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Lecture 1: Catford talks about his early life in Scotland and the development of his interest in linguistics as a schoolboy; covers his life through about 1936.

Lecture 2: Catford describes his time as a university student at Edinburgh University and the Institut de Phonétique in the late 1930s.

Lecture 3: Catford begins the lecture by discussing structuralism, then talks about his experience as an instructor of English as a second language at the Institute of English Studies in Athens, Greece from 1939-194. Includes an anecdote about how he became interested in the languages of the Caucasus during this time.

Lecture 4: Catford begins lecturing about the Basic English concept developed by Charles K. Ogden, which Catford taught at the Institute of English Studies in Athens. Catford then discusses his time in the Middle East from 1941-1946, where he resided in or traveled to Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria while working for the British Council.

Lecture 5: Catford discusses how, after 1946, he returned to Britain, studying under the linguist J.R. Firth at London University in the School of Oriental and African Studies. During this time, he also learned Russian in the School of Slavic and East European Studies.

Lecture 6: Catford talks about his experiences with the Linguistic Survey of Scotland, beginning in 1952.

Lecture 7: Catford describes his tenure, beginning in 1957, as director of University of Edinburgh's School of Applied Linguistics, which was established to provide experienced teachers of English as a second language with a theoretical foundation in instruction.