| The present study investigates senior high school teachers'and students'perceptions about the current English Textbook Senior English for China (SEFC) and explores the practical use of the textbook in Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.The study attempts to answer the following questions: 1) What are teachers and students'perceptions of Senior English for China (SEFC)? 2) What are the problems existing in the implementation of SEFC in Qiannan, and what are the factors causing the problems?English teachers and 236 students from 5 senior high schools of different levels in Qiannan prefecture responded to questionnaires and expressed their perceptions concerning various aspects of SEFC, and 15 teachers were interviewed to gain further insight into the use of SEFC.The major findings of the present study can be summarized as follows:Firstly, generally speaking, SEFC meets the requirements of Standard 2003 and have advantages in many aspects, such as, clear arrangement and structure, various task-based activities, latest topics, etc. Meanwhile, several weaknesses of SEFC are also spotted. For example, some parts are difficult and of low interest to students; no instructions of pronunciation are included and learning strategies are arranged as "Tips", which is not outstanding enough.Secondly, SEFC is generally considered acceptable by most of its users while some problems have been identified in use. Gaps are found in some parts between its design intention and implementation, such as "Goals" "cheekpoint" and "Tips", because little attention is paid to those parts by teachers, and teachers do not make full use of "Tips" to facilitate their students'learning strategies, etc. Then, possible factors affecting implementation of SEFC are discussed:minority students lack the motivation and interest of learning English; most teachers do not understand task-based language teaching (TBLT) proposed by the new standard and textbooks. Besides, few teachers have received proper training of the new curriculum. As a result, many teachers still use traditional teaching methods.Based on the major findings, some suggestions are put forward for the revision of SEFC and its better implementation in Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. |
