In a move that has left the English language teaching world reeling, media mogul Rupert Murdoch has bought the long-established journal, English Teaching depressional. ELT watchers fear this could mean a decline in standards at the revered publication.

Last night a spokesperson for Murdoch’s company, Fascist Lies “R” Us, confirmed that ETd had been acquired for a sum said by insiders to be adjacent to £19.95.

The ETd was started in England in 1921 by General Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and inventor of the Cuisenaire rod. Early contributors included Aldous Huxley and Virginia Woolf and the journal even rejected a piece on punctuation by James Joyce. In the pre-war years the editors praised “up-to-date” German pedagogical methods (chanting phrasal verbs and marching around the classroom). During the war the journal was closed down to save paper.

Until the 1970s nobody could be bothered to revive it, but then under the legendary editorship of Mario Rinvoludicrous [Are you sure you have checked the facts on this page? Ed.] it threw the stuffy and complacent ELT profession into a turmoil.

“It was a breath of fresh air,” one bore from that era told englishdroid. “For years people had been saying in private that the grammar-translation method was dead. ETd came out and said it openly. I remember teachers weeping with joy in the streets. When the postman brought the latest issue, dinner parties would come to a halt. Actually, that can’t be right, we didn’t have dinner parties in the morning.”

Sadly, in recent years the ailing ETd has suffered from declining sales and a dearth of interesting articles. Last year’s mooted merger with sister journal IAWAFL Voices came to nothing.

Breaking news...

The new editor has announced that the journal will be relaunched with a new name and mission. It will be called English Teaching confessional and it will “tell all about the naughtiness, high jinks and sleaze in ELT”.

• Out go articles by Mario, Scott, Russell, Dave, Rose, Luke and the other regular Bores.
• In come the sauciest tales and tips from teachers on the ground.

When accused of taking the journal downmarket, a company spokesperson agreed. “We’re targeting it at a low-income percentile characterized by minimal ambition, few qualifications and unsophisticated tastes,” she said. “In other words, the vast majority of English language teachers.”