Following the Second World War, the British Council, along with British publishers and universities, began to take a serious interest in English as a foreign language teaching ('ELT') and the UK soon gained a dominant role in the development and export of teaching approaches and materials. This set includes the works of neglected theorists such as Horace Wyatt, who indicated that English can be taught through the mother tongue as well as 'directly', and Michael West, whose emphasis on the educational value of teaching reading 'in difficult circumstances' has often been ignored in favor of the more utilitarian, spoken-language approach to ELT.

This collection focuses on the work of the major pioneers working in the 1920s and 1930s whose research and writings laid the methodological foundations for post-World War II British approaches to English as a foreign language teaching (ELT). These early pioneers included Harold E. Palmer (in Japan), Michael West (in India), and Laurence Faucett (in China). Separately and jointly (at the 1934-5 'Carnegie Conference'), they succeeded in establishing a principled basis for the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, different in significant respects from teaching English as a 'first language' in Britain and the Empire.

This set includes the works of neglected theorists such as Horace Wyatt and Michael West. This set complements English as a Foreign Language Teacing, 1912-1936: Pioneers of ELT.

Winner, CCCC Outstanding Book Award Until recently, American composition scholars have studied writing instruction mainly within the borders of their own nation, rarely considering English composition in the global context in which writing in English is increasingly taught. Writing in the Devil’s Tongue challenges this anachronistic approach by examining the history of English composition instruction in an East Asian country. Author Xiaoye You offers scholars a chance to observe how a nation changed from monolingual writing practices to bilingual writing instruction in a school setting. You makes extensive use of archival sources to help trace bilingual writing instruction in China back to 1862, when English was first taught in government schools. Treating the Chinese pursuit of modernity as the overarching theme, he explores how the entry of Anglo-American rhetoric and composition challenged and altered the traditional monolithic practice of teaching Chinese writing in the Confucian spirit. The author focuses on four aspects of this history: the Chinese negotiation with Anglo-American rhetoric, their search for innovative approaches to instruction, students’ situated use of English writing, and local scholarship in English composition. Unlike previous composition histories, which have tended to focus on institutional, disciplinary, and pedagogical issues, Writing in the Devil’s Tongue brings students back to center stage by featuring several passages written by them in each chapter. These passages not only showcase rhetorical and linguistic features of their writings but also serve as representative anecdotes that reveal the complex ways in which students, responding to their situations, performed multivalent, intercultural discourses. In addition, You moves out of the classroom and into the historical, cultural, and political contexts that shaped both Chinese writing and composing practices and the pedagogies that were adopted to teach English to Chinese in China. Teachers, students, and scholars reading this book will learn a great deal about the political and cultural impact that teaching English composition has had in China and about the ways in which Chinese writing and composition continues to be shaped by rich and diverse cultural traditions and political discourses. In showcasing the Chinese struggle with teaching and practicing bilingual composition, Writing in the Devil’s Tongue alerts American writing scholars and teachers to an outdated English monolingual mentality and urges them to modify their rhetorical assumptions, pedagogical approaches, and writing practices in the age of globalization.

Uncovering the role of literature, late imperialism, and the rise of new models of internationalism as integral to the invention of Global English, this book focuses on three key figures from the “Vocabulary Control Movement” - C.K. Ogden, Harold Palmer, and Michael West - who competed for market share for their respective language teaching systems - Basic English, the Palmer Method, and the New Method - through battles over word lists and teaching methods in the 1920s and 30s. Drawing on archives from the Carnegie Corporation and considering language teaching in eight global sites, this book analyzes how a series of conferences in New York and London resolved their conflicts and produced a consolidated, international standard form of English. As a postcolonial approach to the development of the field of English Language Teaching, it reveals how these language debates were proxy battles over an idealized global subject: an urban, secular, consumer moving seamlessly between the tribal and global, speaking both mother tongues and an international lingua franca, Global English. Featuring analysis of the primary texts of each of the three key figures in this book as well as close readings of their readers, which featured adaptations of well-known literary texts from writers like Poe, Dickens, Wordsworth, Milton and Wells, it recovers a neglected history of English as it was redefined as an international language through anti-colonial resistance in the peripheries and transatlantic power struggles in the metropole during the interwar period.

This book investigates an important but under-researched aspect of dictionary making: the use of a controlled vocabulary in definitions. The main concern of the author is the role of a definition vocabulary in how foreign learners understand and perceive dictionary definitions. The author takes the reader through a detailed historical account of controlled vocabularies and examines definitions in a range of English dictionaries with respect to their vocabulary loads. He performs a series of experiments with university students to reveal merits and shortcomings of restricted vocabularies. This monograph has been written with the aim to fill a gap in the literature on defining vocabulary. It is intended for lexicographers, dictionary editors, course designers, teachers, and students, as well as anyone who wishes to explain words in an intelligible way.