Extensive Reading Coursebooks in China

This article reports on a principle-based evaluation of eight dedicated extensive reading coursebooks published in mainland China and used in many universities across the country. The aim is to determine the extent to which these coursebooks reflect a core set of nine second language acquisition and extensive reading principles. Our analysis shows that while some of the coursebooks contain features that comply with these principles to an extent, the rest exhibit features of traditional intensive reading coursebooks. Most of these coursebooks contain reading materials that are linguistically too demanding and tasks that are cognitively and affectively unappealing. As a result, they are unlikely to achieve their designated purposes.