Cumbria

by Dave Willis

The Lake District, as a national park has onlyexisted since 1951; Cumbria as a county, since1974. But the old titles of Cumberland andWestmorland were collectively known asCumbria for centuries and the mountainousLakeland heart was an integral part of theregion's fabric.The national park status of theLake District has defined the region for manyvisitors but Cumbria has always been a richlydiverse and historic county with great rewardsfor those who go looking. For those who liveand work here there has always been more toCumbria than the Lakes' but for many visitorsthe bigger picture is less well known.Cumbria's landscapes are defined by itsgeography. It is literally surrounded by uniqueness- the vastness of Morecambe Bay to the South,the bleak Pennines to the East; Scotland's wildborders and Hadrian'sWall to the North and theforbidding Irish Sea, washing theWest coast.Thisbook is a journey through the lands of Cumbria;a county of breathtaking beauty, grandeur andsurprise. It includes the Lake District as a part ofCumbria but reveals also the less frequentedlandscapes of the Eden Valley, the Borders, theSolway Firth,West Cumbria, Morecambe Bay andthe Eastern dales of the Lune Valley and gives afascinating insight into England's most beautifulcounty.This not the Lake District.This is Cumbria, shownin all its glory through masterly photography in adeservedly large format.

144 pages, Hardcover

Published June 23, 2009

About the author

Dave Willis began his TEFL career working overseas as a teacher in Ghana and Cyprus. He joined the British Council and worked for twenty years as an English Language Officer in Iran, Singapore and London. From 1990 to 2000 he worked as a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Studies, at Birmingham University, working mainly on MA TEFL/TESOL programmes.

He has published widely on discourse analysis, the subject of his PhD thesis at Birmingham, on the description of grammar and lexis for ELT, and on task-based methodology. He is now retired from full time work, but maintains an active interest in ELT by researching, writing and travelling widely as a consultant and to international conferences. Currently his main area of interest is how to integrate grammar and lexis into a task-based approach.