2.4 Previous Studies on English Textbook Evaluation - 5 -

3. Methodology - 7 -

4.The Comparison of English Textbooks: Go for it and New Standard English (NSE) - 8 -

4.1 Macro Evaluation - 8 -

4.1.1 Guiding Ideology - 8 -

4.1.2 Overall Structure - 9 -

4.2 Micro Evaluation - 10 -

4.2.1 Topics - 10 -

4.2.2 Grammar Items - 11 -

5. Conclusion - 17 -

References - 19 -

1. Introduction

In China, English education has gained increasingly important attention since the implementation of the English Curriculum Standards（ECS）. ECS was firstly issued in China in 2001, and was revised in 2011. As a result of curriculum reform, various kinds of English textbooks have sprung up in order to meet different learners’ needs.论文网

Faced with so many options of textbooks, choosing a proper one becomes a particularly significant issue. According to Krashen’s input hypothesis (1992), the sufficient and comprehensible input is central to second language acquisition. English textbook as major component of target language input data, is an essential part for learners. Thus, analysis and evaluation of textbooks is extremely important for both the school administration and the teacher during textbook-choosing process and teaching procedure. Only by acknowledging the merits and demerits of a textbook can people choose what they want. Moreover, analysis and evaluation of textbooks can also help to perfect textbooks.

The research mainly focuses on two specific English textbooks for Grade Seven: Go for it and New Standard English. The purpose of this research is to find out the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of each textbook through analysis and evaluation. The research questions are as follows: 1. What are the similarities and differences between the two textbooks? 2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two textbooks? 3. To what degree do the two textbooks correspond to the requirements of ECS? 

2. Textbook and Its Evaluation

2.1 Textbook

In the studies concerning textbooks, different scholars provide distinctive definitions towards textbook. Cunningsworth (2002) points out teaching materials could refer to any integrated package of materials with the textbook at the center. He indicates that textbook package consists of central textbook and other supporting materials such as teacher’s book, workbook, additional reading material and listening material, cassettes for listening and pronunciation, video and other components. Masuhara & Tomlinson (2008) also have the same idea as Cunningsworth. They state that the student’s book usually comes with other materials such as a workbook, a teacher’s book or even additional multimodal texts for reference as a textbook package. However, Chen Xiaotang (2011) claims that textbook has two sides of meaning. In general, it refers to all the materials used both in teaching and learning, such as textbooks, workbooks, cassettes, CDs, extra materials designed by teachers and so forth. The narrowed meaning of it is the textbook itself. And ECS distinguishes the two senses of meaning by naming them differently: textbook and course resources. In this study, “textbook” only refers to the course book or textbook. 文献综述

Textbooks must be compiled according to teaching goals and teaching requirements stated in ECS. Meanwhile, textbooks can be flexible so as to meet various kinds of students’ needs. And there should be advanced teaching approach and learning strategy in textbooks.