Back in England after a trip to Brazil featuring two weddings, I am writing this late on a Friday evening. I have had a very interesting week working on three separate but linked projects.

The first project is some very short readers for a UK publisher. They are part of a digital offering and are produced in a very modern, nimble way. I have been involved with nonfiction titles at A1+ level. After agreeing the brief with the publisher, I was given time to research the project and then send a plan outlining the content I wished to cover. They are 1,000 words long but can only include fourteen words above the level. These words must be recycled at least once. Everything else must be written to level and be both interesting and engaging! I work with an editor and write directly into a template. For efficiency, writers are only allowed two drafts which does make you feel slightly encouraged to write as well as you can. I finished my second one yesterday and I look forward to seeing them published early next year. What the project has shown is that you can be interesting even with a simplified grammar and lexis.

The second project links in well with this issue. I am writing a second children’s story for my granddaughter. It is the sequel to the first one but I am aware she is now five, not two as she was for the first one. I work with a brilliant illustrator who makes the words come alive and with good luck we should be ready for a December publication. I don’t teach children as a rule, so she is my only current experience. I have learnt a lot from the contributions to this issue with a great balance of articles addressing different aspects of teaching Young Learners. I am sure you will find something which will resonate with your teaching situation.

The magazine is, of course, the third project. People often ask how we put the magazine together. As you know, the themes are announced in advance for each issue, so we get a good number of article ideas sent in from teachers all over the world. Some are new to the magazine, and some have written before. They all get read and feedback supplied before they are either accepted or not continued with. Alex, who is based in Spain, then reads them all and tidies them up before we hand them over to the designer. For the next couple of weeks, the proofs are put together and comments and amendments made. When the magazine is looking ready, we choose a cover image and send it off to be printed. So this particular issue has been in my hands for around three months.

Let me tell you a few things that nobody else knows about this issue – some of the connections between our articles. Two of the authors are based in Malta – a small island but a very important ELT hub. Both our reviewers live in Cambridge, one in the UK and the other in Cambridge, New Zealand! Two of the articles look at the same topic but from completely different angles, both are trying to see how useful applied linguistic theory is when it comes to the classroom. There are some interesting co-authorships, including two who have written individually and are now writing together and two more who often write together and will now be supplying a regular column named On reflection including extra teaching materials. Finally there are a number of contributors who, over the next months, will be leading our new series of webinars – the Spotlight series. It would be great to see you if you can attend, I will be introducing the speaker each time. Tell your friends! It’s completely free of charge.

Robert McLarty

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