and STTR(standardized type/token ratio)from 7A to 9B.However,there are still some differences.When tokens and types are concerned,there is a quite sharp decrease in PEP 9A.What's more,each volume of the SEP edition contains more tokens and types;however,the increase of tokens and types among different volumes in the SEP edition are not as rapid as those in the PEP edition,which indicates that the SEP edition enjoys smoother transitions in tokens and types among different volumes.As for STTR,there is a slight decrease in the STTR in SEP 8A.Besides,the increase of STTR among different volumes in the SEP edition is not as rapid as the PEP edition.Thirdly,it is not hard to conclude that both the SEP edition and the PEP edition have their advantages and disadvantages.By Range,the PEP edition is more in accordance with the requirements in level 5 vocabulary in the NEC than the SEP edition.From the Wordsmith Tools 4.0,the SEP edition enjoys smoother transitions in word tokens,word types,and STTR among different volumes than those in the PEP edition.Based on these findings,this study presents some pedagogical implications.Firstly,this study verifies the potency and feasibility of corpus-based approach in textbook evaluation by conducting a comparative study,especially on vocabulary.Also,it enriches the field of textbook evaluation.Thirdly,both teachers and textbook compilers could benefit a lot from the current study.The study inevitably has some limitations.Firstly,the present study only focus on the the aspects of vocabulary coverage and distribution for the purpose of the current study.Secondly,the types and tokens which are not in the coverage of the NEC are not discussed in detail.Then,the present study only conduct a comparison between the vocabulary in the two sets of textbooks because of the limits of time and resources. |
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