by Simon Mellor-Clark and Yvonne Baker de Altamirano

Publisher: Macmillan 2005

ISBNs:

1-405-009800-2 (Student’s Book 1)
1-405-00981-0 (Teacher’s Book 1)
1-405-02899-8 (Workbook 1 with CD)
1-405-00983-7 (Class Audio CDs)

Teaching English to military forces has become more than just a niche in the ELT industry. The growth of international peacekeeping forces in places such as the Balkans and Afghanistan has led to a demand for English at a range of levels from survival to fluent, with a need for certification to an internationally-agreed standard. As a consequence, there has been an enormous demand for ELT materials which focus on the four language skills in military contexts driven by NATO’s STANAG (Standard Agreed) levels of proficiency. Traditional language teaching in a number of countries has been oriented towards a high level of grammatical and lexical passive knowledge, with military English being taught in terms of specialised vocabulary in unmotivating contexts.

Mission English in Spain had for a number of years developed state-of-theart English language materials for the Spanish armed forces. These materials have been shaped by Yvonne Baker de Altamirano and Simon Mellor-Clark into a series of general military English textbooks designed to match STANAG levels 1 to 3, which are roughly equivalent to levels A2, B1 and B2 to C1 as set out in the Council of Europe Common European Framework. In their exemplary Teacher’s Book the authors provide a chart matching the language level of the textbooks to the STANAG, Council of Europe, ALTE, Cambridge ESOL and IELTS scales.

Campaign 1 is designed for the postbeginner and aims to provide 120 hours of input from the Student’s Book and a further 80 hours from the Workbook. The material consists of 14 attractive militarytopic- based units, each of which has seven sections, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and Golf, corresponding to the military alphabet and designed to provide six input lessons of between 50 and 60 minutes and two revision lessons under Golf. Page 12 of the Teacher’s Book sets out the rationale for each section and it is noticeable that there is still a strong focus on grammar and vocabulary, although each of the four skills has strongly focused tasks in each unit.

Despite these reminders of traditional language teaching, it is heartening to see the simple past introduced relatively early, providing learners with an opportunity to communicate early in their learning process.

Campaign 1 has achieved the difficult task of squaring the circle between general and special purposes English. The topics are relevant and well-designed with useful visual material and authentic listening support. Each copy of the Workbook comes with its own listening CD. Moreover, there is an online service which provides further lesson plans and teaching ideas. The Teacher’s Book for Campaign 1 is a model of what a good Teacher’s Book should be and Campaign 1 more than deserves the awards that it has so far received.

Serbia and Montenegro