Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

4 What materials is the teacher using?
There are two important aspects to this question. One asks
first about the actual content of the teaching materials in a
number of senses. What is the actual linguistic content?
What sounds, words, grammar or conventions of reading or
writing are in it? A good deal of attention is devoted to
answering this particular question in subsequent chapters of
this book. Then: What is the language actually about—a
typical English family, Malaysian schoolboys of different
ethnic backgrounds, a pair of swinging London teenagers, or
corgies, crumpets and cricket? A tourist in New York, or the
polymerisation of vinyl chloride, or the grief of a king who
believes himself betrayed by the daughter he loves most?
The second aspect concerns the type of material it is. Is it
specially written with controlled grammar and vocabulary
from a predetermined list? Or is it ‘authentic’ and
uncontrolled? What kinds of control have been used in terms
of frequency of items, simplicity plus functional utility? Does

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In the Classroom
24
it have a specific orientation towards a particular group of
learners—English for electronic engineers—or is it designed
to foster general service English? Is its orientation primarily
linguistic or primarily communicative?
5 How is it possible to tell whether one lesson is in some
way ‘better’ than another?
Is it to be done in purely pragmatic terms? Do pupils learn
from a particular sort of lesson more quickly, with less effort,
and greater enjoyment than those who learn by some other
type of lesson? Is there any difference between teaching
adults and children? Is it possible to measure in any real way
different degrees of efficiency in learning? For example, is it
true that the method which teaches most words is the best
method? Or, on the other hand, are there a number of basic
underlying principles, fundamental concepts, which can be
brought to bear on what is clearly a rather complex form of
human activity to illuminate what is going on and help in
making decisions, which are wise enough to avoid being
simplistic and naive, yet positive enough to ensure effective
action in any given set of circumstances?
It is in the belief that pragmatism and principle must walk
hand in hand that the following chapters have been written.
First some basic principles will be explored, and then the
consequences of applying those to particular areas of
language teaching will be looked at in the hope that by the
time readers reach the end of the book they will be in a better
position to give informed and reasonably well balanced
answers to at least some of the questions posed above, not
only about the lessons sketched here but about any lesson in
English to foreigners.