A Comparative Study On Two Editions Of New Standard English For Senior High(2006 Edition And 2019 Edition)

In order to deepen the curriculum reform and carry out the fundamental task of cultivating people with morality,National English Curriculum Standards for Ordinary Senior High(2017 edition)(hereinafter New Curriculum Standards)was officially promulgated at the end of 2017,marking a new period of curriculum reform.Compared with National English Curriculum Standards for Ordinary Senior High(2003 edition)(hereinafter Old Curriculum Standards),New Curriculum Standards has undergone major changes.Meanwhile,all kinds of English textbooks revised according to New Curriculum Standards have been used in some parts of China in September 2019,and will be gradually promoted across the country.One of the most widely used textbooks is New Standard English for Senior High by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.New Standard English for Senior High compiled according to Old Curriculum Standards has been used for more than ten years since it was published in 2006.Its compilation ideas,teaching contents and teaching methods have a far-reaching impact on the majority of teachers,which therefore leads to many doubts and difficulties to them while using the new textbook.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze and compare the textbooks before and after the revision of New Curriculum Standards to understand the changes of the new textbook compared with the old one,and to provide feasible suggestions for teachers to understand and make good use of the textbooks according to the changes.In this study,two editions of New Standard English for Senior High(taking compulsory one as an example)before and after the revision of New Curriculum Standards are to be evaluated and compared by using Cheng Xiaotang ’s method of combining internal evaluation and external evaluation,according to the textbook evaluation standard by Sun Pinghua and New Curriculum Standards.This research mainly includes the following contents :(1)Internal evaluation of the old and new textbooks from the macro and micro perspective is to be conducted,aiming to understand the changes in the content and structure of the new textbook compared with the old one.The macro-evaluation includes the comparative analysis of the compilation guiding ideology and the structure of the two editions.The micro-evaluation includes the comparative analysis of the topic context,language knowledge,culturalknowledge,discourse types,language skills and learning strategies of the two editions.(2)External evaluation of the old and new textbooks is to be conducted through questionnaire survey and interview with teachers and students,aiming to know whether the new textbook can better meet the learning needs of students and teachers’ teaching needs in the process of use compared with the old textbooks.(3)Feasible suggestions for teachers on how to adapt to the new textbook and for textbook compilers on how to further optimize the teaching materials are to be proposed.The findings are as follow:(1)Compared with the old textbook,the sections of each module are closely related and progressive,which reflects students’ cognitive process of understanding,development and practice;The subject contexts are more comprehensive and their arrangement is more natural and reasonable;The types of discourse are richer and more related to the students’ daily life nowadays;Language knowledge are studied in pragmatic situations and discourses;The design of comprehensive skill activity is more systematic and complete,hierarchical and progressive;The proportion of Chinese culture and the culture of other countries in the world has increased to a certain extent,while the proportion of the culture of English countries has decreased and still dominates;A greater number and variety of learning strategies are required.(2)Compared with the old textbook,the new textbook is more in line with students’ learning needs and teachers’ teaching needs,but at the same time,some problems of the new textbook,such as large vocabulary,large difficulty in reading texts,and too many activities etc,were also mentioned by teachers and students.Based on the above findings,in order to facilitate English learning and teaching,feasible suggestions for teachers on how to adapt to the new textbook and for textbook compilers on how to further optimize the teaching materials are put forward.