Winds of Change in Saudi English Textbooks： A Cultural Perspective

The paper investigates Saudi English textbooks in order to trace the ways in which culture was dealt with in the English curriculum in the last 33 years. To this end, the three textbooks which were published one after another for the third-grade secondary school students in the last three decades were analyzed. The paper finds that in the first book published in 1982, the writer introduced only those cultural elements from outside Saudi Arabia, which could be subordinated to the self-enclosed cohesive Saudi national culture that rested and was shaped on and around the faith of Islam. The same cultural pattern is maintained in the second book published in 1998, but in the third book published in 2013, a huge number of western and multicultural elements were accommodated without any attempt to assimilate them to Saudi national culture. The paper concludes that in these textbooks, culture was taken either as Parsons＇s ＂system＂--pattern-maintaining national culture-or as Rothkopf＇s and Friedman＇s ＂pattern-breaking＂ western culture, but it was seldom treated as Bauman＇s ＂matrix＂.

A Review on the Compilation of College English Textbooks in China Based on Big Data

With the help of Big Data and Citespace software, this research makes a statistical analysis of the journals anddissertations on College English teaching and learning materials collected by CNKI from 2011 to 2020. This paper,based on the knowledge map drawn by the visualized analysis of literatures volume, authors, research institutions,and keywords clustering, analyzes the current research status and hotspots in the compilation of China’s CollegeEnglish textbooks.

On Evaluation of the New Edition College English Textbooks Based on Multi-dimensional Perspectives

Relative fi ndings about the evaluation of English textbooks in China are really rare. In this paper, the new edition college Englishtextbooks are analyzed and evaluated through drawing on the evaluation experience of English textbooks of other countries. The conclusion wasdrawn through questionnaires that the multi-dimensional mode, as a mode of learning based on the multi-sensory experience of students, couldprovide students with broader space for free development and exploration. It could guide the compilation and improvement of textbooks.

An Empirical Survey of the Chinese Cultural Aphasia in University English Textbooks

Under the text of Xi’s call for“Chinese culture to go abroad”and the international craze for Mandarin,the article aims to reveal the relationship between college English textbooks and Chinese cultural aphasia,based on an analysis of a survey of a university in southern China.The specific research questions are:What is the attitude of English majors toward integrating English textbooks into Chinese culture?Do English majors have“Chinese cultural aphasia”?To what extent?Is there an imbalance between Chinese and western culture in College English textbooks?Through a test,questionnaire,and textbook analysis,a survey on Chinese cultural aphasia in university English textbooks among English majors was conducted.The research results show that English textbooks have a serious lack of Chinese culture;English majors have severe Chinese cultural aphasia;English majors have a positive attitude towards integrating Chinese culture into English textbooks,and they are willing to learn the English expressions of Chinese culture.The author believes that the study has the following practical significance:First,the statistics in the study offer a thought for textbook editors;second,the study can stimulate English teachers to cultivate students’cross-cultural communication skills;and third,research may inspire students to learn more about Chinese culture and enrich their knowledge.

A Multimodal Analysis of Social Class in College English Textbook

As a required course at higher education level,English has permeated the everyday life of Chinese students from all so-cial backgrounds.Social class,deciding one’s access to various social and educational recourses,has a great influence on thelearning process of college students inside and outside the classroom.However,few studies have placed their focus on social classand college English textbooks.Thus,this paper attempts to adopt a multimodal analysis to find how the speaking tasks in collegeEnglish textbook represents the social identity of Chinese college students and to offer pedagogic implications.

Analysis of Skill Exercises of College English Textbooks

As we all know,in English teaching and learning,textbooks plays a very important role.In Central South University,Contempo-rary College English(henceforth CCE) is chosen as textbooks for freshmen and sophomores in general English class,and Subject-basedEnglish(henceforth SBE) for senior grade students in special English class.This study endeavors to evaluate each one of CCE and SBEpublished by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press on the basis of the theoretical foundation and statistical analysis.

An Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis of Texts in English Textbooks Based on Discourse-Historical Approach

As one of major textbooks wildly used in China among secondary school students and high schools, Go For It series published by People's Education Press have obtained and still maintained unshakeable since last century. This study aims at exploring and investigating English texts by People's Education Press trying to find out the conduct of environmental education through English Learning to uncover how language choices in English textbooks are invested with ideological implications based on Discourse-Historical Approach(DHA).

What’ s the Context? Speech Acts Presentation in Oral English Textbooks

In this study,an evaluation of the presentation of speech acts in six oral English textbooks is conducted from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives to see how speech acts are presented and whether enough and explicit meta-pragmatic and contextual information are provided.Results show that 1)there is a paucity of speech acts and the average percentage of the six textbooks including speech acts is only 28.3%.And some speech acts like‘threatening’,‘warning’,‘declaring’,‘welcoming’are not presented at all.2)Meta-pragmatic and contextual information is too general and far from enough.Among all the six textbooks,from Book 1 to Book 5,contextual information is deduced by learners through reading conversations.Only in Book 6,a contextual description is provided before the conversation begins.Contextual information such as the age,gender and social status of Speaker and Hearer is never presented.Contextual information like the relationship between Speaker and Hearer and the place where the conversation happens is inferred from reading the conversations.Meta-pragmatic information like the degree of formality,politeness strategy,indirect speech act strategy,and social norms are not at all involved.Only in Book 1,a cultural tip is provided.Since oral English textbooks are one of the main sources for Chinese EFL learners to enhance their pragmatic competence,it is much expected that they should present a wide variety of popularly-used speech acts with rich contextual information as appropriate language input.

Techniques of English Textbooks Adaptation

This essay attempts to aim English teachers to evaluate and adapt the current English textbooks. According to different levels and majors of the students,English teachers can enhance the teaching materials and their teaching skills. This paper would provide several useful techniques for teachers to make evaluations and adaptations of using teaching materials.

A Cross-Cultural Perspective: An Integration of Traditional Chinese Culture into College English Textbooks

Teaching language is teaching culture. English is an international language with local and global significance.In"New Horizon College English", Chinese culture elements are deficient, which is not conducive to our country's higher education and cross-cultural communication skills and to achieve the goal of innovation of Chinese culture. As an important part of world culture, Chinese culture should be integrated into college English education. College English teaching materials should include not only western cultural elements but also fully present Chinese culture elements.

An Overall Review of English Textbook Evaluation at Home and Abroad

Textbook evaluation is very important in both teaching and learning. The research of the English textbook evaluation in China develops relatively late, so study of the textbook evaluation theory is very important for the present college English teaching in China. The present study introduces some Influential textbook evaluation system and their theoretical characteristics at home and abroad, and points out researchers can detail the textbook evaluation theory in order to evaluate some special areas in English.

Issues and Countermeasures in Chinese FLTRP Primary School Textbooks under the New Curriculum Standard

The New Curriculum Standard(NCS)is the norm and quality requirement of the Chinese national educational curriculum as well as the basis of teaching management,curriculum evaluation,and textbook compilation.In textbook design,the selection of textbook materials should meet the objectives and requirements of the NCS.Since appropriate teaching materials are essential to curriculum standards and effective teaching,we must follow the consistency between textbook materials and curriculum standards to achieve an ideal degree of conformity with the textbook system and teaching objectives and promote the sustainable development of the English curriculum reform.However,the current primary school English textbooks fall short of the NCS,which leads to difficulties in implementing teaching tasks and achieving teaching goals.Given these difficulties,we should analyze the causes from three dimensions:linguistic knowledge,cultural awareness,and learning strategies.In addition,a high recurrence of phonetic knowledge,systematic grammar presentation,diversified learning styles,level grading,and in-depth involvement of cultural factors are keys to the perfect conformity of the NCS and English textbooks.

EXPLORING PRAGMATIC KNOWLEDGE IN COLLEGE ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS

Textbooks are an integral part of teaching and learning in Chinese College English classroom.However,they rarely provide adequate pragmatic information for students to successfully develop their pragmatic competence.This study will examine four College English(New) Listening and Speaking textbooks to find out the nature of pragmatic materials and tasks included in the textbooks.The findings indicate that there is a dearth of pragmatic information contained in the Listening and Speaking textbooks and the variety of pragmatic information is limited.Most of the metapragmatic explanations are simple.

Photographic Illustrations in Chinese College English Textbooks: A Semiotic Analysis

In recent years, the curriculum of College English(CE) in China has seen a trend that veers away from pure language-oriented teaching toward an emphasis on the cultivation of students' cultural or intercultural competence. In this context, the CE textbooks have been highly responsiblized in the transformative agenda, and the use of photographic illustrations in the textbooks has been increasingly valued as a way to include culture carriers. Our study draws perspectives from communicative semiotics and visual semiotics to investigate the way in which photographic illustrations have been involved in the learning process in order to find out whether and how they promote students' cultural and intercultural acquisition. We focus on the semiosis process engendered by the photos as signs and their modes of representation, which largely determines the process and result of cultural acquisition. Our analysis demonstrates that while the photographic illustrations have been designed to enhance cultural learning in hypothetical situations, when placed in a real learning context together with the texts and learning tasks, some of the photos may not successfully promote the process of cultural acquisition, since learners' interpretation of the photos can be diverted or limited by other aspects of the learning context.

The peculiarities of the newly compiled textbooks for English classrooms in China

Flexible and original thinking is the key to outstanding textbooks design. In order to teach English effectively, this paper discusses the changes, features and the effect of the function of new English textbooks and the strategies of addressing the problems arising between foreign and native English textbooks, and offers a framework for students that is not restrictive but allows them to develop their own individual learning process without the restrictions that teachers encounter so often in prescriptive teaching.

A Variety of Cultures Represented in English Language Textbooks： A Critical Study at Saudi University

Textbooks material is one of the important issues that are worthy to investigate in order to enrich student＇s engagement and interaction in EFL （English as a Foreign Language） classrooms. In this study, the author argues that textbooks materials used in academic institutions may well take a significant part in generating an active environment in EEL classrooms. It is believed that more opportunities will be created for students to be more involved, active, and able to understand the content being addressed more effectively. Yet, by looking at the textbooks being utilised （at a university context where the author teaches）, one can notice that student＇s culture （Eastern） is to a large extent missing in these textbooks, most of these books instead represent dominantly ＂Western＂ culture namely American and British cultures. This can deafly be depicted by topics discussed, pictures, clothing, names, and many other issues portrayed in these textbooks. This study is an attempt to challenge and problematize such domination of Western cultures portrayed in the content of English textbooks used in academic institutions not merely within Saudi Arabia but also extended to other countries and nations in the world.

An Analysis of Reading Materials in New Senior English for China Based on Cultivation of Cultural Awareness —A Case Study of Compulsory Book 3

China is in the era of rapid development of information technology and the era of close cultural communication between countries, which requires English teaching to cultivate students’ cultural awareness, develop their intercultural communicative competence. Based on Byram’s checklist, this paper analyzes the cultural contents in reading materials of New Senior English for China (NSEFC) Compulsory Book 3. The research indicates that the textbook is rich in cultural content and the selected reading materials are authentic. However, there are two shortcomings: the uneven distribution of themes as well as cultural contents and the lack of cultural content comparison in the textbook. According to the findings, this paper provides some suggestions for textbook editors and English teachers, aiming at realizing the improvement and a better use of the textbook, so as to cultivate students’ cultural awareness.

Research on the Writing Textbooks for English Majors at Polytechnics

Textbooks, as one of the important elements for the teaching effects and students' training aim and quality are the main carri-er and means for the realization of teaching objectives. The paper analyzes the problems of currently-used textbooks at the followingthree aspects, textbook users, compiling styles and contents, based on 31 popular English writing textbooks used at Polytechnics as re-search subjects. Aiming to improve textbook quality and English teaching reform at Polytechnics, the paper also puts forward the ideasof compiling English writing textbooks on the basis of Feuerstein's theory.

以多元能力为导向的大学英语教材编写实践研究

作为教学内容的主要载体和教学必备工具,大学英语教材直接影响教师如何组织课堂、实施教学,学生加工什么样的输入、进行什么样的产出、培养什么样的能力。为满足新时代培养国际化人才的需求,大学英语教学确立了多元能力培养目标,这些目标应通过教材编写落实在具体的教学内容和活动设计上,从而引导教学实践真正服务于能力培养。本研究以《新未来大学英语》教材为例,探讨以多元能力为导向的大学英语教材的编写,提炼核心原则与策略,以期为教材开发与教学设计提供参考。

北师大版小学英语新教材编写理念及教学建议

教材是“新课标”和课堂教学之间的桥梁,教材建设是铸魂、育人的大工程。北师大版小学英语新教材在编写原则上坚持正确的政治方向、以核心素养融合发展为目标、遵循儿童语言学习规律、内嵌学思用创融合理念。编写思路体现了厚植家国情怀、聚焦主题意义探究、发展学生的思维品质以及关注学习策略等重要理念。研究认为,教师在使用新教材时应以学科育人为出发点,深入解读教材;以问题为导引,创设课堂教学情境;充分了解学情,创造性地设计学习活动;重视评价设计,推动以评促学、以评促教,从而用好、用活教材。