This chapter considers the role of the essay in debates over the ‘rise of English’ in the nineteenth century. It firstly explores the crossover between academia and publishing, focusing on David Masson and George Saintsbury, whose well-regarded literary essays led to professorial appointments at London and Edinburgh. It then considers how University Extension lecturer John Churton Collins turned to periodical essays to garner support for the introduction of English literature at Oxford and Cambridge. Collins’s diatribes argued that the literary essay itself was at risk of extinction if journalists and critics continued to be deprived of professional training. Finally, this chapter considers the inclusion of essayists on English literature syllabuses during the fin de siècle. Figures such as Joseph Addison, William Hazlitt, and John Dryden, along with later writers including Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, and Charles Lamb were prominently featured, suggesting that essayists were regarded as the sine qua non of literary study at that time.

Chapter 16 presents an overview of the most common language teaching approaches. Presented on a spectrum from grammar-based to naturalistic, these approaches are compared and contrasted based on learner, teacher, syllabus, and programmatic factors. Rationale and challenges of transitioning between teaching approaches are presented alongside suggested activities for professional development.

This chapter focuses on implementing transformative pedagogy as a solution to support students in their learning rather than feeding into their learning anxiety. The officers who join the Ecole de guerre (French War College) have been taught English through communicative and transactional methods, acquiring grammar and linguistics rather than the ability to communicate in the language. Provided in this chapter is a description of the implementation of a new approach, TLLT, based on learner autonomy and the lessons learned in the process: (1) the need for caution in analyzing the learning environment to avoid introducing a method without properly adapting it, (2) the transition from one method to another that allows the metanoic process and transformation to happen, and (3) all all the key players - the head of department/course designer, the faculty, the leadership of the college and, last but not least, the students experienced the metanoia. The most important lesson? When students realize that TLLT is about transforming their frame of reference and not re-setting who they are, their motivation rockets through the roof.