Following the enormous initial success of his outstanding coursebook series Global, and encouraged by some comments from the blogosphere right here on this blog, the talented Lindsay Clandfield has announced that he will soon be embarking on a new series called Spousal.
"It's going to be a sort of niche ESP course," said Clandfield, speaking outside a church where he was in the process of interviewing newlyweds to help him with some genuine non-scripted content for the earlier units of the main coursebook.
"It's designed specifically for couples who do not share the same first language," he claims, dodging some confetti and grinning at a photographer who is asking him to get out of the shots. "It will be suitable for people who marry native speakers of English, or even people from different language backgrounds who want to use English as their common language together throughout married life."
Clandfield's new series concept has already met with some cynicism, however, with some ELT industry insiders (incidentally, all of them married) saying that the whole series ought to be called Trouble.
"It would be a more accurate title for an overall series targeting married couples," muttered one publishing representative we met at an airport, who then returned to an (evidently difficult) conversation by phone to his wife about why he had to go away to yet another ELT conference on the other side of the world.
Clandfield, with his usual unflappable determination, isn't paying the critics any attention.
"The interest is definitely there," he says. "We're even figuring there will be markets for what comes before and after marriage. We have some plans for Betrothal to come before Spousal, and perhaps even Parental and then Quibble to follow up. But we'll see what happens after the honeymoon period, shall we?"
What about if things don't go well in people's marriages, however? Does Clandfield have plans for any follow ups with potential titles like Betrayal or Scandal?
"Hey, we'll have none of that!" says Clandfield. "Down with negativity! And even if teachers want to cater to stuff like that, they can just use the regular coursebooks and insert in prefixes like 'non-' and 'ex-'. But really, what's with you people?"
The release date for Spousal hasn't been set yet. Apparently some parts of the series will be written with the help of Clandfield's own spouse, and they don't appear to be able to agree on many of them just yet.
:-)
