A Comparative Analysis Of English And New Standard English

Teaching materials are one of the significant guiding resources for teachers and students in the educational process.Two versions of the textbook for junior high students,namely English by Oxford-Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press and New Standard English(NSE hereafter)by Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,are widely adopted in Guangdong Province,but still there lacks systematic research in comparative analysis currently.Viewing this,the author carries out a comparative analysis between these two versions in the hope that it provides insight into the development and exploration of teaching materials for junior high schools in China.According to the evaluative criteria and research theories at home and abroad,this thesis has considered the evaluative theories from Alan Cunningsworth,Jo Mc Donough Christopher and Shaw,Qiao Ailing,and Cheng Xiaotang.Moreover,by the instrument of text analysis,this thesis explores these two versions of textbooks,aiming to answer the following questions:(1)What are their commonalities and differences in macro-evaluation?(2)What are their commonalities and differences in micro-evaluation?(3)What are their commonalities and differences in topics and cultural dimensions? And(4)What are their strengths and weaknesses?The result shows that(1)In macro-evaluation,on the basis of English Curriculum Standards(2011),these two versions of the textbook are built up by modules,reflecting the advance concepts of linguistics,language teaching as well as learning philosophy,and matching the teenagers’ mental and physical rule.It is in the students’ orientation and reflects actual reality.English focuses on the content syllabus,whose feature lies in reading.Subsequently,the compilation of listening,speaking,and writing is related to the reading topic,while the NSE emphasizes the functional-notional syllabus with amounts of listening and grammar exercise.(2)In micro-evaluation,two versions cover the phonology knowledge based on English Curriculum Standards.English arranges the phonology knowledge systematically and scientifically while NSE’s arrangement is not in a logical way with single types in exercise.As for the grammar,two versions fit the requirements of English Curriculum Standards,while English prefers the guided-discovery teaching method.Two versions focus on the descriptive genre but with low vocabulary recurrence.As for reading,NSE’s reading passages are comparatively more extended with an emphasis on cooperative study.English has a single type of oral practice.(3)Two versions concentrate on social development,paying attention to environmental protection in terms of topics and culture.But NSE lacks relevant literary works in materials selection.(4)English is based on the reading project to build up the whole module,emphasizing the learning strategies,cultural awareness cultivation,and integrated competence development.However,there remain the problems of monotonous exercise in listening and speaking as well as the lower vocabulary recurrence.NSE places more emphasis on sentence practice and conversation to develop communicative competence,lacking the guidance of learning strategies and cross-cultural communication cultivation,particularly the Chinese traditional culture.