Coursebook Analysis

Coursebook Analysis
    The coursebook to b analyzed in this paper is New Senior English for China, published by People’s Education Press, which is a coursebook commonly used in most of the senor high schools. On the whole, New Senior English for China, to a large degree, fits the aims and objectives of the Curriculum in China(课程标准) which are, namely, to teach language content, skills, study strategy, to invoke students’ cultural awareness and to fit students’ emotional needs. However, for the sake of briefness, this paper will deal with the analysis of this coursebook according to the curriculum and from the first three perspectives, language content, skills, and topic. To make the analysis more easy to understand and specific, let us set Student Book 1 as an example.
1 Language Content
    First, let us look at the grammar items in this coursebook which are god choices and are taught in an interesting and suitable way. In grammar, this book mainly deals with three points, which are direct and indirect speech, the present continuous tense and the attributive clause. Those grammar items are either relatively easy to learn like direct and indirect speech which fits the learners’ learning status who are only in grade one in senior high, or have an enduring influence on students’ mastering English like the attributive clause. Thus, in this sense, the choice of the grammar items is suitable. At the same time, the grammar is taught situational which makes the learning a fan thing to do. For example, the direct and indirect speech is taught through retelling an experience in a dairy, the present continuous tense is learned through making a holiday plan, and the attributive clause is learned an exposition on how to survive in an earthquake and how to describe the qualities of a great person. Moreover, the grammar is taught following a clear process from the easy ones to the hard ones, which will arouse the learners’ interests and will not scare them off. Finally, in...