Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers Practice and Theory

The teachers referred to in the title of this book have one thing in common: all teach English to learners who are not speakers of English as a first language. These learners may be children, teenagers or adults, in countries where English is spoken as a first, second or foreign language, and studying English for a specific purpose or for no particular reason. The teachers, who may or may not be native speakers of English, have different levels of education, training and experience, and vary in their personal characteristics. The contexts in which they teach will also be very different, not only as regards the resources available or class size but also in terms of institutional expectations and the status accorded to teachers (reflected in, for example, workload, pay, and autonomy). So, apart from the fact that they are all teaching English, do these teachers have anything else in common? Well, yes: they all use materials.