对《新视野大学英语》评析.doc

新视野大学英语的评析姓名：曾荣专 业：课程与教学论导师：柏敬泽方向：英语教学论年级：2004 级摘要大学英语教科书作为教学内容的载体在我国高校大学英语教学中起着重要的作用。今年来，各地书店里教材琳琅满目。然而，每套教材均有其优点和缺点。事实上，如何选择一套适合学生使用的教材变成了摆在教学主管部门和大学英语教师面前的问题。这种情况也成了本项研究的动因。教育部推荐了多部英语教材， 新视野大学英语为其中之一。毫无疑问，该教材在专家眼里是部好教材。我校以之作为课堂教学中的骨干教材已有两年多的时间。本文试图对新视野大学英语作一全面审视，目的在于分析出一些参考意见。作为一篇研究教材的论文，本为定位在对教材的分析评价上，以期满足当务如何充分使用本教材的迫切需要。本文共分五章，每章内容扼要叙述如下：第一章为文章的介绍部分。首先讨论了研究的背景，然后是教材评估的意义和标准，接下来介绍了两个国外的评估模式。通过第一章的介绍，对教材评估能达到概念上的整体把握，为其后的展开做了铺垫。第二章着重介绍与教材评估相关的语言学习理论。其中包括语言学理论和教材的关系以及各种教学大纲与教材的关系。第三章是开始对新视野大学英语进行分析。文章先从客观的角度分析了这套教材的组成部分，内容选择和编排。再主观评价了教材的出色之处和不足。在这一章里，文章还重点分析了听，说，读，写四项技能在教材中的体现程度。第四章是文章的重要部分。除了对教材的客观和主观分析评价外，教材的学习者的意见也是评价教材是否合适的重要标准。作者设计了调查问卷以测试学生对新视野大学英语的满意度，并根据调查结果总结了这套教材最受学生欢迎的地方和稍有欠缺的地方。第五章是结论部分。文章总结了新视野大学英语的优点和不足，这套教材的不足之处在于首先这套教材对阅读技能的培养力度过大而相对忽略了其他的三种技能。交流才是英语学习的主要目的，所以教材应该着重培养学生的说话能力而非仅仅强调信息的提供。其次 CD 光盘和网络教程都没有得到充分的使用。 再次， 这套教材没有对语法规则和翻译技能的系统较少，这一定程度上会导致学生应对考试时的失败。 最后，作者对如iv何有效使用这套教材提出了一些建议。关键词：教材分析评价新视野大学英语vAn Analysis and evaluation of New Horizon College EnglishPostgraduate: ZengRongsupervisor: Bai JingzeGrade:2004AbstractCollege English coursebooks, as a vehicle, play an important role in the instruction ofCollege English in the institutions of higher learning in our country. In recent years, a largeassortment of such books is available in bookstores everywhere. However, each series oftextbooks has its merits and demerits. As it is, how to find the one best suitable for the studentshas become a problem that the administrative offices in charge of studies and the CollegeEnglish teachers are confronted with. This situation has also inspired the motivation of thisresearch.The Ministry of Education of the State Council has recommended several teachingmaterials for the instruction of College English and one of them is New Horizon CollegeEnglish, which is beyond any doubts a good textbook in the eyes of the experts. This textbook iswhat can be called the mainstay teaching materials used in classroom teaching in our universityfor over two years. This dissertation is intended for a thorough study of the textbook NewHorizon College English so as to find out some comments on it for reference. As a researchpaper, it is oriented to the analysis and evaluation of the textbook to satisfy the urgent need ofhow to utilize it to the best advantage. This dissertation is divided into five chapters and the maingist o f each chapter reads as follows:Chapter one is the introduction of the thesis. First it talks about the background of theresearch, and then introduces the significance and the criterions of the textbook evaluation. Twoevaluation models are being introduced in chapter one. The introduction makes a preparation forthe whole thesis.Chapter two talks about some language learning theories which relates to the textbookevaluation. It includes the relationship between linguistic theories and textbook &the relationshipbetween teaching syllabus and textbook.Chapter three begins to make an analysis on New Horizon College English. Firstly, theauthor analyzes the components, content selections and arrangement from an objective point ofview, and then assesses the textbooks merits and shortcomings subjectively. Also the thesis talksviabout the reflection of four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking in this textbook.Chapter four is an important part of the thesis. Besides the analysis and evaluation fromobjective and subjective point of view, the users idea is the key point to evaluate the textbook.The author designs a questionnaire to test whether the users are satisfied to the textbook.According to the result, the author summarizes the most popular parts of the textbook and someissues which are not admitted by the students.Chapter five is conclusion. Once again the thesis summarizes the merits and shortcomings ofNew horizon college English. First, it pays too much attention on reading while other three skillsare neglected relatively. Since communication is the main purpose of learning English, thetextbook writer should emphasize on speaking skill training but not only on informationprovision. Second, the provision of CD and online course are not in the real usage. Third, there isno systematic introduction of grammar rules and translation skills in the textbook, which willcause the students failure in the examination to some degree. Some suggestions are made tomake the usage of New horizon college English more effectively.Key words: analysis;evaluation;textbook;New Horizon College Englishvii论文独创性声明本人郑重声明：所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下进行的研究工作及取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含其他个人或其他机构已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究作出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。研究生签名：日期：论文使用授权声明本人完全了解广西师范大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定。广西师范大学、中国科学技术信息研究所、清华大学论文合作部，有权保留本人所送交学位论文的复印件和电子文档，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。本人电子文档的内容和纸质论文的内容相一致。除在保密期内的保密论文外，允许论文被查阅和借阅，可以公布（包括刊登）论文的全部或部分内容。论文的公布（包括刊登）授权广西师范大学学位办办理。研究生签名：日期：导师签名：日期：Chapter Introduction1.1 BackgroundRecent years an ever-growing emphasis has been laid on college English instruction andlearning but the teaching effect is far from what is expected of. There are many factors that havecaused this problem. The first one is the increasing enrollment of the college students whichcaused the ratio of students and teachers rise to a number that is detrimental to the teaching effect.As the report in 2002 shows that the ratio of teacher and students in college teaching is 1:130.The performance of students is far below the requirements under this ratio of teacher resources.They are lack of communicative competence and may not meet the requirement of the societyand the employers.In order to solve this problem, the Education Ministry of China implements a teachingreform and published its new College English Curriculum Requirement For TrialImplementation in 2004. Its purpose is that the teaching reform in the curriculum will result inan improvement their ability in reading, writing and speaking skills in English. By developingthe students ability to comprehend and use the spoken English, they will find it much easier tocommunicate orally, for they will substantially increased their exposure to the native speakers intheir future career along with the inevitable situation of ever-growing globalization. Thefundamental importance of spoken language as the basis for communicative competence is nowfully acknowledged. In 2004, Zhang Yaoxue, General Director of the Higher EducationDepartment of the Ministry of Education points out that the emphasis on the primary of spokenlanguage coupled with the ongoing instruction in written English will raise the level of theircommunicative capacity and lead them toward a greater facility in writing and translatingcompetence. This new requirements will serve as a guideline for teaching non-English majorstudents in China and aim to cultivate their all-round abilities, especially in case of listening andspeaking.Textbooks for college English are modified to meet the new curriculum requirement. Alot of textbooks are available on the market. Such as New English Course (Tsinghua UniversityPress, 1989), College Experiencing English (Higher Education Press, 2002), New CollegeEnglish (Foreign language Teaching and Research Press, 1999), New Horizon College English(Foreign language Teaching and Research Press, 2002). It is difficult for the teachers to choosethe best one for the particular students. Teaching materials should be chosen according to thestudents English proficiency, and can draw out most of the students talent to a large extent. Thatis to say, though the textbook can not fit for every single student, it can be right to the students inthe majority.11.2 The significance of the evaluationThere are so many reasons for materials evaluation activities. First, teaching materials isthe foundation of teaching activities while good material is prerequisite for a good teachingresult. Second, as the deepening of reformation of primary education in high school, thereformation and replacement of college English teaching materials become inevitable.According to Cunningsworth (1984, 1995) and Hutchinson, &Water (1987), the selection oftextbooks is a major and frequent reason for evaluation. Another reason is to make effective useof the textbook already in use, in other words, to identify particular strengths and weakness ofthe material, so that optimum use can be made of their strong points, while their weaker areascan be strengthened through adaptation or by substituting material from other books. In addition,coursebook analysis and evaluation is useful in teacher development and helps teachers to gaingood and useful insights into the nature of the materials, hence improve their teachingperformance.Nunan gives advice on what appears to be the most common reason for coursebookevaluation: “when selecting commercial materials it is important to match the materials with thegoals and objectives of the programme, and to ensure that they are consistent with ones beliefsabout the nature of language and learning, as well as with ones learners attitudes, belief andpreferences.”(Nunan 1991:209)This dissertation attempts to make an analysis and evaluation of intending to discover itsmerits and demerits. The aim of this study is to utilize the textbook to the best advantage both onthe part of the College English teachers and on the part of the students at the institutions ofhigher learning in the western region of China. When it comes to the use of any textbook,inclusive of New Horizon College English, the demanding job for the teachers of CollegeEnglish to do is to identify what are the weak points of the students and what they need in thestudy of English in order to adjust the classroom teaching of the textbook to the actual state ofthe students. That is why it is a significant research work in making an analysis and evaluation ofa textbook that has been put to use.1.3 The criterions of the evaluationDifferent teachers have different ideas about what a good textbook should include, butgenerally speaking, good textbooks often contain lively and interesting material; they provide asensible progression of language items, clearly showing what has to be learnt and in some casessummarizing what has been studied so that students can revise grammatical and functional pointsthat they have been concentrating on. Textbooks can be systematic about the amount vocabularypresented to the student and allow students to study on their own outside the class. Goodtextbooks also relieve the teacher from the pressure of having to think of original material for2every class.Even judged by the same criterion, the same coursebook could be “good” in one context,but not in another. For instance, the presence of cultural elements could be welcomed in asituation where the teacher felt that they were a central vehicle for learning English; on the otherhand, they could be seen as irrelevant and even offensive in other teaching situations. (Sheldon,1998). Teachers are consumers, just like students or educational administrators. All these groups,of course, can have potentially different notions of what a good textbook should be.There is a range of coursebook evaluation checklist in the ELT literature. According toSheldon (1988):Various writers have suggested ways of helping teachers in particular to be moresophisticated in their evaluative approach, by positing checklists based on supposedlygeneralizable criteria. Sheldon (1988:237) suggests ELT books are frequently seen as poorcompromises between what is educationally desirable on the one hand and financially viable onthe other, There are numerous factors to consider when choosing materials for a class and acompromise must be reached as it is almost impossible to find a product that satisfies all of thesecriteria in one neatly bound package. The same may be said of evaluative models. Sheldon statesIt is clear that coursebook assessment is fundamentally a subjective, rule of thumb activity andthat no neat formula, grid, or system will ever provide a definitive yardstick. (Sheldon 1988:245)There are a lot of models and frameworks for assessing textbooks. However, every teacherhas different requirement to consider, some may consider the textbooks language focus, andsome may consider its cultivating of communicative competence. According to some expertsidea, I summarize some of the criterions that are important in my opinion.The textbook should be compiled according to the teaching syllabus.The textbook package should consist of a students book, a teachers book, workbooks,activity books and cassettes.The textbook should deals adequately with four skills and take the level and overall aimsinto account.The materials should be at the right level for the students, not to complicated and not toosimple.The textbook should set its materials in social and cultural contexts that are comprehensibleto the learners.The materials the textbook chooses should be authentic.The materials should be interesting and suitable for the age group of the students.The textbook should be suitable for individual learning.The students center role should be assured by the textbook.3The textbook should make sure that students can obtain language focus and grammar pointsafter learning.1.4 Two evaluation models1.4.1 Hutchinson and Waters modelHutchinson and Waters (1987:96) point out: Evaluation is a matter of judging the fitnessof something for a particular purpose. Given a certain need, and in the light of the resourcesavailable, which out of a number of possibilities can represent the best solution? Evaluation is,then, concerned with relative merit. There is no absolute good or bad-only degrees of fitnessfor the required purpose.”Hutchinson and Waters (1987:97) divide the evaluation process into four major steps:1)2)3)4)Defining criteriaSubjective analysisObjective analysisMatchingHutchinson and Waters (1987:99) present their