I was on Twitter (and I know I came off: different story) and was involved in a thread with the EL Gazette. I suggested that the status quo of white-centred, unrepresentative materials will never change until OER (Open Educational Resources) become standard.
The EL Gazette’s answer was, the British Council/BBC have open resources (i.e. freely available and copiable) on TeachingEnglish.org.uk . I replied that they are not open because they are not editable. PDFs are a pain to edit. The Gazette urged me and others who share my concerns to contact the British Council and BBC. So I did, through the contact page. Feel free to use my email as a basic template but add your own ideas as you see fit, of course.
To those it may concern
I am writing to suggest a change of file format for the resources on Teaching English. As you may be aware, some teachers are becoming more concerned that the materials they use may not adequately represent or relate to their learners’ lives.
The Teaching English website provides quality materials that teachers can pick and choose from easily; unfortunately, what is useful for one teacher may be less useful for another for reasons of region, context and setting. Bearing this in mind I would like to request that the format of lesson plans and teaching materials on the website be changed from PDF, which is difficult to edit, to another format such as Word document or Powerpoint presentation, which can be opened and edited by a wide range of computer software. This would allow teachers to adapt materials to better suit their learners and also, in turn, result in a likely greater uptake in use of the website’s materials.
I do hope that you bear my request in mind. I look forward to future contact regarding any decisions made.
Yours sincerely
[your name]
Some of the materials are provided in word docs…usually the lesson plans rather than the actual materials. It’s a fair request to make but I wonder if they’ll go for it. I suspect they don’t want people to remove their branding so…I doubt it. This would also explain why lesson plans are editable as if you are editing it…you’re seeing the branding
Hmm, what I’ve seen has always been PDF. I wonder if anything comes of it. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Exactly. I hope something comes of it!