Andrew Wright

Like so many of us, Andrew came into ELT by a circuitous route.  He was an artist by training, having graduated from the Slade School in London with such distinguished teachers as Lucien Freud.  A good grounding for a humanistic approach to life. By chance he was hired by the Nuffield Project which was then designing materials for teaching French, such as En Avant. But his job initially was as an illustrator. Yet somehow he transformed into language teacher and moved over into teaching English.

Many will remember Andrew at conferences worldwide in the 1970s and 80s, especially at IATEFL in the heady days of experimentation with the Communicative Approach. He became a familiar figure, riding around on his unicycle wearing black tights and a bowler hat. Unmistakeable! His book with David Betteridge and Mike Buckby, Games for Language Learning (2006) and 1000+ Pictures for Teachers to Copy (1994) remain in print and are still a staple of any savvy teacher's library, as is Five Minute Activities (1992), which he co-authored with Penny Ur.

But his main claim to fame and his enduring legacy is his work on incorporating stories into language teaching. He has been in the vanguard of fostering an interest in storytelling and story-making for decades - and has tirelessly promoted the use of stories with groups of teachers and children worldwide. His two books, Storytelling with Children (2nd ed, 2009) and Creating Stories with Children (1997) are now classics. And no one who has watched him at work - wearing his trademark (reversible) coat of many colours - will ever forget the experience. The epitome of warmth, care and engagement with his listeners. Stories are one of the things which characterise human societies. There is no society on earth that does not have its stories. And our own stories are part of who we are. So Andrew has been and remains at the heart of humanism. As his mail address proclaims andrewwrightstoryman - and that is exactly what he is.  And we are all the better for it.