I was a little miffed that he got his main pack of books, CDs and DVDs before me... and even before the dispatch date on the module website. However, when mine arrived, all the books were spiral bound, which is clearly a trump card. I explained that it's because holding a book open is bad for my back but he wasn't impressed at all. Having said that, his books smelled nicer, which is also a big thing.
I made a start on the study guide and first two chapters of the course reader. Each chapter is an article by some expert in the field of applied linguistics. Christopher Brumfit makes for a relatively pleasant read and talks a lot of sense but the first chapter, by Henry Widdowson, was hard to read. My theory is that he eats a dictionary each morning for breakfast. Aside from a lot of big words, there was a whole section on the difference between a useful theory and a theory that is useful. I'm not one for this kind of semantic discussion and it took me a while to mince it all up and work out what he was really saying. When I'd worked it all out, I mentioned it to Neil (in the hope of knowing something that he wouldn't understand) but he instantly explained the difference and why it was relevant to my course. GIT!
