A Study On The Evaluation Of English In Mind 4 From Users’ Perspective

The teaching material is a crucial element of foreign language teaching,and its characteristics,selection,and use of English textbooks determine whether teachers can successfully complete the teaching content,achieve the teaching objectives,and whether students can fully and effective assimilate the knowledge.However,from the research results of empirical methods,there are more researches on the comparison of the same type and different versions of teaching materials from the perspective of teaching,fewer researches on the evaluation of teaching materials from the perspective of students as users,and fewer researches on the evaluation of the original introduced teaching materials.Based upon the current research status,the present study is conducted to investigate on the evaluation of the originally-imported high school English textbook English in Mind(4)(Cambridge University Press;EIM 4 hereafter)from the users’(both teachers’ and students’)perspective.The English in Mind series are up to the national standard of China,which will not cause any negative influence to the students’ ideological field.It is attempted to investigate on the external evaluation of the textbook through referring to the three criteria proposed by Cheng Xiaotang(2002),that is,(1)whether or not the textbook fits students’ learning demands,(2)whether or not the textbook fits teachers’ teaching demands,and(3)whether or not the textbook fits the requirements of the English curriculum standards.This study aims to address to the following questions:1.How do students as users identify with English in Mind(4)? What is their overall impression? From the perspective of language and cultural knowledge learning,language ability development and the improvement of language comprehensive ability,to what extent can textbooks meet students’ learning needs and affect their learning effect?2.What is teachers’ overall impression and recognition on English in Mind 4? In the process of using the teaching materials,how do teachers evaluate the content,structure and effect of teaching materials from the perspective of learning and teaching?In this study,15 teachers and 500 students from three grades of the Foreign Language School Attached to Guangxi Normal University are invited to be research subjects.To collect the research data,the study mainly uses methods of literature review,questionnaires(15 teachers and 500 students as respondents),interviews(10teachers and 50 students as interviewees).The purpose is to investigate,based on the feedback data from both teachers and students,on the evaluation of English in Mind(4)by teachers and students as users,in terms of its contents,structure,effect,and the influence the textbook has on teachers’ teaching and students’ studying.Through the research,it is found that English in Mind(4)is vivid,interesting,creative in its contents and helpful to the improvement of English practical ability of students.In practical use,it basically meets the teaching needs of teachers and the learning needs of students.On the whole,it meets the requirements of China’s curriculum standards and can achieve the effect of comprehensively cultivating students’ English language ability.At the same time,there are some problems in English in Mind(4)when facing the domestic classroom use,such as the content involving knowledge range of being too wide and scattered,and the difficulty of task-based teaching to maintain the classroom order and keep the teaching focus.The reasons for these problems are related to the teaching habits of domestic English teachers,the students’ English learning habits and the educational policies of the education departments as well.To a certain extent,this study can provide some enlightenment for teachers’ overall evaluation and rational use of the imported English teaching materials,and then promote the improvement of teaching quality.It can also provide guidance for students to correctly use the rich authentic language materials provided by the imported English teaching materials,and help English learning.At the same time,it can provide reference for the education administrative departments to select teaching materials and the overall design of teaching reform.