A Comparative Analysis Of CYLE And New Parade

As is known, textbook plays an important role in English language teaching and learning, functioning not only as the basis for teachers to conduct classroom activities but also as the important source for students to acquire knowledge and skills. Cambridge Young Learners English (CYLE) and Longman New Parade Young Learners English (New Parade) are 2 series of textbooks written for children of non-English speaking countries, which have won great popularity among children, parents and teachers in China, but studies concerning the two sets of textbooks are rarely seen, which prompts the present comparative study.On the basis of the definition of textbook, the criteria and the practical studies of material evaluation at home and abroad, this thesis makes a systematic evaluation of CYLE and New Parade from the perspectives of aims, design and organization, language knowledge, skills, topics, and teachers & parents’book, aiming to explore the following questions:1) What are the similarities and differences between CYLE and New Parade? 2) What are their advantages and disadvantages? And 3) What implications can be drawn for their compilers and users?The thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter One is a brief introduction to the background and the significance of the study. Its overall structure is presented as well. Chapter Two reviews some related theories and studies on material evaluation, upon which a working model of the study is set up for evaluating the CYLE and New Parade series. Chapter Three is research design, which depicts the subjects, the questions, the instruments and procedures of the study. Chapter Four makes a macro-comparative evaluation in terms of the guiding ideology and the structure of CYLE and New Parade. Chapter Five focuses on the micro-comparative evaluation in terms of the language knowledge, language skills, topics and cultural contents as well as the teachers & parents’ book. Chapter Six summarize the similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses of CYLE and New Parade for further improvement. And Chapter Seven gives a conclusion and points out the limitations of the present study.The results of the study indicate that CYLE and New Parade are appropriate for children in China in that they accord with the requirements of the corresponding syllabuses and reflect children’s psychological and age characteristics and cognitive ability. However, there exist some weakness in the systematic way of phonological teaching, the recurring frequency of vocabulary and the amount of cultural content. Therefore, some improvement suggestions are proposed for textbook compilers and users.