The Challenges Brought by China’s New English Textbooks for Senior High Students

Abstract

English is an important subject throughout the educational experience of Chinese students. In 2019, the Chinese education department revamped English textbooks, in which vocabulary had been changed from American to British English, and more Chinese elements were added into contexts. However, these changes put some students in a dilemma, as they had studied the old versions of English textbooks for around six years but were suddenly exposed to the new English textbooks in high school. By investigating students’ evaluations of the 2019 edition of English textbooks used in senior high school, this study aims to explore challenges caused by the new textbooks from the perspectives of senior high school students. Participants from a private school in Yunnan province, China, would provide data by finishing a bilingual questionnaire online. Then, a mixed research method is adopted to analyse the data collected and illustrate the challenges brought by the new English textbooks with the help of Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspectives. The finding shows that the new English textbooks challenge students and make English learning much more difficult. However, the contents provided in the new textbooks focusing on world cultures are useful for students to broaden their horizons and enrich their knowledge of world cultures. This study also identifies the actual situations of educationally backward regions to draw more attention to students struggling to learn English. Besides, some practical suggestions for helping students to adapt to the new textbooks will also be mentioned.Keywords: English education, English textbooks, English learning, Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspectives, Chinese students, Chinese curriculum reform