An Analysis of New College English: an English Course Book

chaixingzi

说明：这是本人的一次外语学习研究报告，原创首发。

New College English, edited by Zhejiang University and published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, is an English course book designed for non-English Majors.
The total series consists of 6 volumes, with Volume 1-4 obligatory and Volume 5-6 optional for competent students. There are 12 units in each course book. Each unit is in turn divided into four parts:
Part 1: preparation
Aim: to give the background information concerned with the content to be encountered in the unit and stimulate the students’ interests so that they can be activated before the class formally begins;
Part 2: listening-centered activities
Aim: to give students the necessary listening materials to practice in each class;
Part3: reading-centered activities
Aim: to give students the necessary reading materials to practice in the class. Both the listening and reading materials provided in Part 1 and 2 can be treated as language input for learners.
The course book includes a lot of such listening and reading materials and input is abundant. On the basis of understanding these materials, students can learn to produce.
Part 4: further development
Aim: to provide more challenging materials for the more competent students
As seen in the components included in each unit, the course book is designed in such way that the students are put in the center of the class rather than the teacher, whose role is just to help students.
Each unit is integrated together to train the students in all the fields such as listening, reading, writing and translation because the language skills can only be developed when they are treated together without negligence on any one of the four aspects.
One striking feature of the course book is that the language materials provided are very interesting and keep up with the times. The course book provided various kinds of activities for students in the class and students can never find themselves short of language input. The various activities provided can again give the students many chances to practice their English. The contemporary feature can grasp students eyes and hearts and therefore they are more enthusiastic to learn. We take an example of  Volume 1:
In this volume there are the following topics:
Unit 1: Love
Unit 2: Psychology in our Daily Life
Unit 3: Culture
Unit 4: Holidays and Special Days
Unit 5: Money
Unit 6: Shopping
Unit 7: Emotions and Health
Unit 8: Social Problems
Unit 9: The Joy of Travel
Unit 10: Man and Animals
Unit 11: Advertising
Unit 12: Reflections on Life
As is vividly shown in the topics, the course book is student-friendly. All the topics are concerned with the daily life and students can practice their linguistic skills in their daily life as well. It provides an easy way for them to consolidate their knowledge. After each class, students can also make some language productions with the language skills learned in class, and as they are already familiar with the topics in class, they can feel at ease to make such productions.
The course book is learned-centered, therefore, nearly every aspect of the students needs is considered to facilitate learning process. For Example, in unit 7, the topic is emotions and health. In part 1, there are 9 pictures showing three different men with different lifestyles, and students are suggested to think who is more healthy. In part 2, the listening materials are again focused on health, and students will first hear a dialog on health and then to fill in the blanks. Part 3 provides the reading material: the Secrets of Good Health. This text does not appear in the course book but is only handed out in the class, the students should finish it in class. There are also two after-class readings: Your Anger can Kill You and How to live to be 100. These two readings are supplementary to consolidate the knowledge and to provide students more language input. Each reading is given some tasks. In Part 4, some more challenging tasks are given.
Generally speaking, the course book is satisfying. However the limitations are clear:
1.  It contains too many materials, actually it is beyond the capabilities of an ordinary college student. The teaching materials can hardly be competed in class.
2.  As for the in-class reading material, it is designed as fly-paper. Though it is good at in-class practice, it is difficult to be stored together and some maybe get lost.

agldacheng

楼主再接再励哦.