Abstract
To quote the authors, ‘Bridging English is both an academic text and a practical guidebook’ (426). It consists of 15 chapters covering everything from a brief history of English to using media, from teaching literature to evaluating learning, from personal views to discussing the current political mood regarding the teaching of English.
It should be noted upfront that this is a book prepared for the American education system. It thus makes a number of assumptions that may not be valid in other education systems. For example, there is an assumption that classes will be made up largely of speakers of English with some ‘English Language Learners’ or ELLs, the term they use for students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Thus, if you are working in a context where English is a second or foreign language, you will need to adapt what you read to your own situation.
Another assumption that may not hold for all situations is that language and literature teaching will be integrated. Although this reviewer comes from an English speaking education system that appears close to that of America, this was not the case there some years back, as English Language and English Literature were two separate courses, the first one compulsory and the second optional. If it wasn’t true there, it is possible it is not true in other education systems.
However, there will be inappropriate assumptions in whatever book you pick up unless you only read books about your own narrow situation. What is perhaps a more important consideration is whether the book contains ideas that you can use as they are or with a reasonable amount of adaptation. This book is so jam-packed with theory and practical suggestions it is hard to believe that any thoughtful reader would not find plenty of gems that would help develop their teaching theory and their toolbox of teaching techniques.
In fact, you don’t even have to be an English teacher to use many of the ideas in the book. If you are teaching Spanish in Spain or Vietnamese in Vietnam, you could take the ideas and activities and adapt them to your own purposes. Even if you don’t accept all the authors’ views on language education, you could still borrow many of the techniques and add them to your repertoire, adapting them where necessary. Each chapter consists of so much in terms of discussion, ‘Invitations to Reflect’, tables of concepts and step-by-step Teaching Activities that there will definitely be something that you can use.
By now, the reader must be wondering what the downside might be. Surely, no book is totally perfect. In this case, the book’s weakness comes from its strength. It is so packed with information and ideas that it is a very dense book that is difficult to dip into. It is clear, particularly in the later chapters, that the book is directed at the beginning teacher, a teacher who is already having problems developing material and a personal teaching style while faced with a really busy schedule. Such a teacher is unlikely to find the time to work their way through a book like this. This is particularly sad as there are even sections in the book that try to help the beginning teacher cope with these demands in their first semesters/terms of teaching. While student teachers are on their training courses, they might be persuaded to read through each chapter in the book but, once they are in school, they will not have the time or patience to find those hidden gems that could solve their more immediate problems.
If the authors consider another edition of this book (sixth edition), they may want to try and find a way of providing quick access to relevant activities while avoiding the danger of leaving the activities bereft of the theoretical background that gives them meaning. This would be a difficult balance to achieve but would increase the value of the book by as many times as teachers go back to the book again and again to get those teaching ideas.
Meanwhile, beginning teachers and experienced teachers alike may want to put a copy of this book somewhere close to where they prepare their lessons so that when they need some new ideas for teaching they can dip into it and (hopefully) find what they need. This is a very heavy book in a number of senses but definitely worth its weight.