My new book – Raise Up!

I’m delighted to present my second self-published book, Raise Up, written with my friend Ilá Coimbra.

We wrote this book with a simple aim – what would a mainstream English language coursebook look like if it represented a wider range of people? We feel that at the time of writing in 2019, significant improvements need to be made in how various groups in society are included in the most popular international coursebooks. These groups / backgrounds include:

• Women
• BAME
• LGBTQIA+
• Disabled people
• The working class
• Indigenous people
• Non-conventional body types
• Non-hegemonic countries and cultures
• Refugees
• People living and working in extreme conditions
• Non-urban environments
• Elderly people

The book contains 8 separate lessons, aimed at different levels, which follow the familiar format of modern international English language coursebooks. What makes Raise Up different are the subjects of those lessons. The themes covered are:

  1. Family / LGBTQIA+
  2. Leadership / Disabled people & poverty
  3. Work rules / Low-paid workers
  4. Rural life
  5. Influences / women
  6. Work / Transgender
  7. Texting / Refugees
  8. Different types of homes

I’m really proud of what we were able to achieve with this book, especially as all the proceeds go to support the Casa 1 project in São Paulo.

Find out more about the Raise Up! project at our website.

To find out more about Casa 1 and the book, click here.

To buy the book click here.


6 responses to “My new book – Raise Up!”

  1. Materials writing news and views, April 2019 | ELT Planning Avatar

    […] actually another new release. James Taylor and Ila Coimbra have written Raise Up! A coursebook that reportedly addresses some of the issues mentioned by John Gray and Kath […]

  2. […] Raise Up is a book about diversity without being a book that focuses on diversity. The lessons do not revolve around LGBT+ issues, refugees or any of the other subjects that are listed in the About the book section. Instead, these are inserted in the lessons as part of day-to-day reality. As much as I believe we should openly discuss diversity in our English lessons, I am well aware that it is not a simple task and when teachers do so, they often have to deal with adverse consequences. With this in mind, I understand Ilá and James’ rationale to have an approach that is more towards the normalization of minority groups as part of society. An advantage of this approach is that it gives less room for questioning. For instance, the first lesson is about family and there is a lesbian couple. There is no mention to LGBT+ rights or any discussion that would allow students to voice any prejudices they might have. Unfortunately, if a student feels strongly about one of the minority groups in a lesson, they might still speak up and teachers need to be ready to deal with that. However, if that is the case, the teacher is better able to redirect the focus of the lesson to the overall context much quicker. […]

  3. Retrospectiva 2019: momentos – James Taylor | BrELT – A Global ELT Community Made by Brazilians Avatar

    […] Na nossa entrevista, ele fala bastante sobre os podcasts no quais é envolvido e também do livro essencial que Ilá Coimbra (outra amiga da BrELT que mora no nosso coração e que, vale ressaltar, estamos morrendo de saudade) e James escreveram, Raise Up, que você pode comprar clicando neste link. […]

  4. […] Na nossa entrevista, ele fala bastante sobre os podcasts no quais é envolvido e também do livro essencial que Ilá Coimbra (outra amiga da BrELT que mora no nosso coração e que, vale ressaltar, estamos morrendo de saudade) e James escreveram, Raise Up, que você pode comprar clicando neste link. […]

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