On Learning-material Orientation Of English Textbooks For Secondary Vocational School

The people-oriented philosophy has become the trend of current reform and development movement in the contemporary society. The people-oriented education emphasizes that the students' development is not only the start-point, but, moreover, the destination of school education. It is an urgent need for textbook, the materialized product of curriculum reform, to transform from the traditionally “knowledge-centered” notion to the “students' development-oriented” philosophy, or “student-oriented” philosophy. In terms of the education in secondary vocational school, it is of great importance to study whether the design of English textbooks have fully embodied the students' development-oriented philosophy and how to perform its teaching-learning function for the purpose of improving its present English teaching and learning.This thesis is based on both theory and survey. It firstly challenges the conversion of textbooks and defines what textbook is for teaching and learning. After finding out the principles on how to design a student-centered textbook, the thesis then makes a systematic study on the English textbook for secondary vocational school published by Higher Education Press from two orientations: text analysis and survey study. The text analysis focuses on design ideas, system, contents, organization, and sequence while the survey study is made up of questionnaire design and data analysis. Finally some constructive suggestions for textbooks designers and teaching strategies for teachers are offered.The thesis came to a conclusion that the English textbook for secondary vocational school published by Higher Education Press has already managed to be designed with learning-material orientation, but, with the frustration of many factors, this function could not be virtually implemented. The suggestions for textbook design and the proposed teaching model are expected to be an effective strategy, to a certain degree, to deal with this problem and improve the present English teaching and learning in secondary vocational school. In the era of “students' development-based” education, this study is believed to provide enlightenment for the related research.