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.

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.

Originally published in 1972. 1900-1970 saw extensive changes in the teaching of English in schools. The volume studies English instruction as it developed at junior and secondary level over this period. Using textbooks, method books, Board and Ministry Reports and other contemporary opinion, the book examines the basic questions arising from this historical survey. Whilst the main emphasis is on changes in actual classroom methods, the volume also examines the wider social pressures which have modified the school system in the UK as well as English as a subject in that system.