Textbook Digitization: A Case Study of English Textbooks in China

The continuous promotion of e-teaching materials in the international education community prompted the Chinese government to incorporate the use of e-teaching materials in its educational system in 2010. This article introduces the different definitions of e-teaching materials in Chinese and international academia, analyzes the benefits and shortcomings of e-teaching materials by using the 2019 version of the English textbook for high school from The People’s Education Press. The study employs content analysis to provide an in-depth interpretation of how task setting in three textbooks reflects an inclination towards e-teaching materials from four aspects- listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Randomly selected units in three textbooks are used to discuss how digital elements contribute to the textbooks and to the emergence of the e-learning trend. Although China’s textbooks are not fully digitalized, a variety of teaching contexts, resources, and content connotations that appear in existing textbooks indicate that e-learning is now an essential element in Chinese English-learning textbooks.