All entries for September 2010
September 25, 2010
Louis Alexander – new entry to Hall of Fame
Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/halloffame/louis_alexander/
L.G. Alexander (1932-2002) is the latest addition to the Warwick ELT Archive Hall of Fame. Author of New Concept English, and the man behind Follow Me! (BBC/Longman), he was also a co-author of the Council of Europe's Waystageand Threshold 'communicative' syllabuses. Recently a statue was erected in his memory in Beijing, a mark of recognition for the phenomenal popularity of his works in that country. More notes on his life and career are available via the link above. By clicking on the 'Archive' button, you can also hear a very interesting 'off-the-cuff' talk by him (recorded in 1981) on the history of English language teaching in the 20th century. This is the first recording we've uploaded to the site - more should follow soon.
UPDATE (10th October): Julia Alexander, the widow of L.G. Alexander, has contributed some very interesting notes on his life and family history, also available via the link above (click on the 'Archive' button).
September 13, 2010
recent acquisitions
Writing about web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elt_archive
We're very grateful to Robert Phillipson for donating the tapes of interviews with ELT professionals he made in the course of researching the thesis which became Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 1992). He handed these over to me at the BAAL (British Association of Applied Linguistics) conference in Aberdeen and we'll be both digitalizing them and requesting permission from some of the interviewees for their interviews to be made public and even put online.
Another welcome development at the BAAL conference - approval was given to transferring the records BAAL has kept relating to its own history to the Warwick ELT Archive, some time in the near future. These will complement the documents we already have relating to the early history of applied linguistics in the UK, particularly at Edinburgh.