| With the continuous development of English teaching,the Ministry of Education of China promulgated the latest edition of English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools in 2017,which puts forward the key competences of English subject in senior high schools,namely,language ability,thinking quality,cultural awareness and learning ability.In the background of establishing the national framework of key competences,the selection of teaching materials is the prerequisite for the attainment of the teaching goals.Teaching materials are the main carrier of the implementation of the new curriculum standards,and they can make the requirements of curriculum standards more specific and operable in specific teaching contexts.Teaching material is also one of the factors that affect teaching quality.Therefore,textbook evaluation is particularly important in that it is conducive to the selection of materials by the administrative departments of education.It can also provide referential opinions for textbook compilers.It is also beneficial for both teachers and students in their use of textbooks either for teaching or for learning.In September,2005,Advance with English,published by Jiangsu Yilin Publishing House,began to be used as a unified textbook for the whole province.This set of textbooks is compiled on the basis of the English Curriculum Standards.for Senior High School(Draft,2003).Its greatest feature is that all the textbooks are arranged with the notion of integrating topic,function,structure and task,which aims to cultivate students’ comprehensive ability of using English.In spite of all the existing evaluations on this set of textbooks,it is quite occasional to see any analysis and evaluation of this set of textbooks in the teaching context of rural high schools and meanwhile in the light of key competences.In this sense,this study should be of its theoretical and practical significanceThis research mainly explores the following two questions(1)To what extent is Advance with English suitable for the cultivation of key competences of English subject?(2)To what extent is Advance with English suitable for the teaching and learning in rural high schools?With the above two questions in mind while evaluating the target textbooks,this research adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods,such as literature analysis,textual analysis,questionnaires and interviews.The concrete steps of textbook evaluation are as follows:firstly,based on the key competences and the textbook evaluation theory of some experts and scholars at home and abroad,for example,Ur,Cunningsworth,Grant,Zhou Xuelin,Shu Dingfang and Liu Daoyi,both qualitative and statistical analysis is conducted of the layout and internal structure of the textbooks;secondly,the evaluative opinions and attitudes of both the teachers and students in rural schools towards the target textbooks are collected through questionnaires and interviews and comprehensive analysis and evaluation is implemented and then some advice as for revision of the target textbooks is put forward.All statistical analysis is conducted by means of Microsoft ExcelIt is found that Advance with English can generally satisfy the cultivation of language ability and cultural consciousness of rural high school students,but it still needs further improvement in the two aspects of cultivating thinking quality and learning ability.In addition,most rural high school teachers and students feel that some sections of this set of textbooks are idealized,lacking consideration of the rural teaching environment.It is suggested that the compilers of the textbooks should further improve the textbooks,that rural high school teachers should creatively and flexibly use the textbooks,and that rural high school students should positively change their attitude towards English learning.Only in these ways can this set of textbooks be made best use of in rural high schools according to the requirements of the new curriculum standards with the key competences. |
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