Comparative Study Of New College English And New Standard English

The recognition that the ultimate goal of English teaching is to train learners to obtain the communicative competence have universally been accepted. How to apply a good and effective method to develop learners’ communicative ability is a hot spot for many years. Traditional teaching pattern overemphasizes the language form and accuracy, rather than communicative functions. To a large extent, textbooks determine teaching methods of College English Teaching. The language-based structural textbooks will result in neglecting of communication. Therefore, the reform in the teaching method is mainly dependent on the innovation in textbooks.This thesis intends to conduct a comparative study of the two sets of textbooks including New Standard English and New College English(third edition). They are both published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, which are representative of the model of the latest textbooks used by senior school and non-English majors. NSE adopts functional approach to arrange the text. This research tends to find out the strengths and weaknesses of New College English so as to get some insights into the the nature of College English textbooks in China. On the basis of Cunnings worth’s coursebook evaluation theory, this comparative study largely follows a hierarchic order, moving from the macro-level evaluation of the theoretical assumptions each textbook is based on, to the micro-level evaluation of structural components and task design. Firstly, the focus of comparative evaluation is the comparison of fundamental linguistic principles reflected in the two sets of textbooks. Then, comparative evaluation are concerned with basic components including topics, culture value, language skills etc. The analytical methods including both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used throughout the whole evaluation. The author distributes120questionnaires to freshmen of Southwest University, among which95students used New Standard English in senior high school.According to comparative evaluation of NSE and NCE, the results of this research indicate that the two sets of textbooks are basically accordance with National English Curriculum Standard and college English curriculum requirement. The specific statements are concluded:The table of contents in NSE and NCE are unable to reflect the whole design of the textbook.Based on College English Curriculum Requirements, the proportion of new words in NCE is low which could reduce difficulty of learning contents. Also, learners hold the view that what they are learning in grammar is similar to grammar knowledge in senior school.The topics and cultural information in NSE and NCE are similar, While the topics in NCE show great differences in comparison to reading topics in CET4and CET6.There are similarities and dissimilarities in language skills between NSE and NCE. In terms of listening, both of them focus on obtaining specific information, neglecting attitudes, manner etc. With regard to speaking, NCE places much emphasis on free practice and group work while NSE attaches importance to controlled practice and pair work. In terms of reading, both of them take argumentation, exposition and narrative as the main genres of texts, which is not diversified enough. Also, the reading activities is too traditional. In addition, the principal activity of writing is sentence, paragraph writing and composition, with training of writing skills being ignored. Lastly, NSE does not design translation while NCE offers some translation skills and practice so as to develop translation ability.Based on similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses of NSE and NCE, this research found that, to a large extent, the content of college English learning is the repetition of senior high school learning. This study attempts to provide some constructive suggestion for teachers and compilers so as to promote current College English Teaching.