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

Developments since December 2010

Since the last blog post Penny Trigg (formerly of the British Council) has been making great progress with two projects: (1) sorting out and taking notes from the archives of the A.S. Hornby Educational Trust, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year (this work has been sponsored by the Trust itself) - this work has borne fruit in a presentation at the IATEFL conference in Brighton in April 2011 by Roger Bowers (Chair of the Trust), which made extensive use of Warwick ELT Archive resources and research, as well as the research Penny has more recently been carrying out (Roger and I are also writing a piece for ELT Journal on A.S. Hornby's life and legacy); and (2) building up a comprehensive bibliography of British Council publications in the field of ELT (this work has been financed under the research grant made to the Warwick ELT Archive, mentioned in previous blog entries). In April we heard that the Council is willing to extend this project, with further funding, and the fruits of our labours will appear in due course in the form of further texts uploaded to the Council's Milestones in ELT website, associated notes on the Warwick ELT Archive website, and an annotated bibliography / mini-history of British Council involvement in ELT over the years, to be published in pdf and possibly book form. Not to mention updated catalogues of the Archive, which have been made possible by the British Council's grant. So we're busy!!

Richard Smith : 01 May 2011 15:05 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

'Forbes Collection'

This morning I drove up the M6 and picked up 13 boxes of books and journals at Manchester International Freight Terminal. These had been shipped over from the USA by Dr Charles Forbes, who taught in ESL programs in Lebanon and Iran in the 1960s. We chose books and journals from index cards sent over by Dr. Forbes in advance, selecting those we didn't already have in our collection.  As a result of this generous donation the Warwick ELT Archive collection has been significantly enhanced viz-a-viz the US TESOL/ESL tradition and in relation to the Arab world and Iran, and because of the importance of this donation we're intending to refer to the books/journals in this shipment as the 'Forbes Collection' (along the lines of the 'Dakin Collection' previously received from the University of Edinburgh).

Update (16/12/10):

Dr Forbes writes: 'I am so glad that they arrived safely. When you leave thirteen boxes, wrapped in plastic on a not very sturdy looking pallet, you can't help but have a few worries. I was delighted to get your report.

I do want to note that you are to be complimented for creating such an archive. I could find no equivalent in the United States. Schools of education tend to maintain "Resource Centers" for textbooks, and the books are removed when they are no longer in regular use. Historical research is very difficult. I was delighted to learn of your efforts, and to learn more as the effort to actually get the books to you progressed.

My wife is delighted to have them out of the house. And I was delighted to go to the little trouble that I did in shipping the books. That way they went somewhere useful, rather than to a recycling center. One is always reluctant to see one's once prized collection go that way. My effort was worth it to see that it didn't'.

Richard Smith : 15 Dec 2010 15:15 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Recent donations and interviews

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

Some news of donations and interviews since September:

* Mary Trimble drove up from Devon to generously donate a number of journal back issues to fill in gaps in our collection. We also recorded an interview with her about her career and that of her late husband, Louis Trimble.

* Gareth Owen contacted us from South Africa having seen the Hall of Fame Lionel Billows page. During a trip to Birmingham he gave us some books on our request list, and also donated a copy of his own privately printed book, Recollections of a Wayfaring TEFLER: English Language Teaching in Four Continents 1966-1998, for which we're very grateful. We recorded an interview with him at the time of his visit.

* Roger Bowers also kindly agreed to be interviewed for the 'British Council involvement with ELT' project.

* Shelagh Rixon and I interviewed Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn at Brian's home about their long-standing and ground-breaking creative partnership writing coursebooks (since the 1970s). This included asking Brian to reminisce about and contextualize some of the pre-publication materials he donated to the Warwick ELT Archive some time ago.

* We sent a shipment of duplicate copies of books to the Bangalore Regional Institute of English to fill in gaps in their own collection, and hope to build further on this link in the future.

Richard Smith : 15 Dec 2010 14:59 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

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).

Richard Smith : 25 Sep 2010 22:20 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem