On Reading Questions In Senior English Textbooks:A Comparative Perspective

English textbooks are important learning materials for English learners.And the questions in textbooks is one of the key elements in the textbook compiling,besides,they make a great contribution in developing language competence.For those learners,their reading and thinking abilities are not so good,and new demands are proposed,so how to use textbooks properly is important.Reading occupies the largest proportion in textbooks both at home and abroad.Thus,reading questions have become one of the elements which is paid the most attention to.In order to find the features and differences of reading questions in foreign and domestic English textbooks,a comparative study is done about reading questions between two English textbooks for high school students,then some implications were proposed to textbook compilers and users.The research objects selected in this study are NSEC Student's Book 1 and Solutions: Intermediate Student's book.After collecting and counting question quantity,the function of the question,reading skills and thinking skills are analyzed separately based on question classification framework,the National Curriculum and the new taxonomy adapted from theories of Anderson,Marzano and Hauenstein.At the same time,Chi-square test is applied to analyze the data and find out the difference.The research findings are as follows:(1)The difference in quantity of reading questions is not obvious,but in each unit,there are some differences.Comparatively speaking,quantity of questions in each unit in NSEC changes slightly,while the change in Solutions is relatively stable.(2)From the perspective of the question function,there are obvious differencesamong questions' functions.Experience-relate questions(ErQ)account for relatively large proportion in two textbooks,while appreciation questions(AQ)account for the least proportion.Besides,the proportions of literal comprehension questions(LCQ),reorganization questions(RoQ)and referential questions(RQ)are different in two textbooks.In NSEC,RQ account for the largest proportion,while in Solutions,the percentages of these three types of questions are close.(3)Not all reading skills are contained and differences among skills are obvious.In NSEC textbook,because of sections of warming-up and pre-reading,reading skills of predicting account for the largest proportion.Also,scanning and making inferences are also in high frequency.However,understanding the new words and reference were not mentioned.For Solutions,predicting and predicting also account for relatively high percentages,while understanding the structure and reference are not mentioned.(4)Not all the thinking skills are included in two textbooks and the differences in higher-order and lower-order thinking skills are apparent since lower-order thinking skills occupy for about 60%.For the diversity of thinking skills,questions in Solutions contain more types of thinking skills.Based on the findings,some implications arere proposed to textbook compilers,learners and teachers.1)For textbook compilers,the designing of reading questions should cover all skills,especially reading skills and thinking skills.2)For learners,they need to know the importance of higher-order thinking and realize the objectives of questions.Besides,identify and use reading skills.3)For teachers,Teachers should guide learners to notice these skills through teaching and guide them to identify.For thinking skills,teachers need to pay attention to them firstly,then assist learners in problem solving process to develop learners' reading ability and thinking ability.