publishing

Materials writing news and views, July 2021

Euros over. Wimbledon over. Olympics coming up!

New releases

  • Some more Primary teacher books from Michelle Worgan:
  • Emily Bryson is running a course on engaging learners with simple drawings. See here.
  • This digital storytelling project from Vicky Saumell. See here.

New graded reader from Wayzgooze, click here.

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Get published! Working with Peachey Publications

It’s about time I did more than just praise Nik Peachey on LinkedIn and in Twitter posts!

Another six months has passed, the royalties from ‘30 Role Plays for TEFL’ are in. They’ve covered a dentist bill, a crate of beer, and one month’s life insurance premium. Blimey, that last bit makes me feel old.

‘30 Role Plays…’ was great fun to write. See here for details of how it came about. It reminds me of some fun times at the British Council, when the crew at our tiny centre in Bangkok were alive with ideas!

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Materials writing news and views, March 2021

Mostly new releases, plus references to Premier League sticker albums…

New releases

  • English Code – Mary Roulston. Dinosaur on the front cover, win.
  • Cambridge Primary World English teacher’s guides – saw on Melissa Bryant’s Linkedin. Hodder Education.
  • Language Fuel have another new course and some kinda revamp coming up. Teaching EAP, Tania Pattison. Incidentally, the Language Fuel ‘Who’s who’ of authors is a bit like a Merlin/Panini sticker album of ELT Writers. They only need Rachael Roberts for complete coverage. If you ever collected EPL stickers then you’ll know all about ‘the shiny’, which in this case I guess is Jill Hadfield. I wonder who would be ‘Peter Fear’. I swear, this guy was in EVERY pack I ever bought.
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Materials Development Task 11: Future-proofing

Think…

  • Have you ever created a resource that aged quickly?
  • What aspects/features of a published resource might make it more susceptible to ‘ageing’?
  • How could you, as a writer, minimize the chance of a resource becoming dated?
  • Do you think that resources aimed at certain markets are more likely to date quickly? Why/Why not?

It’s time to play… DATE THAT RESOURCE!

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Materials Development Task 3: Images

This is a new series of blog posts for teachers looking to become materials writers. It aims to help future writers explore topics and issues in writing, encourage deeper insight into the content of published materials, and promote a principled approach to materials development.

Think…

As a writer you might need to provide artwork briefs. These are descriptions of an image you’d like an editor to source or commission. Describing images in detail can be part of the writing process. Let’s practice.

Describe the image below in as much detail as you can. I’ll start you off:

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Materials Development Task 1: absence and presence

This is a new series of blog posts for teachers looking to become materials writers. It aims to help future writers explore topics and issues in writing, encourage deeper insight into the content of published materials, and promote a principled approach to materials development.

Think…

To what extent do you agree with these statements?

  • The coursebooks I use/know reflect the realities of my learners.
  • The coursebooks I use/know include topics that may be considered controversial.
  • The images and stories in the coursebooks I use/know include members of underrepresented groups.

Think of a clear example to support each of your responses.

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Materials Writing news and views, January 2021

Hi all.

Short one. Diversity features quite a bit.

New releases

Another offering from the George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of ELT, this time via Waygooze Press.

Other than that, I’ve haven’t seen much released. I’ve been reading some of the John Catt publication books. All quite new and a pretty good range, lacking in criticality at times though. Reviewed one here if interested.

Groups and chats

(If you say ‘groups and chats’ fast enough you can get a good beat going)

There are lots of Facebook groups for ELT writers. These are the main ones I’m in:

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Materials writing and pub quizzes

Before lockdown I was an avid pub quizzer. It’s the perfect hobby for a materials writer because we accumulate tons of useless facts when researching articles. Here’s a list of some random topics I’ve written texts on in the last, pfff, 18 months maybe? I’ve discussed this with Clare Maas before – I’d love to see your updated list of writes, Clare!

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