Since the 1990s, ELT textbooks have increasingly embodied neoliberal assumptions, claims Keith Copley’s qualitative analysis of popular and influential ELT courses from the last 40 years.
Teaching any subject often carries with it a transfer of cultural knowledge and, more controversially, cultural influence.
Language teaching is particularly prone to such pressure. In published coursebooks, the characters and settings included, and those excluded, create an overall impression of ‘everyday life’ and promote certain values and beliefs.
Copley’s study is a content analysis of neoliberal attitudes displayed in 12 popular and influential ELT coursebooks published in two time periods: 1975-1982 and 1998-2014.
Forty years ago, in the late 1970s, ELT publishing expanded and embraced relatively new language methodologies, breaking away from the previously more formulaic presentation style, and introducing ideas of notions, functions and communicative learning
According to Copley’s analysis, coursebooks from the 70s and 80s readily discuss the realities of the working class, including poor pay, unemployment, stress and dissatisfaction. Here is an example from Streamline English (Hartley & Viney, 1978), an intensive course for lower-level students, using the present tense in a vignette of a young person who has just started work: ‘Because I’m new, I have to make the tea. I have to work hard… I’m only happy at weekends. I don’t have to work then.’ (Streamline English, Hartley & Viney, 1978).
Ordinary working-class characters (as opposed to high-earning professionals) are frequently depicted, and there is even discussion of how people might act collectively to improve their conditions and protect their rights, as in this further example taken from Challenges, an ESOL coursebook aimed at adult migrants: ‘It is important that the conditions of work should be as good as possible. Sometimes these are worked out by management and workers together, but in many workplaces every change must be fought for. Would you make a good representative for the workers? Answer the questions below about yourself.’ (Challenges, Abbs & Sexton, 1978)
From the 1990s onwards, Copley found that the tone of the material changes and the characters become more privileged and aspirational. There is an increasingly optimistic focus on the opportunities for individuals to compete and succeed in the global marketplace for employment, depending on their personal skills and motivation – but without reference to societal factors that may present obstacles (such as inequality or discrimination). In short – neoliberal assumptions dominate the material.
Low-paid work is presented as a brief interlude or stepping stone rather than an end in itself. There is no mention of poor employment prospects or working conditions – at least not in English speaking-countries.
The general aim of language learning is now to maximise employability and professional success: the communication context has narrowed. Copley contrasts Hartley and Vine’s worker of 1978 with this cheery waiter from New Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2012): ‘My favourite day of the week is Friday, even though I work that day. It’s the best night because all my mates come into the restaurant and we have a great laugh. There’s a real buzz to the place, and it doesn’t feel like work at all. Time just flies by.’ (New Headway Intermediate, Soars & Soars, 2012)
This move towards maximizing employability is at least in part driven by market demands – from both employers and middle-class students in private language schools. Since the coursebooks examined by Copeland are almost all aimed at the market for young adults in private language schools they are by definition aimed at members of a westernised, aspirational middle class.
Coursebook writing is heavily prescribed in order to meet the demands of this market, but Copley (and others) argue that this does not entirely explain – nor can it justify – the neoliberal assumptions of many coursebooks.
As education itself has become an increasingly marketable commodity, both education and educational publishing not only reflect socioeconomic trends – they are part of those trends in themselves and help to create the market demand in a self-serving cycle.
Neoliberal assumptions are just one example of the many influences that educational materials such as published course books can bring to the classroom. It could be argued that the earlier course books also carried a socio-political agenda – just a different one (and one that many practitioners at the coalface of education may have more natural sympathy with).
Studies such as Copley’s serve to remind educators to be aware of any such assumptions and not to let them go unnoticed – or unchallenged.
REFRENCE
■ Copley, K. (2018) ‘Neoliberalism and ELT Coursebook Content.’ Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 15(1): 43-62, DOI: 10.1080/15427587.2017.1318664
