It was a massive undertaking and CPM was given three levels of the course to work on – studentbooks, workbooks, teacher’s books, audio – all due to be completed by June.
The company says:" It wasn’t long before the ambition of a summer delivery took a very large reality check and it was decided that instead we were to deliver just half of each book for June, in order to get the first part of the course ready for teachers to start using it in September.
"Making the cultural changes to the content to fit it to the Arab destination was an exercise that frequently caused us to examine our understanding of what is acceptable for the Middle East and why (or rather, why not). The complex cultural landscape of the destination country needed to be understood: we had not only to avoid the obvious issues, such as pork and immodest dress, but also to beware of sensitive and upsetting issues such as crime and suicide. We already knew quite a bit about publishing for the Middle East, but gradually realised where our particular country sat on the continuum of cultural sensitivity. It was a fascinating imaginative entry into the world of a Gulf state, into which our freelance development editors were excellent guides.
"In addition to the cultural changes, the course needed to be adapted to align to the new national curriculum, which initially it was believed required approximately 30% changes to the content. However, during the first six weeks of planning, our fantastic development editors soon made it clear that much more than 30% changes would be needed, and the frequently-recurring conversations of 'Wouldn’t it be easier to start from scratch?' began."
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