The Suitability of EAP Textbooks to the Learning Needs in Chinese Context—From a Pre-Use Perspective

The selection of an appropriate textbook has always been a great concern of teachers and students. Frameworks for the evaluation of textbook in previous researches are too complex to help a quick decision. This paper firstly gives an account of Chinese students' needs in learning EAP. It then proposes a framework for the suitability of the textbook and applies it to three textbooks for meeting the learning needs in the Chinese context. The result shows that domestically designed textbooks are, to some extent, inexperienced in the arrangement of content and academic skills, and even in the understanding of the nature of EAP learning. It also reveals that the imported classical textbook though quite experienced and shows general good suitability presents some problems in its suitability to a particular culture. Given the limited researches on EAP textbooks, this study sheds light on the selection and construction of EAP textbook in the Chinese context.