Next time a publisher tries to sell you a new textbook
… remind them that there is already a title available that is, according to their own website, ‘Flexible, stimulating, enjoyable, simply PERFECT.’
That’s right, it’s The New Cambridge English Course, still being sold and with its own brand new, funky webpages. If you believed in progress in EFL, the publishers beg to differ! Let’s hope that people who don’t know how old this title is look at Catherine Walter’s haircut before ordering…
Thanks to the ELT World discussion on Best and Worst Textbooks for this link.
March 15th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
But do you see what you’ve done there – now they can write quite accurately:
‘Flexible, stimulating, enjoyable, simply PERFECT’ (TEFLtastic’s Alex Case, Godfather of TEFL).
In which case, the terror will never end…..
March 15th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Jeez, they haven’t even bothered to spruce up the content inside. Maybe they figure students using this book will be fans of “That 70s Show” or something…
But hey – hope my publisher does the same thing with my series every decade or so…! Of course, would be even better if I got a chance to EDIT AND UPDATE THE CONTENT and if they put contemporary pics in!
March 20th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Hey guys, I’m sorry, but it’s not fair to put all publishers in the same bag. I agree that was the case for the series mentioned in the post, by CUP, and it may be the case for a lot of other series. But I can certainly tell you that’s not the same with all pulbishers. When I look at all the different editions of Headway, for example, I see completely updated material, although it keeps the same principles and syllabus. But even being in the market for more than 20 years, you can certainly not say that it looks like an old fashioned book. I can also say the same about books like Project (now in the third edition) or The Eglish File series (now New English File).
As for the marketing slogans, we all know (or at least we should) that those are part of every different market you may think of. Still, I think the word perfect is not very usual in publishing. Most of the publishers are working on the feature-benefit type of marketing promotion. So, most of the times you don’t just say it’s perfect, you show features and agregate benefits to them.
So, please, let’s not take single facts and turn them into unquestionable truth for the publishing business.
Best,
Eduardo Trindade
March 24th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Hi Alex
At the risk of spoiling a good old publisher knock-fest, the New Cambridge English Course webpage has been up for a few years already. Ok it may strike some people as a bit retro but there are still happy users of the course in some parts of the world … By the way, have you seen the ‘new’ new Cambridge English course, English Unlimited? I hope you’ll find it does a lot of good things – very lexical, corpus-based, very practical, very international.
OK – I hereby declare an interest as one of the editors (nice if Mr Trindade of OUP Brazil, above, will follow suit!) – but putting on my old teaching hat for a moment, I’d say it’s a course built on sound principles & mould-breaking in its own way.
Very much hope to see one of your – always thought-provoking -reviews soon.
Anyway, all power to your blogging elbow, Alex. I will now return to my secret underground lair, where all the evil publishers hang out. Mwa hahahahah!
All the best
March 26th, 2010 at 6:06 am
Good point, but… (as I teach my students to say)
You can’t have it both ways. Either we should be all rushing out and buying something that is “very lexical, corpus-based, very practical, very international, built on sound principles & mould-breaking in its own way.”, or we can just save ourselves the money and hassle and stick the title from the 80s that we know how to teach.
March 26th, 2010 at 6:07 am
PS
The new editions from OUP are even more blantantly commercial than the money for old rope of still using 20 year old feedback from teachers to NCEC