Evaluating senior high school English textbooks in China

Abstract

Textbook evaluation plays an important role in English language teaching and learning. This paper reviews existing research on English textbook evaluation and develops a checklist for English textbooks adopted in Chinese senior high schools. With a comprehensive evaluation of the People’s Education Press English textbook series (PEP, 2019), the findings show that this series has advantages in promoting cultural awareness and cultivating learning abilities. However, some tasks in the textbook appear to be outdated and less engaging. Moreover, world cultures beyond American and British contexts are limited, and examples of non-native speakers’ interactions or multilingual discourse are scarce. Based on the evaluation results, the paper offers recommendations to maximize the utilization of this textbook series. First, teachers should leverage table of contents and learning tips in the textbook to foster students’ independent learning skills. Besides, teachers are encouraged to consult teacher’s manual to design student-centered activities and improve cultural understanding. To overcome the shortcomings in the textbook, digital resources and AI tools are suggested to expose students to diverse accents and interactions. The study emphasizes the significance of textbook evaluation and encourages teachers to gain a better understanding of their teaching materials. To enhance the validity and reliability of the evaluation, further research can survey the teachers first and refine the developed textbook evaluation checklist in the Appendix section of the paper or develop a more comprehensive evaluation framework.