The role of and even necessity for (commercially available) foreign language teaching materials have, of not remained unchallenged--see, for example, Allwright (1981). However, this paper rests on assumption, shared inter alia with O'Neill (1982), Matthews (1985), Sheldon (1988) and McDonough and Shaw (1993), that in many if not most foreign language teaching situations, commercially-produced materials, and pre-eminently amongst them the for course, represent fundament on which teaching and learning are based, or, at least, may most conveniently be supported. The reasons may often be theoretically unimportant, though imperatives in practice. Among them are: pressure of time on teachers (such that they cannot develop their own materials); uncertain language competence of teachers (such that it is better that they do not produce their own materials), greater slickness and perhaps, by that token, appeal to learners, of established publishers' offerings; need for a yardstick of progress, both for learners and for others looking in on situation (e.g. inspectors, parents), insofar as working from one end of a to other is tantamount, or may be interpreted as tantamount, to this. Reasons such as these, which between them are classifiable under both of Allwright's (1981) Deficiency and Difference views, will bring little comfort to those who see way forward in language teaching as lying in innovative management techniques. The premise here, however, is that failing a revolution in teaching and other relevant conditions, centrality of commerciallyproduced materials, and again, of commercially-produced textbook for course, will persist.