© 1990 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
National syllabus and textbook design on communicative principles—‘English Every Day’
English Language Adviser in the ODA/British Council contract service. He has spent over twenty-five years in ELT on projects in Sri Lanka and Central and East Africa, including several years as Assistant and then Visiting Professor at the University of Addis Ababa. Publications include English Every Day (ed), the current secondary course for Sri Lanka, Practical Faster Reading, with Vivienne Mosback (CUP), and An English–Amharic Dictionary (OUP), which provided data for a doctorate in 1986. In 1987 he was awarded the OBE for services to The British Council abroad.
The purpose of this article is to show how decisions in the areas of syllabus and textbook design were made and put into practice. The textbook referred to is English Every Day, which since 1988–1989 has completely replaced a structurally-based course, and is now used throughout Sri Lankan schools. The earlier course was the subject of an article which appeared more than five years ago in this Journal (Making a structure-based course more communicative–ELT Journal 38/3). In some senses, therefore, this article is a follow-up to the previous one, and the two can be regarded as interlinked parts of the same project. So many aspects of the work (pupil and teacher expectations, socio-cultural factors, teacher-training implications, national language policy, and so on) must be common to any textbook project anywhere, that it is hoped that many of the insights gained in its completion will be of practical use to coileagues in other parts of the world.