Third editions

Once a series is established, it’s considered pretty normal in the publishing world to update it every six or seven years, so in about 2010, we started writing third editions, the first two of which were published in 2012. As with New English File, Clive and I were keen to improve on the previous edition 

We decided on two key improvements. Firstly, the number of units. Many schools and teachers had told us that they needed a book which could be easily divided either in half, or into three parts, to fit in with their terms or semesters. In New English File, Elementary and Pre-intermediate had nine Files, and Beginner, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, and Advanced had seven Files, none of which fitted the criteria! With third editions we standardised things so that the lower levels had twelve Files, and the higher levels, with their longer lessons, had ten. This also facilitated publishing each level in split editions for short courses and was generally a great improvement. 

The other big change was regarding the video for the Practical English lessons. In New English File, the video, which told the story of Mark (American) and Allie (British), was filmed in a studio. It was popular, but teachers said they would much prefer it to be filmed in the real world, so for third editions, this is what we did. New protagonists Rob and Jenny came into being – Beginner, Elementary and Intermediate were filmed in London, Intermediate Plus in Oxford, and Pre-intermediate was filmed in New York. I think this transformed the lessons. Teachers and students became very attached to the two characters and from then onwards, whenever Clive and I gave talks, one of the questions we were most often asked was, ‘What happened to Rob and Jenny – did they get married / have children etc.?’!

For the higher levels we incorporated new Colloquial English lessons, the idea being to expose students to totally unscripted listening. We interviewed many fascinating people who had experience or expertise related to topics that had come up in previous lessons, for example the actor, Simon Callow after a lesson about acting, or the illustrator Sir Quentin Blake after a lesson on art.  It was a challenge to get people to agree to be interviewed, especially the ‘big names’, but we managed to get some really interesting exclusive material for the series, and are very proud of these lessons, which have developed still further in the fifth edition.

For the third editions the writing team expanded with the incorporation of a new co-author, Jerry Lambert. Jerry had previously been a key editor on the series, and he co-wrote the Advanced level with me.