Louis George Alexander

Louis George Alexander (15 January 1932 – 17 June 2002) (commonly referred to as L. G. Alexander) was a British teacher and the author of numerous course books on English as a Foreign Language (EFL), including New Concept English.

In 1977, he sold 4.7m books, which was recorded at the time in the Guinness Book of Records as the greatest number of copies sold by an individual author in one year.

Biography Louis Alexander was born Elias George Ftyaras in London. His father, George Ftyaras, was Greek and his mother, Mary Ftyaras née Manolas, was an Australian of Greek ancestry – "so he spoke perfect English and perfect Greek".

During much of World War II he was with his mother in Australia. They later returned to Britain, where he was educated at Godalming Grammar School and the University of London. From 1954 to 1956 he was on national service in the British Army of the Rhine in Germany, where he had his first experience as an educator, teaching A-level English as an Educational Corps instructor. He taught English, for most of the time as head of the English department, at Protypon Lykeion, Athens (now the Scholi Moraïti) from 1956 to 1965

In the 1960s his books started to be published, by Longmans. In 1962 his first book, Sixty Steps to Précis, was published and became a bestseller. His second book, A First Book in Comprehension, was published in 1964. New Concept English, his first major book series, was published in 1967. With Longman he also published series including Look Listen and Learn (1968–71), Target (1972–74), and Mainline (1973–81).

Alexander was a member of the Council of Europe Committee on Modern Language Teaching (1973–78), and one of the authors of The Threshold Level (1975) and Waystage (1977), works developed for the Council of Europe that have been the bases of many communicative language courses and forms the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. He served on the Committee of Management of the Society of Authors (1980–83). The statue bears the following inscription: "...the man who cracked the linguistic code of the English language and made it learnable for millions of students worldwide through New Concept English and many other course books". include:

Books Sixty Steps to Precis (1962) Poetry and Prose Appreciation (1963) A First Book in Comprehension (1964) Essays and Letter Writing (1965) A First Book in Comprehension (1965) New Concept English (1967) For and Against (1968) Look, Listen and Learn! (1968–71) Operation Mastermind (1971) Target (1972–74) Mainline (1973–81) Follow Me (1979–80) Excel (for Egyptian Secondary Schools, 1985) Plain English (1987–88) Longman English Grammar (1988) Longman English Grammar Practice (1990) Step by Step 1–3 (1991) Longman Advanced Grammar (1993) Right Word, Wrong Word (1994) K's First Case Good Morning, Mexico Dangerous Game (2000)

Other books by Alexander are listed in his For and Against (1968).

Articles "Fads and fashions in English language teaching", English Today, 21: 35–56, 1990.