A Comparative Study Of The Illustrations In The Two Series Of English Textbooks For Junior HighSchool:Go For It And New Standard English

With the increasing illustrations in modern textbooks and the flood of multimodal resources in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning, it becomes necessary to explore whether and how these visuals can exert a positive influence on learning. Up to now substantial researches have confirmed that properly designed illustrations can enhance reading performance and second language learning. The effective use of an illustration lies in its appropriate design, yet few efforts have been made to evaluate the selection and arrangement of illustrations in textbooks.In light of the previous researches, the present study intends to evaluate and compare the illustrations contained in the two widely used sets of EFL textbooks for junior high school in China, namely Go for it (GFI) and New Standard English (NSE). It attempts to deal with the following four research questions:(1) What is the general feature of the illustrations in these two sets of textbooks? (2) How and to what degree are the illustrations integrated with the verbal texts? (3) What similarities or differences can be found between GFI and NSE in terms of illustrations? (4) What is the students’ perception of the illustrations in GFI and NSE?When comparing GFI and NSE, different types of illustrations were taken into consideration and a modified version of Graphics Analysis Protocol instrument was employed to measure the extent to which texts and illustrations were integrated. For the purpose of evaluating textbook illustrations from the view of textbook users, a questionnaire designed on the basis of Textbook Visual Effects Evaluation Checklist was adopted in the present study. The questionnaire was finished by two groups of junior high school students. One group of 97 students and the other group of 94 students had used GFI and NSE respectively as their English textbooks.The results reveal that these two sets of textbooks bear similarities as well as differences in terms of illustrations. The major findings achieved in the present study can be concluded as followings:(1) Illustrations in both of the two textbooks are well designed and organized to coincide with the development of students’ language proficiency; (2) Illustrations in NSE are generally more authentic and concrete than those in GFI while illustrations in GFI are relatively more attractive to junior high school students. (3) Since there is a more integrated format of text and illustration in GFI, illustrations in this set of textbook may better improve EFL learner’s reading performance than those in NSE; (4) There is a high level of text-illustration consistency in both of these two sets of textbooks, which may facilitate EFL learner’s effective reading process. These findings are followed by some suggestions to scholars, textbook compilers and EFL teachers.