Teaching English as a Foreign Language - Preface

Preface

The increased learning and teaching of English throughout the world during recent years in both state and commercial educational institutions has produced a new cadre of professionals: teachers of EFL. Some have moved across from teaching English as a mother tongue, others from teaching modern languages; many have been drawn into service for no other reason than that their own spoken English is good, or perhaps because they are native English speakers. Many have started without specific training, others feel they need to rethink the basis of their teaching.

This book is written for teachers of all backgrounds. Our aim is to discuss a wide range of teaching problems—from classroom techniques to school organisation—in order to help practising teachers in their daily tasks. We have adopted an eclectic approach, recognising that the teaching of English must be principled without being dogmatic, and systematic without being inflexible. We have tried to show how the underlying principles of successful foreign language teaching can provide teachers in a wide range of EFL situations with a basic level of competence which can be a springboard for their subsequent professional development. We gratefully record our debt to colleagues and students past and present at the London University Institute of Education, whose experience and thinking have helped shape our own. Particularly, we would like to thank our colleague John Norrish for compiling the bibliography.