back issues of Modern English Teacher donated by Heather Kempson

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue/

Thanks very much to Heather Kempson, who has sent us a run of Modern English Teacher that we were missing (from 4/1 to 12/4.

We're still looking for a copy of the very first issue, published in 1973, in case anyone has one! See here for a list of journal volumes and issues we are seeking for the collection: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue/

Richard Smith : 04 Sep 2013 11:44 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

IATEFL History

Our recent request to IATEFL members for old IATEFL newsletters (in the run-up to 50th anniversary celebrations in 2016-17) has brought a good response.

We have a promise of a substantial run of early back issues, and Jonathan Marks has just sent us missing issues 102 (appositely advertising the 1989 Warwick conference on the front cover!), 105, and 113. Thanks, Jonathan!

Richard Smith : 05 Aug 2013 14:53 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

miscellaneous

A number of things to record briefly -

* a generous donation of back copies of English Teaching Forum by Carol Everhard

* beginnings of a project to write a History of IATEFL (with Shelagh Rixon)

* beginnings of a project to research post-independence history of ELT in India

* successful workshops in late June in the Centre for Applied Linguistics for postgraduate research students in the field of history of language teaching and established scholars (workshop 2 in an AHRC sponsored series: http://historyofmfl.weebly.com/workshops--conference.html)

Richard Smith : 27 Jul 2013 15:56 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Video Interview with John Trim

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/resources/johntrim/

Now available: Interview with John Trim about the History of Modern Language Teaching and Learning, 19 September 2013.

Richard Smith and Nicola McLelland interviewed John Trim for their project 'History of Modern Language Education in the UK and Europe' (http://historyofmfl.weebly.com/index.html).

Richard Smith : 23 Apr 2013 10:15 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

History of EAP and of BALEAP

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/presentations/history_of_eap

20 April 2013. Panel discussion on 'History of EAP and of BALEAP' organized and chaired by Richard Smith. Panellists: John Swales, Andy Gillett and Meriel Bloor. BALEAP Conference 2013: ‘The Janus Moment in EAP: Revisiting the Past and Building the Future’, University of Nottingham, April.

Video of Richard Smith's talk for the British Council - 'A short history of ELT' -- was published online earlier in the year: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/seminars/a-short-history-elt. I managed to insert some photographs of A.S. Hornby and his students taken in 1920s Japan, thanks to the generosity of Phyllis Willis and Paul Snowden.

Richard Smith : 21 Apr 2013 21:45 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A further publication – Hunter and Smith on CLT and the ELTJ

In October the following article was published, having been held back for a special issue of the ELT Journal to mark Keith Morrow's retirement as editor. The article is based on Duncan Hunter's PhD work at Warwick:

Hunter, D. and Smith, R. 2012, Unpackaging the past: "CLT" through ELTJkeywords', ELT Journal66/4: 430-439.

For those interested in finding out more about the research, the full thesis is available on the ELT Archive website:

'Communicative Language Teaching and the ELT Journal: A Corpus-Based Approach to the History of a Discourse', by Duncan Hunter (2009). PhD thesis, Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick.

Richard Smith : 11 Dec 2012 10:38 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Recent publications and talks

News of some articles published and talks given recently which draw heavily on ELT Archive material:

* An article in ELT Journal on A.S. Hornby and his legacy to ELT

* an article in ELT Journal on the contribution of Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn to the recent history of the ELT coursebook

* a talk at the IATEFL conference in Glasgow titled 'A very brief history of ELT coursebooks'

* a talk for the British Council, in Cardiff, titled 'A short history of ELT' (to be uploaded to their TeachingEnglish website)

* a talk at the University College London Summer School on English Phonetics, on 'Phonetics at the source of ELT'. See: http://v7hnbe.pen.io/

Richard Smith : 18 Aug 2012 18:45 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Donation of books from Sudan

Yassir Hassan Hussein (a former Hornby Scholar at Warwick) and Amna Bedri (founder and former President of TESOL Sudan) very kindly donated some books we were looking for to the ELT Archive. Amna brought them all the way from Sudan and handed them over to me at the IATEFL Conference in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago.

Their donation included books by Harold E. Palmer, Michael West, Lawrence Faucett, C.E. Eckersley and J.A. Bright which we don't have in our collection. Some of these were published before World War II, while others were later editions. Still others (by Bright and West) were photocopied editions purchased recently - showing the longevity of the works of some of the ELT pioneers in the Sudanese context.

Amna explained to me, for example, that West's New Method Readers were still favoured by some contemporary learners because they contain short texts which are made easy to understand by the author.

Richard Smith : 31 Mar 2012 15:48 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A short history of ELT coursebooks

Richard Smith - presentation with above title at the IATEFL Conference in Glasgow, within a symposium on 'ELT coursebooks: Past, present and possible'. Details here:

http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/sessions/2012-03-21/very-brief-history-elt-coursebooks

Richard Smith : 26 Mar 2012 13:07 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Developments since May 2011

* BAAL Archive entrusted to our care (transferred in December 2011)

* Ongoing further work on British Council project to develop 'An Archive and Record of British Council involvement in ELT, 1934-2009'.

Richard Smith : 13 Jan 2012 15:42 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem