Book excerpt: Designed for pre-service teachers and teachers new to the field of ELT, What English Teachers Need to Know I and II are companion textbooks organized around the key question: What do teachers need to know and be able to do in order for their students to learn English? The focus throughout is on outcomes, that is, student learning. Volume I, on understanding learning, provides the background information that teachers need to know and be able to use in their classroom: the characteristics of the context in which they work how English works and how it is learned their role in the larger professional sphere of English language education Volume II, on facilitating learning, covers the three main facets of teaching: planning instructing assessing The texts work for teachers across different contexts (countries where English is the dominant language, one of the official languages, or taught as a foreign language); different levels (elementary/primary, secondary, college or university, or adult education), and different learning purposes (general English, workplace English, English for academic purposes, or English for specific purposes).