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Abstract: Courrsebooks are important in teaching and education. An evaluation of a coursebook called An Intermediate Course in Writing is made from the aspects of background, fitness to the curriculum, physical characters, logical characters and teachability.
Key Words: coursebooks; evaluation; English writing
An Intermediate Course in Writing is a coursebook about English writing published by the Higher Education Press for college students in China. In this paper, an evaluation of this coursebook will be made from the aspects of background, fitness to the curriculum, physical characters, logical characters and teachability.
Background
The An Intermediate Course in Writing is published by the Higher Education Press. The Higher Education Press is one of the authoritive and influential presses in China, which produced lots of excellent coursebooks and materials concerning different levels of educations. Coursebooks on foreign language published in that press are popular among both eachers and students in China for their authority, integrity and low prices.
The authors and the editors of this book are Diao Huiyao and Li Mei who are professors and vice-professor of Shanghai International Studies University which is one of the most excellent universities on foreign languages. They are both scholars with distinguished academic achievements and teachers with rich teaching experience. They are qualified to produce a book An Intermediate Course in Writing for college students.
Fitness to the Curriculum of College English and Learning
According to the College English Syllabus in 1999, college students should be trained to have strong reading ability and reach intermediate level of listening, speaking, writing and translation so as to communicate in English. Students are required not only to understand English but also can express themselves clearly in oral and written communications. And the CET also needs students to develop the ability of self-study and improve cultural quality. So according to the objectives of College English Test, writing is an important skill that needs to be trained for Chinese English learners in college. Comparing with other skills in English learning like reading, speaking, listening and translation, writing may be the most difficult one to grasp. For teachers, it is not easy to collect proper and effective materials about writing in teaching; for students, they often feel anxious about writing. In order to do well in writing, one need not only to know enough knowledge of the target language but also know the way of writing, that is to know what to write and how to write. So a book with effective and extensive guidance is necessary and important. The aim of the coursebook An Intermediate Course in Writing is to help Chinese students gain and improve their English writing ability. The whole book is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, the authors just introduce some basic knowledge and concepts of writing, like the function of writing, knowledge concerning text, paragraph construction, sentence structure, words selection and punctuations, including some differences between Chinese and English. The basic knowledge with examples and plain explanations may draw an outline of writing to the students in order to arouse their interests and confidence in writing rather than anxiety. And from those basic introductions the students may have a brief understanding of English writing. The following three chapters are respectively concerning writing techniques, types of writing and practical writing. All these chapters are well organized. In chapter two about techniques, the author introduces some techniques concerning how to write the title, the beginning and the conclusion of a composition, how to keep coherence of the text and some other techniques. These techniques are explained with a variety of vivid examples which are easy for the students to understand and “imitate”. At the end of each part, some writing tasks are provided for training. The third chapter is organized in the similar way focusing on the four different types of writing: description, exposition, narration and argumentation. In this chapter, some distinctive features of each type of writing and its writing skills are introduced in order to train the students to write more specifically and elegantly. The tasks provided in the end also train the students to appreciate others’ text. Practical writing in the last chapter is the most practical part. In this chapter, the author tells the students how to write practical writings such as letters, notices, resumes and employment applications including both the forms and principles. These practical writings will not only be used in the examination but also be used in the students’ daily life and future work.
Another special feature of the book need to be mentioned here is it is mainly written in Chinese, different from most of the writing course books at present which are mainly written in English. For Chinese students, explaining in Chinese will be easier for them to understand and to grasp the main idea. Then they will gain the ability more easily and effectively. On the other hand, the texts which are taken as examples are carefully selected from many different sources in order to make them as native as possible. That may help the students not to be negatively influenced by their mother tongue. Physical Characters
The layout of this coursebook is well designed. It is clear and concise. First, the title of each chapter and section is in bold that is very striking. That helps readers to grasp the main contents of each part easily. Second, the example texts and the explaining words are in different typefaces. That makes the reader find out the examples easily without confusing. And the typefaces and the sizes are both proper to see clearly. Moreover, many vivid pictures are also employed in this book which make the book looks lively and to some extent may arouse the students’ interests.
Logical Characters
The price of the book is 25.oo RMB. It is an acceptable price for most teachers and students. But it dose not contain many auxiliary parts except some questions for thinking and tasks for practicing at the end of each section. An advantage is the reference answers to the questions are provided at the end of the book.
Teachability
This book contains many valuable and useful contents within the book itself and is very suitable for students’ self-study, but there are no extra teachers’ books to help the teachers to explain or plan the activities in class. It just offers the keys to the questions and tasks at the end of each section. And the keys are often brief. They may just offer a brief answer or illustrate a text as an example without further explanations. In order to make the students understand the questions well or make the students well trained, the teachers need to develop more explanations or add more examples themselves.
Through the analyses and the evaluation of An Intermediate Course in Writing from the above four perspectives, we can draw a conclusion that for students, it is a very suitable coursebook, especially for their self-study; for teachers, it may lack of sufficient teaching references attached to it. Although having a few disadvantages, generally speaking, the book An Intermediate Course in Writing is a valuable and practical coursebook on English writing skill training for Chinese college students.
References
1 Brown, J. D. The Elements of Language Curriculum: A Systematic Approach to Program Development. Heinle & Heinle / Thomson Learning Asia, 1995.
2 Li Mei & Diao Huiyao. An Intermediate Course in Writing. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2006.
3 Yi, Xiubo. Applied linguistics: Language Learning and Teaching. Changchun: Jilin University Press, 2004.
Key Words: coursebooks; evaluation; English writing
An Intermediate Course in Writing is a coursebook about English writing published by the Higher Education Press for college students in China. In this paper, an evaluation of this coursebook will be made from the aspects of background, fitness to the curriculum, physical characters, logical characters and teachability.
Background
The An Intermediate Course in Writing is published by the Higher Education Press. The Higher Education Press is one of the authoritive and influential presses in China, which produced lots of excellent coursebooks and materials concerning different levels of educations. Coursebooks on foreign language published in that press are popular among both eachers and students in China for their authority, integrity and low prices.
The authors and the editors of this book are Diao Huiyao and Li Mei who are professors and vice-professor of Shanghai International Studies University which is one of the most excellent universities on foreign languages. They are both scholars with distinguished academic achievements and teachers with rich teaching experience. They are qualified to produce a book An Intermediate Course in Writing for college students.
Fitness to the Curriculum of College English and Learning
According to the College English Syllabus in 1999, college students should be trained to have strong reading ability and reach intermediate level of listening, speaking, writing and translation so as to communicate in English. Students are required not only to understand English but also can express themselves clearly in oral and written communications. And the CET also needs students to develop the ability of self-study and improve cultural quality. So according to the objectives of College English Test, writing is an important skill that needs to be trained for Chinese English learners in college. Comparing with other skills in English learning like reading, speaking, listening and translation, writing may be the most difficult one to grasp. For teachers, it is not easy to collect proper and effective materials about writing in teaching; for students, they often feel anxious about writing. In order to do well in writing, one need not only to know enough knowledge of the target language but also know the way of writing, that is to know what to write and how to write. So a book with effective and extensive guidance is necessary and important. The aim of the coursebook An Intermediate Course in Writing is to help Chinese students gain and improve their English writing ability. The whole book is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, the authors just introduce some basic knowledge and concepts of writing, like the function of writing, knowledge concerning text, paragraph construction, sentence structure, words selection and punctuations, including some differences between Chinese and English. The basic knowledge with examples and plain explanations may draw an outline of writing to the students in order to arouse their interests and confidence in writing rather than anxiety. And from those basic introductions the students may have a brief understanding of English writing. The following three chapters are respectively concerning writing techniques, types of writing and practical writing. All these chapters are well organized. In chapter two about techniques, the author introduces some techniques concerning how to write the title, the beginning and the conclusion of a composition, how to keep coherence of the text and some other techniques. These techniques are explained with a variety of vivid examples which are easy for the students to understand and “imitate”. At the end of each part, some writing tasks are provided for training. The third chapter is organized in the similar way focusing on the four different types of writing: description, exposition, narration and argumentation. In this chapter, some distinctive features of each type of writing and its writing skills are introduced in order to train the students to write more specifically and elegantly. The tasks provided in the end also train the students to appreciate others’ text. Practical writing in the last chapter is the most practical part. In this chapter, the author tells the students how to write practical writings such as letters, notices, resumes and employment applications including both the forms and principles. These practical writings will not only be used in the examination but also be used in the students’ daily life and future work.
Another special feature of the book need to be mentioned here is it is mainly written in Chinese, different from most of the writing course books at present which are mainly written in English. For Chinese students, explaining in Chinese will be easier for them to understand and to grasp the main idea. Then they will gain the ability more easily and effectively. On the other hand, the texts which are taken as examples are carefully selected from many different sources in order to make them as native as possible. That may help the students not to be negatively influenced by their mother tongue. Physical Characters
The layout of this coursebook is well designed. It is clear and concise. First, the title of each chapter and section is in bold that is very striking. That helps readers to grasp the main contents of each part easily. Second, the example texts and the explaining words are in different typefaces. That makes the reader find out the examples easily without confusing. And the typefaces and the sizes are both proper to see clearly. Moreover, many vivid pictures are also employed in this book which make the book looks lively and to some extent may arouse the students’ interests.
Logical Characters
The price of the book is 25.oo RMB. It is an acceptable price for most teachers and students. But it dose not contain many auxiliary parts except some questions for thinking and tasks for practicing at the end of each section. An advantage is the reference answers to the questions are provided at the end of the book.
Teachability
This book contains many valuable and useful contents within the book itself and is very suitable for students’ self-study, but there are no extra teachers’ books to help the teachers to explain or plan the activities in class. It just offers the keys to the questions and tasks at the end of each section. And the keys are often brief. They may just offer a brief answer or illustrate a text as an example without further explanations. In order to make the students understand the questions well or make the students well trained, the teachers need to develop more explanations or add more examples themselves.
Through the analyses and the evaluation of An Intermediate Course in Writing from the above four perspectives, we can draw a conclusion that for students, it is a very suitable coursebook, especially for their self-study; for teachers, it may lack of sufficient teaching references attached to it. Although having a few disadvantages, generally speaking, the book An Intermediate Course in Writing is a valuable and practical coursebook on English writing skill training for Chinese college students.
References
1 Brown, J. D. The Elements of Language Curriculum: A Systematic Approach to Program Development. Heinle & Heinle / Thomson Learning Asia, 1995.
2 Li Mei & Diao Huiyao. An Intermediate Course in Writing. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2006.
3 Yi, Xiubo. Applied linguistics: Language Learning and Teaching. Changchun: Jilin University Press, 2004.