A Comparative Study On Two Sets Of English Textbooks For Junior High Schools:Oxford English(Shanghai Edition) And Go For It! By People’s Education Press

English textbooks are the main learning resources for both teachers and students.Apart from reflecting the requirements of The New Full-time Compulsory English Standards(2011)for English learning,they also embody scientific teaching and learning theories and methods.In addition,they integrate proper design and content arrangements.In China,the development of English textbooks never ceases.Instead,they become increasingly more scientific,rising from old-fashioned teaching concepts and contents,to modern full-scale materials with various media resources.However,no textbook is perfect.There are many different editions of great textbooks in our country,with their own advantages and disadvantages.Studying these different textbooks will help boost the development of textbook compiling practice in our country.In this thesis,the author compares two widely-used editions of English textbooks used by junior high schools in China,which are Oxord English(Shanghai Edition)and Go for it! by People’s Education Press.The aim is to provide valuable ideas and constructive suggestions for the textbook editors and teachers through comparative analysis.The thesis first researches The New Full-time Compulsory English Standards,in addition to some widely-accepted theories of evaluating English teaching materials.The comparative analysis is conducted from two different perspectives.One is the analysis of the inner contents and structures,which is based on the literature review,to show objective advantages and disadvantages of the two editions,by using statistics,charts,tables,graphs,pictures,etc.The other is the analysis of the results of questionnaire surveys for teachers and students in two regions.From the detailed analysis,the main conclusions are as follows.Oxford English overall receives higher valuation than Go for it!,but both editions need some improvements.(1)In terms of topics,more practical subjects should be added to the two editions,covering a wider range of real life.Common English culture and local typical culture should also be included.(2)For the arrangements of contents and textbook design,Oxford English is more pleasing to the eye.Go for it! needs more space for contents;the pictures in it need to be designed to be close to Chinese students’ life;the words can be shown in different fonts.The topics of the two editions should be more closely linked between units with better cohesion.(3)As regards linguistic knowledge,the grammar repetition in Oxford English is not enough.The grammar content in Go for it! is not clearly and directly shown for readers;there is no discovery stage to develop students’abilities of observation and exploration;the oral practice for grammar practicing is not attractive,with unclear pictures.(4)In the aspect of language skills,Oxford English should include pre-listening exercises,increase listening exercises and provide more various listening exercises.The oral practice should be conducted by using more interesting and practical topics.Go for it! should shorten the length of the passages,with more interesting and practical topics and various genres.Its writing instruction should be more detailed so that it’s easier for students to get a clear picture of what to write;the writing tasks should be designed in more kinds of genres.Junior school students are just starters in English learning;therefore the guidance for their writing should also be more specific and step by step,with enough input of related topics as well as structure awareness cultivation before the writing stage.(5)On culture awareness development,the two editions lack enough common and practical English culture input,as well as local typical culture.(6)In terms of learning strategies and skills,Oxford English does better,as many learning strategies and skills impenetrate the learning process.Go for it!,however,only provides some brief reading strategies in only one sentence in the books for Grade 8 and Grade 9.(7)As for ethical education,both editions can do better by putting more emphasis on that area.With detailed comparative analysis between the two editions,this thesis is aimed to provide some useful suggestions for textbook editors,as well as constructive thoughts which can help to improve the English teaching in junior schools.