An Evaluation Of Reading Materials In Junior High School English Textbooks Of FLTRP From The Perspective Of The New Curriculum Standards

English textbooks play an unparalleled and important role in English teaching,providing students with listening,speaking,reading and writing materials.As an indispensable part of English textbooks,reading materials are the primary source for students to learn about different cultures,and essential materials to improve students’ English reading abilities as well.With the promulgation of English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education in April 2022,new junior school English textbooks should be revised and published.The characteristics of reading materials in the textbooks and whether or not these materials meet the needs of teaching and learning are worth exploring and studying.Evaluation on reading materials not only helps researchers to enrich the relevant studies,but also provides suggestions for future textbook compilation and reading teaching,which is of theoretical and practical significance.This study selects the reading materials in the junior high school English textbooks published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press(FLTRP)as the main subject of the evaluation,adopting the evaluation method of combining the internal evaluation with the external evaluation to analyze the reading materials in the textbooks and the use of the textbooks.The internal evaluation is to make a detailed analysis of the reading materials based on the curriculum standards and the reading analysis framework proposed by Cunningsworth(2002);the external evaluation is to understand the views of teachers and students through questionnaires and interviews.This study attempts to explore two questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the reading materials in the junior high school English textbooks of FLTRP in terms of theme,genre,length,grammar and reading activity? And how do they reflect the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)?(2)What attitudes do the teachers and students hold on the reading materials in the textbooks of FLTRP?Through the internal evaluation of the textbooks,it is found that the characteristics of the reading materials in the new textbooks are as follows:1)the themes are abundant and closely connected with students’ lives;2)the genres of the reading materials are varied and diverse;3)the reading materials are arranged from short to long;4)the grammatical points in the reading materials are rich,and the arrangement of them is reasonable;5)the reading activities are diverse,which are helpful to cultivate students’ reading skills.The reading materials well reflect the requirements of the new curriculum standard in terms of theme,genre,length,grammar and reading activities.However,there are some shortcomings in the compilation of the reading materials,such as some themes that can’t keep up with the social development,length is close to high school level.The external evaluation of the textbooks shows that most teachers and students are satisfied with the reading materials in the textbooks of FLTRP,however,the themes of the reading materials are considered to fail to adapt to the footsteps of today’s development,and the low effect of grammar learning for some students.Based on the research results,some suggestions for textbook compilers and teachers are put forward.Textbook compilers should appropriately update the themes and adjust the length of the reading materials.Teachers should fully understand the characteristics of the reading materials and students’ levels,and flexibly adjust the content of the reading materials and the reading activities accordingly.What’more,teachers should present knowledge in authentic contexts to guide students to better learn the reading materials of the textbooks.