An Analysis Of JEFC: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

Coursebook analysis and evaluation means analyzing and evaluating a coursebook according to a certain set of criteria. The purpose is to know thestrengths and weaknesses of the coursebook, to see whether it meets its needs, and to offer guidelines for coursebook selection and to make better use of the coursebook. In the present thesis, the writer analyzes Junior English for China (JEFC) from a sociolinguistic perspective.To begin with, the writer first discusses the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching and learning and the role of coursebooks with special reference to JEFC. It is agreed that communicative competence is the ultimate goal of English learning, which consists of communicating in the target language effectively and appropriately, and coursebooks are a tool for achieving this goal.The concept of communicative competence is directly derived from sociolinguistics; therefore, it is natural to set up a sociolinguistically oriented framework for analyzing JEFC. The writer draws on sociolinguistic observations which are most relevant to course design to see whether sociolinguistic factors in JEFC are properly treated to serve the goal of enhancing students' communicativecompetence. These important observations are grouped under four headings: language in its social context, the ethnography of communication, speech acts, and socio-cultural values.People speak differently in different situations. These differences are brought about by situational factors, or sociolinguistic variables such as the speaker, the addressee, the audience, or the setting. When considering language in its social context, the writer addresses the issues of dialect, register, and style. The writer states that coursebook compilers should take into consideration which variety, British English or American English, for example, should be taught. Furthermore,materials in coursebooks should be set in social and cultural contexts that are comprehensible and lifelike to learners, so that learners can relate the presentlanguage to the social context. A coursebook should also pay attention to style variation by presenting language of various styles to learners so that we may produce more versatile learners.The ethnography of communication refers to the study of the individual's communicative ability in the social setting. In this branch area of sociolinguistics, researchers aim to find out the relationship between language form and patternings and functions of communication. A central goal is thus to discover and formulate rules for appropriate language use in specific contexts. To be able to speak a language, it is important to know about the society and culture of the target language. The writer points out that a coursebook should teach language form related to patternings and functions of communication. Moreover, socio-cultural knowledge should be presented and made clear to the learners, especially, the shared knowledge for contextually appropriate behavior should be introduced.Speech act is a functional unit in communication. In order to perform a speech act successfully, a speaker needs to have socio-cultural ability and sociolinguistic ability. It is stated that a coursebook should offer materials to train students' socio-cultural and sociolinguistic ability, and should teach the strategies for realizing specific speech acts.Social and cultural values will be directly or indirectly revealed in coursebooks. Because they are usually implicit and convert, it is necessary to look at coursebooks in detail to unearth what the unstated values are. The social and cultural contexts in coursebooks should be interpretable to different learners, who may come from different regions, different ethnic backgrounds, and different social backgrounds.On the basis of the above mentioned observations, the writer sets up a framework for analyzing JEFC. In this framework, the writer works out a checklist by asking questions relevant to these sociolinguistic observations. The analyses ofJEFC, therefore,...