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W: Good evening. I’m going to talk with Andrew Wright. He is an author and language teacher for many years. Nice to meet you here, Andrew. First of all, can you tell us when, where and why did you begin teaching English?
M: I have always been a worker for teachers rather than a language teacher. It’s a bit like being a maker of violins for others to play. Of course, I can and have knocked out some tunes on the violin myself but basically I am a maker.
W: What is your involvement now in English language teaching?
M: I run a language school with my wife. My school organizes London Chamber of Commerce Cert TEB courses for teachers of Business English with Mark Powell. I do some work with teachers in various countries each year. I write articles for teachers’ magazines.
W: How many books have you published? Which are you most proud of?
M: I have been writing non-stop for forty years, almost exactly. So I can’t list all my books. I have been lucky to have been thrown forward by the wave of developments in language teaching for much of that time. I am very proud of being the writer of the very first topic based text book ever written: Kaleidoscope, published by Macmillan in the 1960s. Now out of print. I am also proud of the fact that my Games for Language Learning, is still going strong after 25 years. It was the first book on ELT to be based on the cook book recipe layout of the activities.
W: What in language teaching have most influenced you?
M: In the 1960s I was very influenced by the work of SCOPE, a course book for teaching English as a second language. It showed me that language learning can also be about learning other things of interest and value and not be necessarily based on trivial stories and drills. I was also influenced by books and materials published for teaching other subjects in the curriculum, for example, history, science and social studies.
W: Which three non-ELT books would you take to a desert island?
M: You should have said "apart from Shakespeare! ", because Shakespeare would be my first book to take. Perhaps one of Henry Mayhew’s books on life in London in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, Mayhew’s Characters. It is fascinating and it would make me feel that there are compensations in not having to struggle to exist in a big city... it may not be so bad to live on a desert island. And perhaps I would take a book on survival that has all kinds of intriguing ideas for remaining alive and well in nature.
W: Which level do you prefer teaching? Why?
M: I love working with beginners because it is amazing that beginners can spend an hour with a native speaker and go out of the classroom feeling that they have understood what was being said. They can feel so good. And I love working with advanced students and wonder why I am being paid because it is such a privilege to be paid for spending time with people.
W: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about ELT in the future?
M: I don’t really understand the question. There is a massive demand by people all over the world to learn the world’s language which happens to be English, for the time being. That drive to learn is the main thing and is much more important than all the fancy materials and methods we might dream up.
W: Any other thoughts to pass on about language teaching?
M: Language teaching changes as societies change. I don’t believe that research findings seriously influence how aims and methodologies change. The reasons for students wanting to learn English or not wanting to learn it is largely a reflection of the society, or sub-cultural group, they are living in. This background and its values and perceptions also help to determine the methodologies which are accepted by the learners.
W: Can you be more specific?
M: In the 1960s when I began, Western societies believed that logic could provide answers to everything from military efforts, exploration in space, housing and language teaching. So we had the audio lingual and then the audio visual methodologies which were going to make language learning possible for everybody. In the 1970s there was a rejection of these global and logical answers and there was more concern for the individual; more humanistic approaches. That was in the West. In other parts of the world societies did not move in the same way and the aims and methodologies relevant to the West were and are not necessarily relevant in other societies.
W: It’s such a pleasure talking to you.
M: My pleasure.