ABSTRACT
The question of which language to include in teaching materials has long been a preoccupation of materials designers. Focussing primarily on coursebooks, this chapter outlines how materials designers have gone about choosing language for teaching materials for English as a foreign language since the beginning of the 20th century. From this time, there emerged a growing awareness that the language of relevance to learners of English as a foreign language would be very different to that included in traditional English grammars used by children studying their first language. The chapter traces the evolution of the current consensus regarding the language content in coursebooks, and discusses principles for grading and ordering linguistic items. It is argued that in recent decades, at least in mainstream, commercial ELT materials, awareness of the historical origins of this consensus is limited. Recommendations are made for how materials writers can make informed decisions about language selection in teaching materials.
