Lifetime strategies
In February we had the pleasure of attending the British Council ELTon awards for Innovation in London. The awards ceremony was notable in that it was the first time a Lifetime Achievement Award had been presented. The winners were Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn, authors of many courses including the Strategies series. A few days after the ceremony we invited them to have coffee with its-teachers to talk about the award and their work in ELT.
iT's: How do you like your coffee?Brian Abbs: Quite strong and quite often!
Ingrid Freebairn: But instant when we're working - it's faster.
iT's: Congratulations on winning the very first British Council ELTon Lifetime Achievement Award. How did that feel?
I.F.: When we first heard that we had won the award, we were stunned. Why us? After all, it's not hard to think of people in the profession who are equally, if not more, worthy of it. But when the news had sunk in, we obviously felt very proud and honoured. There is something quite special about being recognised by your peers.
B.A.: And it is also flattering that the British Council sees this award as part of innovation in our industry.
iT's: Winning the award must have made you think back to your early days in the profession. How did you both meet and what was your first joint project?
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| Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn with their ELTon
award. Photo: Frank Noon |
I.F.: We first met in 1969. I had just finished an MA in Applied Linguistics at Reading University, where I was lucky to have as course tutors David Wilkins and Professor David Crystal. I saw an advertisement for a job as Lecturer in EFL at Ealing Technical College (now Thames Valley University). The college was well-known at the time as a pioneer in teaching modern languages, including Chinese, and famous for its language laboratories. Brian was Head of the ELT Division there and many of his staff were published ELT authors, such as Michael Coles and Basil Lord, Vivian Cook, Mary Underwood and Brian of course. So, for someone fresh from university, this seemed a great place to work.
B.A.: The job advertisement included the byline, 'Staff will be encouraged to write their own teaching materials.' With her recent background in Applied Linguistics, I thought that Ingrid might be just the person to help create some new materials for our beginner students, many of whom were 'au pairs' in West London.
I.F.: In our view, the published materials at the time seemed to have little relevance to their lives in Britain. There was no recognition of the kind of language needed to get about, work and make friends.
B.A.: And so our first project was born. We called it TEEM, short for 'The Ealing English Materials' to match "The Ealing Spanish Materials.' It was a fairly hand-to-mouth affair - we wrote a unit one week and taught it the next. When we sent it round to publishers, it had morphed into Strategies.
iT's: Teachers of a certain age know your work best from the Strategies series but it didn't start as a series. Is that right?
B.A.: Yes, Strategies - often referred to as 'White Strategies' - was a one-off, false beginners' book for young adults in Britain. It had a white abstract cover, a strong story line about urban unrest and a bossy main character, Mrs Morrison, memorably played by Miriam Margolyes.
I.F.: It was a book that broke all the rules. It organised the material into communicative sets with functional labels; it had an 'off-the-wall' structural progression going from the verb to be to the third conditional; it had special Creative Speaking and Writing sections and included interesting realia and controversial texts on computer dating and opium smuggling - plus it had an album of songs called Sky High!
B.A.: At the time it was considered rather messy and a bit unruly. We loved it but our Longman publisher, Paula Kahn, was more sceptical and considered its publication as a high-risk venture. She told us "It might do quite well in the chic private language schools along the south coast of Britain, Brian, but don't hold your breath, you two!"
I.F.: To everyone's surprise, the book was quite a success and we were then commissioned by Longman to write a complete series of four books, starting slowly from the beginning.
iT's: What do you think made the whole Strategies series so memorable?
I.F.: Some people say it was the visual impact of the books - the bold colours of the covers, the full-colour photographic spreads and the design, adding up to something we call 'the look of the book.'
B.A.: But people also say it was the characters, for example, Rod and Barbara in Building Strategies. I remember a few years ago a lively presentation at IATEFL called something like: 'When Rod met Barbara'- whether the presenter was for or against I can't recall!
I.F.: We also chose real settings in Britain. This was something teachers said they liked. But more seriously, Strategies was one of the first commercial courses to consider what students wanted to do with language and to follow a communicative syllabus through to the end.
iT's: You did away with the grammar syllabus. What prompted that decision? Did you realise at the time how revolutionary it was?
B.A.:
Well, it was and wasn't. People often forget that at the time there
was a language teaching revolution all over Europe. In 1975 the Council
of Europe produced the ground-breaking 'Threshold Level'. This identified
in detail the language needed for a non-native speaker to operate effectively
in the target language. This obviously helped us to define what language
we wanted to teach. This was the basis of our thinking and our work.
And yes, to us it was revolutionary.
I.F.: But it's wrong to say that we 'did away with' grammar. What we did was to give every part of the grammar syllabus a communicative purpose and label, e.g. instead of the label 'Present Simple with Adverbs of Frequency', we would say 'Ask and talk about your daily routine.'
B.A.: We never abandoned grammar. There was always a grammar summary at the end of each unit.
iT's: Together and individually you've written more than nine course projects. Is there one title that stands out as your favourite?
I.F.: Strategies will always rank high as a favourite, being our first course, but when people ask 'What sort of books do you write?', I usually show them Snapshot because it's visually stunning and looks so teachable.
B.A.: I agree. Snapshot seems to combine all the things we believe in: achievable learning aims, careful grading and signposting, engaging topics and characters, and lots of opportunity for students to practise grammar in communicative contexts.
iT's: Do you think the communicative approach has been diluted over the years?
I.F.: Yes, to a certain extent. There has been a definite swing back towards a grammar syllabus. Teachers feel that focussing on grammar is safe, easy to mark and lends itself to standardisation. Communicative practice on the other hand is open-ended, unpredictable and less easy to mark and grade. Pair work and group work in today's large classes are difficult to organise and monitor, so naturally teachers avoid them. However, we still feel that a communicative syllabus should be an essential part of any language learning programme.
iT's: What do you consider to be the secret of your success?
B.A.: It's probably a combination of things. First there's our ability to work together in the same room without losing our tempers! We have always worked together on every part of the Students' Book. Ingrid and I have never divided our writing work into 'my bit 'and 'her bit'.
I.F.: We are obviously very different personalities and we bring different skills and insights to our work. Brian is the more visual and I am the more logical of the two. We complement each other but we ask the same fundamental questions when we write our material: Will it interest the student? Will it work with a large class? Is there enough help for the teacher?
B.A.: But perhaps most importantly, we've been lucky enough
to have behind us a talented and creative publishing team that has been
largely unchanged over almost two decades.
iT's: Do you think that the Internet, and
all the developments in web 2.0, mean that teachers will create more
and more materials for each other, and bypass the publishers?
I.F.: Obviously the opportunity for teachers to make and share materials is exciting. It has never been easier for teachers to create their own materials. The range of imaginative Web 2.0 tools available on the internet is breathtaking but in the end, these are usually one-off pieces and often offered as something to do on a Friday afternoon.
B.A.: Whatever the digital platform you're writing for, the material has to be top quality. When it comes to an ordered sequence of illustrated and fully integrated material, we feel teachers will still prefer a published course. In our experience, you can't beat the combination of author, editor and designer.
iT's: We understand you're currently advising on a new project for junior learners.
I.F.: Yes, we are. Fortunately, teachers still want new reliable material on a regular basis, so there's always going to be a new course somewhere in the pipeline.
B.A.: For obvious reasons we wouldn't undertake to write another major series, but we're happy to shape and advise on a new course and try to give it what we hope is the 'X-factor'. More than that our lips are sealed!
iT's: Does this mean you both plan to carry on working in ELT or are you thinking of exploring new horizons?
B.A.: I still have an urge to write a musical.
I.F.: For me, there's a temptation to write a 'real book' but where's the time? We're still working and we love it.
B.A.: The trouble with ELT is that it's like a good book, once you pick it up, it's impossible to put it down.
iT's: Finally, did you get an award each to put on your coffee tables or will you be sharing it?
I.F.: One is plenty - and we're very good at sharing.