Page 28 - ELG1704 Apr Issue 446

FEATURES & COMMENT

One answer put

forward by the
anti-coursebook
Cosa Nostra is the

myth of the dreaded
PARSNIP

bunch of words first written by a hard pressed
hack working to a strict deadline and to fit a
specific space and following the strict criteria
set out on their magazine’s style guide.
Students brought up on a diet of such stuff
can end up with a very weird view of English
vocabulary. In one class I observed a student
was asked to give an example sentence with
the word plummet.
‘The apple plummeted,’ she announced.
Only apples don’t normally plummet. Stock
markets do, and prices and politicians’ popu-
larity. But that’s a set of collocations you only
need if you’re a journalist. A B1 student is
going to look like a prat if, which is extremely
banned? Anthropomorphism? Aphorism? tempted to punch them on the nose. unlikely, she sees the word plummet again
As for sex and drugs and rock and roll, do In my view whatever it is that is wrong often enough to remember it and use it.
you regularly regale your male and female with coursebooks, it has little to do with a The new buzz word in course book publish-
workmates with your stories of your alcohol lack of sex and drugs and rock and roll and ing is content rich. But if you end up with all
and cocaine fuelled sexual exploits? Or asked much more to do with what Mario Rinvolu- the content produced in journalism, you’ll
a group of teenagers about theirs? Be careful cri has called subjournalism, of the kind you end up with the same old problem.
if you do the latter, in a liberal Western find in women’s magazines. Journalism alone, whether authentic or
country or you may well end up accused of I am a journalist. I like journalism. But simplified, is not written to be studied. It is
sexual grooming. I am very well aware of its limitations. It written at a specific time, to attract a specific
If you want to teach ‘taboo’ subjects go is a culturally-specific genre with its own audience to at least start the article. The
vocabulary, its own peculiar conventions and average time a reader spends on an internet
When was the a particular grammar: British journalism is article is around 2 minutes. The average time
last time you sat the genre with the highest use of the perfect it stays on line is a day. Content it may be,
aspect, according to the Longman Grammar
but rich?
What course books need is new authors
down with your of Written and Spoken English. It bears little and dedicated editors. People who have a
if any relationship to the spoken form.
friends and talked authentic or simplified, has become the holy passionate view of teaching and methodol-
But for 30 years journalism, whether
ogy. People who can write not just journal-
about pork? writ of much of English language teaching. ism, but narrative, and descriptions, make
Sometimes it’s authentic stuff taken from radio scripts and do live interviews. They
the internet by a teacher determined on au- need the eye to spot the perfect poem, the
ahead. You know your class. But remember thenticity. Sometimes it has been simplified, film clip, the cartoon. Such people are few
the only thing worse than being told to avoid often badly, by teacher-writers who’ve never and far between. But when you find them,
teaching contentious topics, is being forced been near a newsroom. Either way students their books will hit the charts and stay there
to do so. And in the UK we are. are being asked to learn language from a twenty years.
Under UK law, every language school in
the country now has a statutory duty to teach
British values: democracy, the rule of law, tol- MELANIE BUTLER Editor-at-large, EL Gazette
erance. Frankly if I was an Italian teenager or Melanie, who started her career teaching in
an Iraqi businessman and my English teacher post-Franco Spain, has been a journalist specialising
made me do a unit on the wondrousness in English Language Teaching since 1979. She has worked as
of the post- Brexit British I would be sorely a coursebook publisher and was editor of the Gazette for thirty years.

editorial@elgazette.com 29

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