Mark Hancock

Songs stick in the head. I once taught a song from this book in a class, as a substitute teacher in a school. I was next in that school a year later, and one of the kids saw me in the corridor and started singing it. Being memorable is such an important quality of any grammar teaching material. Add to that the pronunciation benefits, and it makes songs ideal for language teaching.

I wrote English Pronunciation in Use in the years leading up to its first publication in 2003. I'd already published Pronunciation Games, but this was a more comprehensive work.

Pronunciation Games was my first book. I had been preparing pronunciation materials at the Cultura Inglesa in Copacabana, and colleagues suggested that I take the ideas to a publisher. CUP took it on, and made it the first in their photocopiable series the Copy Collection.

I wrote New Ways to Go in collaboration with Penny Ur, and for the first two levels, Ramon Ribé. My involvement began as author of the Workbooks, and then expanded to co-author of the Students' Books.

I wrote Winners in collaboration with Cathy Lawday. It was a series of three coursebooks specifically written for the Polish upper-primary sector. After the success of the first edition, it was reprinted a few years later under the name Winners Plus, accompanied by interactive whiteboard software.

English Result was first conceived in 2002, five years before the first book in the series saw the light of day, and nearly a decade before the series was complete. We set to work at the suggestion from OUP, and decided to write the adult coursebook that we ourselves would want to use.