IRLT Journal no. 12 (Journal of the Institute for Research in Language Teaching, Tokyo: Special issue to celebrate the Institute's 90th anniversary), pp. 1-8, November 2013. Pre-publication version. Harold E. Palmer, IRLT and Historical sense in ELT 1 Richard Smith, University of Warwick, UK Introduction ELT (English Language Teaching) – as seen from the UK context where I work – is a dynamic, forward- looking field, constantly reinventing itself via new approaches, methods, materials and techniques. Without a sense of history, however, we may at times be victims of fashion, reinventing the wheel as we think we progress. In this short article I argue for the importance to ELT professionalism of what I Đall histoƌiĐal seŶse – an appreciation of the past which enables new ideas to be evaluated in the light of former experience, and forgotten ideas to be made available as a continuing resource. History neglected ELT teacher training and masters courses in the UK tend to pay little or no attention to the history of language teaching, while teacher resource books and academic studies alike tend to emphasize only the most recent developments. As a result, the work of Harold E. Palmer (1877-1949) remains unknown to most ELT professionals these days. Indeed, the same was true in my own case as a teacher of English in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s – before, that is, I came into contact with the work of IRLT (the Institute for Research in Language Teaching), which is now celebrating its 90 th anniversary. As I then came to discover, a study of Palŵeƌs writings reveals numerous ideas which have reappeared in recent times, rebranded: the Learning/Acquisition distinction, Total Physical Response (TPR), language functions, lexical chunking, grammar consciousness-raising, and so on. Even recent suggestions for moving beyond dogmatic monolingualism in the classroom parallel Palŵeƌs pƌiŶĐipled ĐƌitiĐisŵs of the Beƌlitz Method at the ďegiŶŶiŶg of the last ĐeŶtuƌLJ. AŶotheƌ of Palŵeƌs ideas which could beneficially be revived now is the need to establish an independent field of research for the professionalisation of English language teaching. The fact that Palmer put this idea into practice and set up a pioneering Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET) in Tokyo in 1923 has not been widely enough appreciated outside Japan, and still less the fact that the Institute survives to this day as a forum for professional development among Japanese English teachers. Palmer failed to win support for the establishment of a similar Institute following his return to Britain in 1936. Nevertheless, the serious attention paid to the teaching of English as a foreign language within IRET in the 1920s and 1930s paved the way for the development of ELT in the UK and worldwide in more favourable post-war circumstances. Palmer had been invited to Japan as an adviser to the Department of Education, with a brief to engage in research and ultimately suggest teaching methods which might be appropriate in the Japanese secondary school context. In conceiving of what he termed an IŶstitute as the best means to involve teachers in reform, he may have been recalling his own beginnings as an English teacher in Verviers, Belgium (1902-1914). There he had set up his own school, which he called the IŶstitut 1 This article is adapted and updated from an essay I originally wrote in 2001 with the title HistoƌiĐal seŶse aŶd the idea of aŶ IŶstitute foƌ the short-lived newsletter of the British Institute of English Language Teaching (issue 3, pp. 17–19).