About us
- Introduction
- The story of iT's
- Our titles and online resources
- Creative team
- Website design
- Audio production
- Testimonials
- Sponsors
And then what happened?
We
pick up the story of iT's at the start of the 1996-1997 academic
year and issue 53. Two years previously Rob Metcalf and Gill Holley
had joined me as writers on the magazine, creating and developing the
teaching material. There have been a few special issues of the magazine
over the years that the three of us particularly like. There was the
left-handed issue (No. 44), which had to be read from back to front.
Then there was the banned issue (No. 56), which had a feature on censorship;
we designed the magazine so it looked as if pages had been removed from
it, cutting the censorship feature in half. It was a play on the censorship
theme, but several readers called in to say that their magazines had
pages missing and to ask if we could send the pages (that had never
existed).
During this period Gill and Rob wrote The iT's Grammar Pack, a pack of grammar activities for teenagers that could be used in conjunction with the magazine. The idea was that teachers could abandon the traditional course book and use the magazine and Grammar Pack as the main course components. The pack is still used on courses today.
The
"white" issue was our first magazine of the new millennium.
White was said to be the colour of the millennium, and our white cover
included a message written in Braille which read "love is blind"
to coincide with our features on Braille and St. Valentine's Day. The
issue included one of our all-time favourite activities, "Be Evil".
We have included many anti-smoking activities in the magazine over the
years, but this one was slightly different. In "Be Evil" we
asked students to imagine that they worked for a major tobacco company
and had to come up with a cunning new scheme to convince young people
to smoke. We hoped that by seeing through the eyes of a marketing executive
working for a tobacco company they could see how young people are manipulated
by some of the big companies that target them.
You can always tell when an issue of iT's is a success with teachers because you see photocopies of the magazine in teachers' rooms. The Titanic issue (No. 61) was one of the most popular issues ever because it coincided with the movie that was such a huge hit at the time. I remember walking into photocopy shops in different parts of Barcelona and seeing the magazine being copied.
The
cover of issue 62 became an exhibit at an art exhibition. The artwork
inside the magazine was more controversial. We got into trouble with
some teachers over an activity that included illustrations depicting
alternative visions of the future. Students had to describe the pictures,
including one of an idyllic future paradise where there was no need
for people to wear clothes. Some teachers found they were put on the
spot when students pointed at various parts of the people in the picture
and asked, "How do you say that in English?" Knowing what
is and is not acceptable to include in teaching material was something
we would learn more about later when we took the magazines to the United
States.
The same issue included another activity called "Make the Worst Movie Ever". It was one of those slightly offbeat ideas that you wonder if teachers will use or not. Teachers had to persuade their students to bring old toys to class and use them to do the special effects for a film that could earn the title of Worst Movie Ever. I observed a class of teenagers doing the activity and was amazed at how much they enjoyed playing with their toys again - and using English at the same time.
Issue 70 was another memorable issue. To make "Barbie's Beach Adventure" we went to Barcelona's Olympic Port for a photo shoot with Barbie and Ken. It was all to celebrate her 40th birthday by making a photo story for which students had to write the story, the dialogue and the characters' thoughts. I think Barbie enjoyed her day out. We certainly attracted attention on the beach.
The
life of a magazine is limited, and it was always sad to see good teaching
material, like "Barbie's Beach Adventure", left in an old
issue to be forgotten eventually. So we started rescuing and reformatting
the best activities from back issues to create packs of material that
teachers could photocopy. The resulting theme packs and project packs
were extremely popular with teachers and developed into the series of
Activity Books that exist today. You'll find almost all of the activities
mentioned here in one or another of the It's
English Activity Books.
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"original and motivating resources for teachers and learners of English as a foreign or second language"