The Construction of EAP Textbooks in Chinese Context from the Perspective of Eco-education Theory

The increase of international exchange in education triggers strong demand for learning English language skills in various academic disciplines among Chinese students, which brings up a wide implementation of EAP (English for academic purposes) learning in universities in China. However, the teaching and learning result do not seem to be as satisfactory. A key factor to the disappointing situation is the lack of suitable textbooks. Currently, most of the few domestically designed EAP textbooks only focus on the reading and writing and cannot meet the learners’ needs of overall (listening, speaking, reading and writing) development. The adoption of textbooks designed abroad was found unable to cater to the needs and language proficiency of the learners in China. There is an urgent need of constructing localized textbook for EAP learning in Chinese context. Previous frameworks on textbook design are mainly based on linguistic theories, which though offer theoretical support of language study from the perspective of learning subjects did not pay attention to the interconnection of factors within the learning environment. This paper proposes the application of eco-education theory to the design of a localized EAP textbook. It stresses the importance of the interrelations between textbook, editor, researcher, teacher and student during the process of designing a localized textbook so as to promote a healthy and sustainable development of EAP learning in Chinese context.