Fourth editions

Writing this edition between 2015 and 2020 was a refreshingly different experience for me, because I had now moved back from Spain to London, and because Jerry Lambert and Kate Chomacki were now involved as co-authors. They were a very valuable addition to the team, with Jerry contributing more to the lower levels and Kate to the higher ones, which now included an Advanced Plus level.

In general, it was a very enjoyable process, but when we got to the last (new) level, Advanced Plus, the Covid 19 pandemic started, which made everything more difficult, and after years and years of all meetings being face-to-face, suddenly everything was online. But we survived, and managed to bring all the levels out, and happily students eventually got back into the classroom. However we have now learned the importance of writing material that can also be exploited in the online classroom, which I believe is here to stay.      

With this edition, one thing we were clear about was that we wanted to introduce more video listenings. We had the Rob and Jenny videos in the Practical English lessons, but we incorporated video documentaries into the main lessons at all levels, which proved very popular with students. As the Colloquial English levels were popular at the higher levels, we also included more unscripted video interviews in some of the documentaries, for example, the pianist Isata Kanneh Mason in the lesson on music, and the mathematician and TV presenter Bobby Seagull in a lesson on maths and numbers.  

One thing that we lost in this edition was songs. As teachers, we had frequently used songs in class, but preparing activities to go with them was not easy, especially as in those pre-internet days, lyrics were not easily available and we sometimes spent hours playing and replaying songs to try to hear what the words were. But by the 2010s, not only were both lyrics and songs easily available online for teachers to access themselves, but getting permission to use any songs at all, let alone well-known ones, had become increasingly difficult. Now it is incredible to think that in the early editions, we were actually able to use the original versions of several songs. Some teachers were sad to see them go, but the majority, I think, enjoy creating their own activities with songs they know their students will like, rather than using songs which undoubtedly reflected the preferences (and perhaps the age) of the authors!