Teaching English as a Foreign Language 1912–1936: Pioneers of ELT

R. C. Smith (ed.) Routledge 2003 2632 pp., £575 ISBN (set) 0 415 29964 0 Volume 1: Wren and Wyatt Volume 2: Harold Palmer Volume 3: Michael West Volume 4: Lawrence Faucett Volume 5: Towards Carnegie: Palmer, West, Faucett These five volumes bring together hitherto largely inaccessible publications by the twentieth century ‘pioneers’ of ELT. It is quite striking that their work has received very limited coverage, even taking into consideration the account provided in Howatt's excellent history of ELT (Howatt 1984, 2004), the references in such relatively recent works as Stern (1983) and Richards (1985), and the more current critiques by Pennycook (1994, 1998) and Phillipson (1992). Indeed, there are probably few ELT teachers below middle age who have heard of Palmer, West, and Faucett (let alone Wren and Wyatt) or who have a view of ELT extending much beyond communicative language teaching....