Neoliberalism and ELT Coursebook Content

The widespread use of commercially produced coursebooks tailored to a global market remains a reality within English language teaching (ELT) across a broad range of teaching contexts. Most of these coursebooks profess to being vaguely communicative in their approach, while at the same time attempting to package and present language as a standardized commodity, within a broader ideological framework that enthusiastically embraces a view of the world in terms of aspirational, atomized, competitive individuals pursuing their self-realization through a “free” market. Most teachers working within ELT, although perhaps critical of such standardized products, might not be aware that earlier examples of ELT materials embodied a quite different set of values and assumptions, and a different view of the role ELT served in the world. Drawing on the content of a range of coursebooks over a period of 40 years, the author attempts to show how the ideological positioning of ELT coursebooks has evolved and also what this may tell us about the role of ELT in the political economy of neoliberalism.