Purpose: An overview of English aims, theoretical scope and methods is badly needed. Ministries throughout the English-speaking world have become dominated by a demand for testing -- stimulated no doubt by regular Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) surveys -- and lost sight of first principles. The purpose of this article is therefore to set out a model of English drawn from the best international experience since the 1960s, collected during seminars and practical workshops on four continents. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a collection of experiences drawn from seminars and practical workshops over the past 50 years. It incorporates researches and reflections generated with the author's former colleagues. Findings: The paper gives an insider's account of the carefully designed movement for English development and teacher participation that started during that decade in England, ramifying and attracting new energies in Canadian provinces, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Founded in new theories of classroom communication and interaction, the emerging models also demonstrated the urgent need for new approaches to assessment, sampling students' optimal achievements. The regime that is universally replacing this major work depends, it can be shown, on a model designed by ministers (disregarding professional advice) and avowedly intended to promote competition among pupils, teachers and schools -- thus stifling the kinds of cooperation essential to any classroom, especially in the arts, and indeed to Education in general. But the historical foundations remain, from that creative period, and can be reclaimed. Originality/value: This is an original view from an author who is one of the handful of survivors and who has been active in each stage since 1960, and has been privileged to be invited to four continents to convene seminars and practical workshops over many years.