Interview

Alan Maley

Alan Maley worked for The British Council from 1962 to 1988, serving in Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, China, and South India. From 1988 to 1993, he was Director-General of the Bell Educational Trust in Cambridge. He is currently Senior Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature of the National University of Singapore.

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On ELT

ELT: What made you decide to enter the EFL profession? Do you remember your first lesson?
AM: I didn't join the profession voluntarily: I was pushed. I joined the British Council in 1961 and they decided to send me to Leeds University to train for their English Language Officer cadre. Part of that year's training included 3 months practical teaching in Madrid.

I do recall my first lesson vividly. It was in a Convent for upper class young ladies near Atocha station. (Queen Fabiola of Belgium is said to have gone to the same school!) To get in I had to ring a bell at the iron-studded gate. A nun would then slide back a peephole, scrutinise me carefully and then let me in. My first class, with girls in early puberty, the only male they saw apart from their confessor, and with an aged and wrinkled nun sitting at the back (in case I exposed myself perhaps?), was unforgettable. I don't think any of the classes I conducted in those three months were much good frankly.

What major changes have you seen in ELT since you started in the profession? Have all the changes been positive?
I have been fortunate (?) to have lived through one of the major transformations in thinking/practice in ELT. When I came in, in 1962, the situational/structural paradigm held sway. There were relatively few materials to speak of. We were under the influence of Palmer, Daniel Jones, Firth and Hornby. Within a decade or so, everything was changing. The Chomskyan revolution had come (and gone?), Wilkins and the Threshold level had taken hold, and the new communicative wave was on the brink of unfurling.

There have, of course, been excesses in the movement for more communicative methods of teaching. But this is no doubt inevitable. In any case, teachers have a way of mediating new ideas in their own way!

On Teaching

In an earlier interview, Mario Rinvolucri credits Alan Duff and you for starting the 'wave' of teacher's resource books back in the 70's. To what extent do you think the ideas and activities contained in your books have contributed to teaching methodology in the last 20 years?
I think the ideas put about by some of the books I wrote with Alan Duff, back in the 1970s and early 80s have made a positive contribution to the field. It is difficult to quantify this however. I think we opened a window on possibilities hitherto not available. Some teachers flew through that window; others preferred not to look out. As far as the development of resource books is concerned (like the 'Oxford Resource Books for Teachers' series), I think these offer a bank of materials based on the combined experience of a number of 'master teachers' which many teachers worldwide find useful.

What aspect of ELT methodology are you interested in? What themes are you pursuing now?
a) The role of inner representations in acquiring language. I am thinking of visualization, rehearsal, inner speech etc. I think we have been led astray by SLA research, which I believe to be a blind alley, instead of looking more at psychological inquiry in the area of memory.

b) The role of the teacher as prime classroom resource: this leads to my concern with things like the way teachers use (misuse) their voices, the way they can create or destroy positive learning atmosphere, etc. I've just published a book with Macmillan entitled 'The Language Teacher's Voice', which articulates some of these concerns. After all, no matter what the method, it is the teachers who will make it work or not, as Stevick noted in his famous riddle many years ago.

c) I continue to pursue my interest in the use of literature as a language teaching resource. In particular, In am trying to incorporate texts drawn from the 'new' literatures in English (Inian, Singaporean, etc.) We have not yet realized quite what a rich field this is.

d) This links with my interest in writing original fiction for language learners. (What Bamford and Day term Language Learner Literature). I'm currently on my second 'novel' for the 'Cambridge Readers' Series, which only deals in originals.

e) Global issues. I am concerned about the way many of us assume that the spread of English is a benign and natural phenomenon. In fact, English has become the medium for some very nasty messages. Critical examination of the roles English plays in consumerism, the media, trivialization of our lives, etc. ought to be part of any course, I believe.

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