Briony Beaven is a language teaching consultant, teacher educator and materials writer. Her professional roles have included a post as Director of Studies, and working as a Cambridge Teaching Awards CELTA and DELTA tutor, assessor and moderator. Briony has worked with teachers in many countries around the world, and has supervised students on an MA in English Language Teaching. She has written coursebooks, and articles for professional journals. Briony has also recently written a book on ELT teacher education materials. Email: brionybeaven1@t-online.de 

     

 

 

‘You can't start a fire without a spark

Even if we're just dancing in the dark.`

Bruce Springsteen 1984

 

The editor of this journal asked me for an article about the process of writing a book I had recently published (Beaven 2026). I liked the idea, which I thought might help me to make sense of what had sometimes been quite a confusing and difficult undertaking, and which could also illuminate the experience of writing a non-fiction book for would be authors. In addition, I came across Sun’s (2026) thoughts about competition for writers from AI. She contends that, ‘We’re not that far from a world where AI can take in any of our writing styles and replicate it to the point where your median reader will not be able to tell the difference. The thing is, though, that your audience does want to feel connected to you, and they want to know that a person is real and that you are the same person generating the text’. According to Mann (2026) there still is such a thing as authorial voice even in this age of AI texts. She notes that ‘Authorial voice is the unique style, tone and personality an author brings to academic writing through his or her intentional choices’. An article about creating one’s book may reinforce the notion of a real person with their own voice, and give a sense of the intentional choices and the work that went into it.

About three years ago I more or less retired from active teacher education, and tried to immerse myself in various typical retiree activities – travel, visits to old friends, hobbies such as fitness and dance, reading, and attending more local cultural events. This was all interesting enough, but I still felt my identity to be bound up with my lifelong work in education. I imagined, while still working full-time, that when I stopped my knowledge and skills would quickly disappear. Mistake! After the three-ish years, I realised that I hadn’t forgotten what I knew about teaching and teacher education; it was all sitting in my brain quietly re-organising itself a bit, but definitely not disappearing. At this point I wondered if it might be worthwhile to put my ideas into a book, and given that I had spent a lot of time in teacher education and in writing materials for teacher education, the area created itself, more or less.

In the past, publishers had commissioned me to write a number of coursebooks for learners of English, and I had also written articles about teacher education matters for journals. I had successfully tendered to write teacher training materials for organisations, but I had never written a book for an academic publisher, nor previously considered doing so. Where to start? Firstly, I tried to pinpoint a niche in the literature, an issue that had not been the subject of a book. There appeared to be no developmental guide to designing effective, context-appropriate teacher training materials on the market that also referenced theoretical frameworks and provided a bank of resources. This could be my subject.

Next, a little light research revealed that I needed a publisher, an editor and a book proposal. I identified my preferred publisher by looking at publishers’ lists to become familiar with the kinds of books they published. Then I turned to networks within the profession to recommend a contact person, although, as I was to discover, having a contact in the company was not really necessary or helpful. I contacted the person whose name I had been given, and whilst waiting for a response, I wrote a book proposal. This included a succinct account of the proposed content, details about target readerships, an overview of possible competition, chapter titles and outlines, and author biographical information. I thought a rejection was likely (no objective reasons for this belief!), and so I didn’t write a sample chapter, even though that is often advised for proposals. There was a long waiting period, during which I decided that the publisher couldn’t be interested, but eventually a response arrived.

My mail had been passed from person to person within the company until, for whatever reason, a particular editor replied. A back and forth of questions, answers and minor revisions ensued, after which the editor sent out the proposal to reviewers. This proved to be most illuminating in the case of one review. The reviewer sent the publisher some extremely positive feedback, and suggested an extra theoretical base and the version of the book’s title that became the final choice. The anonymous reviewer also wrote that, ‘It is now impossible to ignore AI in ELT and it’s particularly essential for treatments of materials/resources’ (2024).  This confirmed a background disquiet on my part of not knowing how to go about incorporating AI. I imagine the reviewer’s comment will also resonate with many readers of this article. Since I knew only a little about AI in ELT I had been presented with a challenge. Challenge accepted but shelved for later consideration. Seven months after my first tentative approach to the publisher, I received a contract, stating, amongst other details, length of the book, royalties agreements and submission date. Now it was real! I had just over a year to write, revise and submit my manuscript, awakening both very positive emotions, as well as a certain amount of trepidation.

 

The writing experience

 

‘I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned.’

 

Natasha Bedingfield 2004

 

To start with, I expanded the chapter outlines to give me a rough plan for writing. As one of the key features of the book was to provide theoretical frameworks for materials writing, a selective survey of the relevant literature would open each chapter. I fixed on a first task of reading literature relevant to Chapters 1 and 2, as well as checking my own journal articles and conference presentations for pertinent perspectives. I initially planned to write twelve chapters and as there were thirteen months to go before the submission deadline, I decided to write a chapter a month and allow one month at the end for revisions and administrative tasks related to submission. Whilst writing the first two chapters I found, unfortunately, that my ‘rough plan’ was too vague. The solution that came to mind was a common structure for all the chapters. I settled on the following sections: background theory, sample training materials, a summary linking those two sections, writing tasks, a key chapter learning point, references.

I also recognised the need for a whole-book glossary as the intended readership was comprised of different groups that would be diversely knowledgeable in the areas of ELT lexis and teacher education lexis. These steps and decisions appear in retrospect as a series of clear choices, but there were many second thoughts and a considerable amount of zigzagging towards the final version/scheme. Typically progress consisted of working through hazy concepts until I arrived at what looked like clarity – for me, and, more importantly, for potential readers. To achieve this eventual clarity, I carried current planning and ideas around with me through many activities, for instance domestic, social, sporting and medical moments. At times the constant presence of the embryo book felt burdensome, but often the day was enlivened by the flash of an idea or the falling into place of pieces of a puzzle. Along the way I concluded that it would be better to organise the ideas into ten rather than twelve chapters, and to replace the two axed chapters with extensive appendices. These would provide answer keys for discussion tasks, advice on writing techniques, a final extended writing task, and cross-referencing of sample training materials.   

Given that I had left my regular teacher education work some time before beginning the book, it wasn’t going to be easy to find trusted readers of first versions. I therefore sent my Chapters 1 and 2, both forming a kind of introduction to the book, to my editor, together with a few questions. She provided helpful feedback, including a positive statement regarding the content, writing style and organisation of the material, which gave me confidence to feel that I was on the right track and could continue to write without being deflected by doubts and uncertainties.    

The writing schedule of a chapter a month, mentioned above, actually worked very well. I was privileged in that I was no longer working regularly, so had more time to write than many authors in our field. I wrote articles from time to time and tutored a candidate on DELTA Module 2 while writing the book. She lived a long journey away, and what with the usual support and assessment work that a DELTA tutor does, plus the unusually time-consuming travel, I needed to allow three days for every systems or skills assignment. Other activities in my life took place on a more regular weekly schedule, so every Sunday evening, I blocked out three or four half days in the upcoming week for research and writing. From time to time there was a knotty stage, when I had to step back and rework the narrative thread of a chapter. I aimed to keep third-party material to a minimum, because I had heard that getting the necessary permissions could be difficult. It involved locating the rightsholder of the material, finding their contact details, and getting in touch to request permission to reprint the material. I managed to reduce third-party material to just three items. One rightsholder immediately granted permission, the second had a few subsidiary questions and then replied in the affirmative, but the third required six months of email interchange involving many further questions and strictures. However, after the six months, I was in possession of the vital third permission; a day of celebration!     

Another time-consuming area was AI. As explained above, I had been advised not to ignore AI, and before writing too much of the book, I wanted to devise a strategy for its inclusion. I started reading articles about the use of AI in ELT teacher education and then, by chance I came across a webinar reporting on a number of AI initiatives. One of the speakers was Dr Elena Oncevska Ager, who described an AI tool she had created together with Dr Matthew Ager. This tool is called ‘Noticing’; it functions as a kind of critical friend or mentor, avoiding ready-made solutions, and instead asking questions, probing further, summing up, prompting reflection. The creators of the tool agreed to work with me, setting up AI support for the writing tasks that would be in every chapter. I had read a number of teacher education books that contain chapter-end tasks; sometimes they leave possible answers or solutions entirely to the teacher readers, sometimes generalised comments are provided in appendices. In my experience, and from discussions with colleagues, lack of task support and feedback leads many readers to merely skim read the tasks, rather than commit to serious reflection and engagement. Thanks to the collaboration with Elena and Matthew, and our joint work on the support website, readers of ELT Teacher Education Materials: Purposes, Possibilities and Practices would be able – through QR codes and URLs contained in the book – to access individualised guidance to and feedback on the writing tasks in my book.

Once the AI support website had been created, in an initial version, we needed to understand how it worked for readers and users, even though the book was of course not yet published. I role-played a potential user, trying out some of the writing tasks, requesting clarification and assistance from Noa, the voice of the ‘Noticing’ tool. My colleague Adrian Doff was the other pilot user. We both wrote extensive notes while engaging with the web support and kept records of errors and inconsistencies for later correction. Our trial runs indicated that the tool was fit for intended use and our logs were formative in producing the final version of the ‘Noticing’ website.    

 

My subject matter made manifest

 

‘The end of the book
Isn't the end of the story.’

 

Amy Lee 2016

 

Eleven months after starting to write, the manuscript was more or less finished. The book required few illustrations, just one diagram, which I created myself, and a set of six photos of evocative objects, which my daughter took for me. I wrote the appendices while writing the chapters, so they needed no extra time.      

I read and reread the chapters, changing a few words here and there, correcting the odd reference, but having read and revised each chapter after finishing it, major revision was required for one chapter only, where I discovered that I had included some content in two different chapters. I had to remove the repeated matter from one of the chapters and create suitable replacement text, quite a taxing task, after having believed that the topic had been fully dealt with. I let the problem sit for a day or two until a new angle presented itself. When I had completed my checks, I asked a good friend with editing experience to proofread the manuscript. She scanned for in-text/reference list consistency and any surface errors.

The last jobs before delivering the manuscript included writing an abstract for each chapter, checking that all files were named appropriately, selecting a cover design and asking four colleagues in our field to write a brief endorsement of the book. On top of that, I needed to write – publisher’s requirement – alt (alternative) text for the diagram and the photos. This may be a new term for some non-author readers; it is concise text that gives the meaning and context of a visual, enabling readers with visual impairments to understand the image using screen-reader software that turns digital text into audio.

Naively, I had thought my work was done once I submitted the manuscript. To my surprise I had to be available while the book was being prepared for publication by the production team; this seems obvious now, but the total focus demanded by the writing must have stopped me thinking beyond the manuscript delivery deadline. Later, however, there were clarification questions to answer, one or two issues of internal consistency to sort out, and page proofs to read. Since some of the proofs contained errors that had not been in the manuscript submission, I needed to read every sentence very carefully, and to mark up the proofs for correction where necessary. I checked the professional index prepared for the book, suggesting corrections and additions. The acknowledgments, dedication, contents page, and author biography all required verification, too.

At last, the proofs, the page layouts, and the ancillary materials were ready to become a real book. I saw the e-book version online, and held in my hands a hardback and a paperback copy of the volume. An amazing feeling. Now it was time to publicise my work. But that is a story for another day!

  

References

Beaven, B. (2026). ELT teacher education materials: Purposes, possibilities and practices. Routledge.

Mann, L. (2026). Adding a human presence to AI output. [Webinar]. NILE Trainer CPD Series. https://learning.nile-elt.com/d2l/le/enhancedSequenceViewer/6733?url=https%3A%2F%2F0620d62b-80e2-4dd0-9c45-ae347ce7d2f6.sequences.api.brightspace.com%2F6733%2Factivity%2F305660%3FfilterOnDatesAndDepth%3D1 

 

Sun, J. (2026). The independent writer’s advantage in the age of AI. On Substack. June 2^nd 2026. https://substack.com/@jasmine/p-199832036 

 

Coming soon! Please check the Pilgrims in Teacher Training courses in 2027 at Pilgrims website