Key Coursebooks For English Majors Since1949:Developments And Implications

The present study takes it upon itself to compare nine key coursebooks on Intensive or Integrated English for English majors including their revised editions published in the1960s up to the early21st century. Among them are English by Xu Guozhang, Advanced English by Zhang Hanxi, College English by Hu Wenzhong, A New English Course by Li Guanyi, Communicative English For Chinese Learners by Li Xiaoju, An Integrated Skills of English by Huang Yuanshen, Contemporary College English Intensive Reading by Yang Limin, An Integrated English Course by He Zhaoxiong and English Through Culture by He Qixin and Tong Ming. A comparative study of these textbooks is made mainly in terms of their theoretical basis, their underlying ideas concerning English teaching and learning, their structure, topics in the texts and their supplementary materials.Our comparative study of these books and materials published over the past50years reveals that the ideas of English instruction have been changing with the socio-political transitions in China and the world with the following characteristics:1) a shift from the dissemination of mere language knowledge to the cultivation of language skills and communicative competence;2) a shift from teacher-centered teaching to student-centered exploration;3) a shift from focus on words and sentences to emphasis on meaning and discourse;4) a shift from students passively receiving knowledge to students working independently and cooperatively.Our comprehensive analysis and comparison of the nine teaching materials reveal a very prominent development:with the "intensive" nature of these coursebooks fading, the "integrated" nature has been fore-grounded. This development indicates the on-going reform and open policy in China and the introduction of advanced foreign language teaching ideas. The significance of this research project can be summarized as follows:1) to understand the differing views on language by different coursebook writers;2) to understand the different ideas of foreign language education;3) to explicate the relation between the said coursebooks and their socio-cultural environment;4) to help learners select textbooks to meet their own needs and thus to bring the selected textbooks into full play. The present research, therefore, attempts to propose the writer’s prediction from the perspective of the postmethod era of English coursebook development and improvement for "Intensive" or "Integrated" English courses on the basis of the principles of designing such coursebooks, coursebook evaluation theory and the conflicts between idealized aims set in coursebooks and the realities in which these coursebooks are put to use.