Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 3; May 03

Just Right

By Jeremy Harmer, Marshall Cavendish, 2003

How an author found a new, adventurous Publisher

Some time ago I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having a body of material and no one (suddenly) to publish it. The material itself was mainstream intermediate level course material, including a students' book and a workbook and was the result of an extensive period of research and development.

A friend in ELT then put me in touch with a company called Marshall Cavendish who, though an established publisher, had never been involved in English Language Teaching materials before. And that's where things got really exciting. The first thing Marshall Cavendish and I did was to deconstruct the material we had and look at its component parts. How could they best and most appropriately be offered to teachers and students? Was there any point in publishing just another course on its own or was there something more useful and interesting that we could do?

After a lengthy period of discussion and investigation, we decided that we would offer a series of books aimed at language and skills – and so that no one could be in any doubt about this, we called them Just Reading and Writing,
Just Listening and Speaking,
Just Grammar and
Just Vocabulary.

They would be suitable for class work but, crucially, would be entirely appropriate for a student working entirely on his or her own – real self-study resources in other words. This meant going over all the material again, re-editing it, shifting and changing things, and, where necessary, creating new segments and sections.

However, we wanted to see if we could do more than this and offer something that had not been done before. The result was the re-construction of the four 'Just' books back into main course format, something we have called Just Right. Once again we looked at the material we now had (from the four 'Just' books) and re-edited and re-thought it out. Now, we reason, we have a unique offer to make to teachers and students which goes something like this: if you would like to use a new course at the Intermediate level, try our course called 'Just Right' (out in September, 2003). But if you don't want to go that far, you can just choose one of the four areas we have selected for our separate books – the Just series. It's up to you.

One of the virtues of Marshall Cavendish is that they have been prepared to go with this idea. It's not anything that the large established publishers would have considered for more than a few seconds. But Simon Ross, the publisher of the Just series, wanted to do something different and innovative. He built a small but excellent editorial, design and book-making team, and the rest has been just great! I can't help being excited not just for myself, but also because it is always refreshing when a new publisher enters the field of ELT. Who knows where they might go!

As you read this the Just series has arrived in bookstores in the UK and is available worldwide through a growing network of distributors. Other levels of the Just series are in development too. If you are interested in finding out more you can go to the Marshall Cavendish website at www.marshallcavendish.co.uk and click on the 'Just' button