Why are Oxford and Cambridge EFL books the best?

bradwelljackson · Post by **bradwelljackson** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:17 pm

What is it about the Oxford and Cambridge EFL books that make them the best? Are there any other books as good?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:09 pm

Well, they're prestigious universities and presses, located in a (the?) major birthplace of ELT, and they early recognized the economic potential of the subject field, and have attracted scores of authors and thus built up impressive current and back catalogues along with experienced editorial and publishing departments. In other words, a snowball effect (or deadly avalanche crushing all before it, if you prefer).
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ox ... publishing

That's not to say that every single thing they produce is that good or even that necessary. There's too much gold to be had in them there hills!

bradwelljackson · Post by **bradwelljackson** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:25 pm

Good to hear from you again after all these years, fluff : ) Tell me, is woodcutter still around? Anyway, back to the point, are there any other EFL publishing companies that come up to the level of Oxbridge? For that matter, are there even any other *countries* that do textbooks as well as England?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:34 pm

I haven't seen or heard from Woody in what must be two or three years now. I think he was looking at qualifying to teach Chinese among other ventures, so he got kind of busy. I think everyone is unfortunately having to work harder for less and less money these days, so whatever time and energy they used to have for online discussions has pretty much evaporated. Or perhaps they've found other venues or avenues.

It's indeed hard to think of any EFL/ELT textbooks that aren't produced by Oxbridge, or similar British (or at least originally British) publishers such as Longman. There must be at least a few reasonable textbooks (perhaps more ESL/ESOLy ones) floating around from some American, Canadian or Aussie unis though!

bradwelljackson · Post by **bradwelljackson** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:56 am

Yes, I remember using the "Headway" series and liking it a lot. I presume that must be an Oxbridge publication. Have you heard of the "Solutions" series? Do you recommend it?