A Review of College English Textbook Research

李亚菲 巨静

1. Introduction

With the economic globalization and international integration， English teaching in China has undergone tremendous changes like other fields. Continuous improvement of English textbooks has clearly demonstrated this point. In a broad sense， teaching materials refer to any forms of materials that are beneficial to teaching or learning， including textbooks， video tapes， dictionaries， teachers books and extra-curricular readings. In a narrow sense， they are referred to textbooks， and textbooks used by teachers in particular. In the past， it was emphasized that textbooks were the source of students acquisition of various kinds of knowledge. Now， more and more attention is paid on the interaction between textbooks and students. It is believed that textbooks actually can stimulate and assist teachers teaching and students learning.

2. The studies at abroad

The study on textbooks in foreign countries started earlier. And more emphasis was placed on the evaluation of textbooks which aims at evaluating and promoting the design and preparation of teaching materials. Therefore， the far-reaching evaluation theory of Cunningsworth， McDonough & Shaw， Breen & Candlin has been developed. Xu Jinfen （2015） pointed out that second language acquisition and preparation of college English textbooks in abroad tend to use reading as the main form to promote the improvement of all aspects of students capabilities. At the same time， the teaching materials keep pace with the times. With the revisions of textbooks， they pay more and more attention to the training of critical thinking.

3. The studies at home

Chinese college English textbooks have experienced a long and tortuous history of development. From the 1960s， English textbooks in China have gone through four revisions. However， domestic criticism and complaints about English education have never stopped， especially the impact of time-consuming and inefficient English education on national culture. Yang Gang & Chen Jianlin （2013） proposed in the article that the research on college English textbooks in China started from the 1990s， mainly from three aspects， namely， the research perspectives of textbooks， the research objects of textbooks， and the research content of textbooks.

From the research perspectives of textbooks， researches on English teaching materials mainly focused on the design and writing of textbooks in the past few decades. There is no doubt that the teaching material is an important carrier of teaching ideas， the core tool of classroom teaching， and the embodiment of curriculum standards. However， too much attention is paid to the compilation of teaching materials， especially the design and compilation of college English comprehensive teaching materials， rather than the evaluation of teaching materials. This phenomenon is inseparable from the huge benefits of the market economy. From the view of research objects and content of textbooks， most of researches on English textbooks are for non-English majors. This is also because non-English majors are the largest audiences. The research content mainly focuses on listening， speaking， reading， writing and translating in the teaching materials. However， there are very few researches of college English textbooks from intercultural perspective， which is unfavorable to cultivate the intercultural communication competence among contemporary college students.

4. Conclusion

Using CNKI as the data source， “college English textbooks” as the theme to search， there are hundreds of articles and papers from 1991 to 2018. To ensure the reliability and a higher reference， the author searches the theme of college English textbook precisely from the fields of philosophy and humanities and social sciences， and selects journals， masters dissertations and doctoral dissertations， which are two types of databases with higher recognition. The level of masters dissertations and doctoral dissertations is not restricted， dozens of papers are retrieved. And articles on core and CSSCI journals are much less than papers. There are not many researches conducted on foreign language textbooks from the intercultural perspective. Therefore， there is still much room for research and development.

【作者簡介】李亚菲，巨静，宁夏大学。