An Evaluation Of The Learning Strategy Design In New Standard English For Senior High Schools

Learning strategies now play a significant role in language teaching and learning.Learning strategy is also one of the six elements of curriculum contents in the National English Curriculum Standards(2017 version).Considering the great importance of learning strategies,students should receive instruction on effective learning strategies and teachers should inform them about the value and application of learning strategies.The textbook has considerable influence on both teachers and learners because it offers a basic framework and assistance.The incorporation of language learning strategies into textbooks can play a significant role in the cultivation of learners' strategy awareness and ability.However,some teachers may lack the knowledge and consciousness of learning strategy in the textbook,so an analysis of textbooks would lend a more detailed description of the learning strategy in textbooks,as well as raise teachers' awareness in this regard.The purpose of the study is to carry out an analysis of the categories and subcategories of learning strategies embedded in the New Standard English so as to determine the frequency and variation of learning strategies implemented in the series of textbooks.Then the results will be compared with the requirements in the newly issued NECS to see to what degree the strategy design in textbooks meets the requirements and what adjustments can be made in the strategy design.Through this,some suggestions will be put forward to textbook compilers accordingly so that they can design strategies in the new edition of textbooks more properly.Suggestions are also given to the instructors in the areas using this series of textbooks so they can provide teachers with proper teaching advice.Besides,before the publication of the new version of textbooks,English teachers will also be able to flexibly handle the old version textbooks and make corresponding adjustments or additions so as to use the old ones in accordance with the requirements of the newly-issued NECS.The author puts forward two researchquestions:1)How far does the learning strategy design in NSE meet the requirements in the NECS(2017 version)? What adjustments can be made in the strategy design?2)To what extent does the learning strategy design in NSE meet the needs of teachers and students?Analyzing by Cheng Xiaotang's textbook evaluation model,the author conducts internal and external evaluation and obtains the following results:1)Firstly,the target textbooks present metacognitive,cognitive,communicative and affective strategies,but some strategy items in the NECS(2017 version)are not covered.Besides,the distribution of different strategies is not balanced.The textbook focuses on the cultivation of cognitive strategies,but other strategies especially communicative and affective strategies are less represented.Secondly,most strategies are implicitly presented in the form of activities,while the explicit learning strategy is far from meeting the items described in the NECS.Besides,the recurrence rate of learning strategies varies widely.Lastly,the order of emergence of strategies is closely related to their degree of difficulty.Therefore,more communicative and affective strategies should be added to make the strategy design more balanced.Besides,more strategies should be presented explicitly to strengthen both students' and teachers' strategy awareness.Also,adjustments are needed in the recurrence rate of learning strategy,especially for those more difficult strategies that students can master after reappearing for many times.2)As to the second research question,first,the strategy design in NSE offers teachers some help to conduct strategy instruction.The explicit learning strategies remind teachers of the introduction of strategies.However,due to the lack of strategy knowledge,most teachers do not identify the implicit strategies,and they do not think the supporting exercises are enough to train students' strategy ability.Second,students are not very good at using learning strategies.They use communicative strategies most frequently,then the affective and cognitive strategies.The least used is the metacognitive strategies.However,the textbook provides students with many cognitive and metacognitive strategy training opportunities,which makes up for students' lack of strategy knowledge and ability.Based on the research findings,the author puts forwards some suggestions for textbook compilers,English teachers,students,and local instructors accordingly.However,there are still some limitations for improvements in future studies.First,the author only selected the five compulsory books of NSE.Analyzing both compulsory and elective textbooks can obtain a more comprehensive result.Second,the sample size for the survey on students' strategy use and teachers' using condition of the textbook was too small to obtain a more accurate survey result.