An Evaluation Of Advance With English (Jiangsu Edition) From A Perspective On Communicative Competence Development

English Language Teaching (ETL) textbooks are compiled according to the demands of the educational institutions. They are the carrier of English language knowledge, thus the quality of English textbooks has been one of the main factors that influence the English teaching level. Therefore, it is of great importance to evaluate textbooks. Advance with English has been used in Jiangsu Province for almost six years, and some researchers have evaluated it from different perspectives. However, there is little evaluation of Advance with English from the perspective on communicative competence development. According to the New Curriculum Standard (2003), the goal of English curriculum is to build students'comprehensive ability on the basis of language knowledge, language skills, affect and attitude, learning strategies and cultural awareness, and language is taught to develop students'communicative competence. Therefore, the author will evaluate the textbook from a perspective on communicative competence development.In this thesis, some theoretical knowledge is presented, which includes the definition of textbook evaluation, types of textbook evaluation, criteria of textbook evaluation, communicative competence as well as approaches to develop communicative competence. Based on the above theories, a working model of evaluation from a perspective on communicative competence development is proposed, which includes objectives, teaching approaches, textbook construction and arrangement, and teaching content.Through internal and external evaluation, some conclusions are drawn. First, the objectives of Advance with English meet the need of the New Curriculum Standard. Second, the textbook reflects contemporary advocated teaching approaches. It is systematically and logically constructed and arranged. What's more, in the aspect of teaching content, Advance with English lays emphasis on the development of students'listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities as well as vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. Texts in Advance with English are characterized for their authenticity and diversity. A large number of passages in the textbook provide much discourse for students to absorb large sums of knowledge, learn about Western culture and social customs, so as to develop their discourse competence. Besides, one of the highlight of the textbook is that it emphasizes students'mastery and application of appropriate learning strategies. Lastly, Advance with English pays much attention to socio-cultural information which can help students develop their emotional awareness and enhance their awareness of the cultural difference between the East and the West and widen their horizon so that their communicative competence can be greatly improved.However, there are some disadvantages of Advance with English. For example, the vocabulary in Advance with English is relatively too large compared with the previous textbook, the discourse in the Reading part is of various difficulties to some extent, and introduction to Chinese versatile culture, in particular, is relatively little and multicultural aspect has not been given enough consideration, which is not helpful for students'communicative competence development. In this thesis, the author proposed some suggestions for teachers who use Advance with English. While using the textbook, teachers should make some adaptations and substitutions in teaching which are necessary in achieving the ultimate aim of developing students'communicative competence. The disadvantages of the textbook the author has found through the study provide some suggestions for the textbook compliers to make further adaptations and improvement.