An Evaluation Of New Senior English For China For Senior Middle Schools

English is the most widely used language in the world. English learning is a compulsorycourse in Chinese basic education as well as an essential skill required by advanced studiesand employments in the future. In English education, teaching material is an importantteaching resource. Therefore, in order to select applicable English textbooks to improve thelevel of English education, it is necessary to make an evaluation on high school Englishteaching materials.This study analyzes and evaluates the senior high school English textbooks New SeniorEnglish for China (hereinafter referred to as NSEC) based on the research theory and findingsof evaluating and analyzing English teaching materials both at home and abroad with themethods of literature review study and investigation. Firstly, the study takes the New EnglishCurriculum Standard for Chinese Senior Middle Schools as an evaluation criterion to analyzeand evaluate NSEC from the five aspects including language skills, language knowledge,moral attitude, learning strategies and cultural awareness. It mainly analyzes and evaluates onthe specific contents and find out the advantages and disadvantages of NSEC. Secondly, thestudy makes a survey on the actual use of NSEC textbooks through questionnaires finished byexperienced English teachers and senor high school students. By collecting data andanalyzing the results, the study presents the actual use of NSEC textbooks in teaching andlearning including the advantages and disadvantages, some problems in using the textbooksand put forward the suggestions such as omitting, adding or adapting so that NSEC can bettermeet the needs of the English teaching and learning in senior high schools.The whole evaluation process in this study mainly involves the following three researchquestions:(1) Does NSEC meet the requirements stipulated by New English Curriculum Standard forChinese Senior Middle Schools?(2) Does NSEC meet the actual needs of teaching and leaning?(3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of NSEC, and which aspects need to beimproved? The questionnaires are adapted and referred by Grant’s Questionnaire (Grant1987) andthe senior middle school English textbook evaluation criteria created by Professor He Anping.,who is from South China Normal University. More specifically, there are two questionnairesboth for teachers and students (See Appendix One and Appendix Two).The survey wasconducted in the middle December,2013, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia. Students andteachers involved in this survey come from a key senior middle school and an ordinary seniormiddle school in Chifeng.To be concluded, after an overall evaluating and analyzing on NSEC, this study findsthat NSEC can basically meet the requirements stipulated by New English CurriculumStandard on the five aspects of language skills, language knowledge, moral attitude, learningstrategies and cultural awareness. NSEC can also basically meet the actual needs of teachers’teaching and students’ leaning. Most of them like using NSEC to teach and learn English.Each unit is built around a theme as the main line. Knowledge and skills are combined todesign the activities with key language project permeating in every part. NSEC has presented24topics which the New English Curriculum Standard has required. It sets up a rich varietyof learning strategies and instructions to the student. NSEC contains different aspects ofcultural factors on western and Chinese culture. However, NSEC does not contain enoughcommunicative activities for students. Some reading materials are out of date and not relatedclosely to students’ daily life. The recurrence rate of words and grammar is high in each unit,but very low among all the units, which is not helpful for students to consolidate and reviewthe knowledge in time. There are not enough phonetics activities in NSEC.