An Analysis of Chinese ELT Textbooks for General Senior High Schools

Francesco Michael Scaringella is a PhD candidate in “Linguistic, literary and intercultural studies in European and extra-European perspectives” at the University of Milan. His main fields of research include foreign language teaching, manuals, linguistics and critical discourse analysis.

Presented at the 2nd Symposium on Language Education and Research (SLER2025) in Thessaloniki, this paper examines English language teaching textbooks used in Chinese general senior high schools. The study explores how these materials balance the communicative goals of the national curriculum with the exam-oriented demands of the gaokao, which strongly shape classroom practices.

1.    Introduction

Although the status of the English language within the Chinese educational system has become a debated topic in recent years, the study of foreign languages – which in the vast majority of cases means English – remains one of the “three main subjects” (Ross, 1992) that constitute the compulsory core of the Nationwide Unified Examination for Admissions to General Universities and Colleges (putong gaodeng xuexiao zhaosheng quanguo tongyi kaoshi 普通高等学校招生全国统一考试), commonly known as gaokao 高考. This exam represents the largest standardised exam in the world, as every year in early June – usually June 7 to 9 – more than 10 million students have to sit it in order to access higher education. Most importantly, as only 500,000 places are provided in the top 100 universities of the country by the central government every year, this exam is often defined as a “make-or-break” one (Harvard University Press Editorial Staff, 2025).

Given the crucial role of English in students’ preparation for the gaokao, this study focuses on Chinese general senior high schools and uses the English language teaching (ELT) textbooks currently adopted in these schools as its main analytical tool. More specifically, the aim is to highlight an inherent inconsistency between the goals of the English language curriculum for general senior high schools – the English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (2017 Edition, Revised in 2020) Formulated by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (Putong Gaozhong Yingyu Kecheng Biaozhun (2017 Nian Ban 2020 Nian Xiuding) Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Jiaoyubu Zhiding 普通高中英语课程标准 (2017年版2020年修订) 中华人民共和国教育部制订, MOE, 2020) – and the nature of the tasks that make up the National Matriculation English Test (NMET), that is the English section of the gaokao, which ultimately define the teaching practice in schools.

2.    Corpus and Methodology

Up to 2025, eight sets of ELT textbooks have been approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education for usage in Chinese general senior high school (MOE, 2023).[1] They all share the same title, that is Putong Gaozhong Jiaokeshu · Yingyu 普通高中教科书·英语 [“General Senior High School Textbook – English”], or English in the English version of the title, and are divided into three volumes for the so-called “compulsory course” (bixiu kecheng 必修课程), that is Bixiu Di-Yi Ce/Di-Er Ce/Di-San Ce 必修第一册/第二册/第三册 [“Compulsory Volume One/Volume Two/Volume Three”], covering the part of the programme required to graduate from senior high school, and four volumes for the “selective compulsory course” (xuanzexing bixiu kecheng 选择性必修课程), that is Xuanzexing Bixiu Di-Yi Ce/Di-Er Ce/Di-San Ce/Di-Si Ce 选择性必修第一册/第二册/第三册/第四册 [“Selective Compulsory Volume One/Volume Two/Volume Three/Volume Four”], covering the content of the gaokao (MOE, 2020).

The analytical framework that was borrowed by the author for his analysis of the contemporary ELT textbooks for Chinese general senior high school is the one devised by Cortés Velásquez et al. (2017). This analytical framework falls into the category of those frameworks that can be applied to the textbooks of any target language and the long list of questions that constitute it – 50 – allows a thorough analysis of them. However, the author devised and applied a reduced version of Cortés Velásquez et al.’s framework, consisting of 37 questions out of the original 50. This choice was made out of three considerations: first, they are all textbooks for Chinese general senior high school; second, the author didn’t consider one single textbook per set but the whole sets; third, the goal was not to express a judgement about the possible adoption of those textbooks.

3.    Analysis

The analysis shows that the English textbooks currently used in Chinese general senior high schools are the result of a compromise between two major influences: on the one hand, the traditional Chinese teaching method (Hu, 2002), aligned with the structure of the gaokao; on the other hand, the Communicative Approach, particularly in the form of Task-Based Language Teaching, which is the most widely adopted methodology worldwide. As a matter of fact, the method actively promoted by the Curriculum Standards, called Activity-Based English Learning (Yingyu xuexi huodongguan 英语学习活动观), is stated to aim at cultivating students’ core language skills through the integrated alignment of teaching goals, content, and methodology. However, in the textbooks, the emphasis is actually placed on developing students’ reading and writing skills and their language knowledge, in accordance with the content of the NMET, as shown below:

Figure 1: Structure of the NMET (Wang & Zhang, 2018: 194)

This emphasis is also apparent when the structure of the textbooks is considered, as a common basic pattern can be identified in all of them: 1. An introduction to the specific theme of the unit (warm-up), 2. The first reading section, 3. Focus on a language point (usually a lexis one) and a grammar point, 4. Activities focused on developing students’ speaking skills, 5. A second reading section, and 6. Activities to develop students’ writing skills.

4.    Conclusions

The NMET can therefore be regarded as a highly language-knowledge-oriented exam and the primary reason for the neglect of students’ speaking and listening skills in the Chinese educational system. As the “baton of high school teaching” (Wang & Zhang, 2018: 197), it exerts a strong influence on the structure and content of ELT textbooks for general senior high schools. These textbooks attempt to strike a balance between the traditional Chinese teaching method – which shapes the gaokao – and the major trend in ELT worldwide, namely the Communicative Approach.

References

Cortés Velásquez, D., Faone, S., & Nuzzo, E. (2017). ANALIZZARE I MANUALI PER L’INSEGNAMENTO DELLE LINGUE: STRUMENTI PER UNA GLOTTODIDATTICA APPLICATA. Italiano LinguaDue, 9(2), 1–74. https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-3597/9871 

Harvard University Press Editorial Staff. (2025, September 17). Understanding China’s Gaokao Exam. Harvard University Press. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/understanding-the-gaokao-exam

Hu, G. (2002a). Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15(2), 93–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908310208666636 

MOE. 中华人民共和国教育部. (2020). 普通高中英语课程标准 (2017年版2020年修订) 中华人民共和国教育部制订 [“English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (2017 Edition, Revised in 2020) Formulated by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China”]. Beijing：People’s Education Press.

MOE. 中华人民共和国教育部. (2023, April 28). 教育部办公厅关于印发2023年中小学教学用书目录的通知 [“Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on Issuing the 2023 Catalogue of Teaching Materials for Primary and Secondary Schools”]. 中华人民共和国教育部 Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A26/s8001/202305/t20230506_1058493.html

Ross, H. (1992). Foreign Language Education as a Barometer of Modernization. In R. Hayhoe (Ed.), Education and Modernization: The Chinese Experience (pp. 239–254). Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Wang, D., & Zhang, X. (2018). National Matriculation English Test in China: Its Past, Present and Future. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 5(4), 183–199.

[1] They are published respectively by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (Waiyu Jiaoxue Yu Yanjiu Chubanshe 外语教学与研究出版社), in partnership with Macmillan Education; the People’s Education Press (Renmin Jiaoyu Chubanshe 人民教育出版社), in partnership with Cengage Learning; the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (Shanghai Waiyu Jiaoyu Chubanshe 上海外语教育出版社); the Hebei Education Press (Hebei Jiaoyu Chubanshe 河北教育出版社); the Beijing Normal University Press (Beijing Shifan Daxue Chubanshe 北京师范大学出版社) in partnership with Pearson Education Asia; the Yilin Press (Yilin Chubanshe 译林出版社) in partnership with Oxford University Press (China); the Chongqing University Press (Chongqing Daxue Chubanshe 重庆大学出版社); and the Shanghai Education Press (Shanghai Jiaoyu Chubanshe 上海教育出版社) (MOE, 2023).