Thursday, 18th December (Cambridge)

Posted on December 18, 2025 by roycross

This slightly longer than normal Free Resources message will be the last one till Tuesday 6th January. If you’re celebrating Christmas, be sure to make the most of it, and I wish everyone peace and happiness for 2026!

1. The UK Parliament has a good reputation for the quality of its reports and the staff responsible pride themselves on their political independence. Here’s a recent one by the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Home-Based Working, Is working from home working? https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ldselect/ldhomework/196/196.pdf Two PDFs below: one of the summary only and one of the whole report.

Since the pandemic, the UK’s workforce appears to have settled into a “new normal”, where a large minority work from home at least some of the time; according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, 13% of working adults in Great Britain work from home all of the time, and a further 26% work from home some of the time (known as hybrid working). The UK is also estimated to have one of the highest levels of home working in the world. However, not everyone can, or wants to, work from home—many jobs still have to be done in person, with significant variation across industries. Access to remote and hybrid working is unequal, with levels higher among professionals, university graduates, and those living in London. For example, data from one study suggests that 55% of those working in occupations associated with office working practise hybrid working—more than twice the figure for the working population at large.

Is working from home working summary onlyDownload
Is working from home working HoL 2025Download

2. A good short video from the British Council on their annual Global Perceptions survey for 2025 https://youtu.be/QbbY4ngdG1o

plus a PDF of the whole report here (and below) https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/global_perceptions_2025.pdf

The findings from multiple metrics suggest that in an increasingly unstable, multipolar world, there is a growing preference among young people for predictability, security, and capability – qualities increasingly associated with non-Western governance models – over the perceived instability, paralysis and polarisation of many Western democracies.

global_perceptions_2025Download

3. Not totally unrelated, here’s the Ipsos UK Veracity Index for 2025 https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ipsos-veracity-index-2025

Nurses, engineers and doctors remain Britain’s most trusted professions while advertising execs, government ministers, politicians, and social media influencers are the least trusted.

Real geeks can download the charts and tables behind the report at the bottom of the page.

4. English UK, the trade body for English language schools in the UK, publishes a quarterly ‘QUIC’ report which gives a snapshot picture of the industry, and they’ve kindly allowed me to share the most recent report, for the third quarter of 2025. PDF below. 2019 was the last ‘normal’, i.e. pre-Covid year, and the data shows that the 2025 numbers remain significantly below 2019. Before you look at Chart 6, which shows the top ten countries by student weeks spent in the UK, see if you can guess what those ten countries are.

QUIC_Q3_2025_Executive_Summary_FINALDownload

5. The Pesticide Action Network here in the UK publishes annually its Dirty Dozen report, naming and shaming the twelve most sprayed (and otherwise got at) fruit and vegetables sold in the UK. Think twice before eating grapefruit and grapes! PDF here (and below) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/89ad9dbab6f70b59

Dirty-Dozen-2025Download

6. From The Telegraph, a gift article with Britain’s 20 best high streets https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ced3acd9fa98a0fe

Away from the Starbucks and Specsavers monotony of many town centres are thoroughfares filled with history, charm and independent businesses.

I’d not have guessed many of them, and I can think of at least one friend who will be less than pleased to see their hometown’s high street included!

7. It’s not you – some typefaces feel different by Andrea Piovesan for The Conversation https://theconversation.com/its-not-you-some-typefaces-feel-different-270192

Have you ever thought a font looked “friendly” or “elegant”? Or felt that Comic Sans was somehow unserious? You’re not imagining it. Typefaces carry personalities, and we react to them more than we realise. My work explores how the shapes of letters can subtly influence our feelings. When we read, we are not just processing the words. We are also taking in the typeface, which can shape how we interpret a message and even what we think of the person who wrote it.

8. And, finally, this Globe of History is fun – click on the two icons in the top left-hand corner to find your way around https://www.globeofhistory.com/

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Tuesday, 16th December (Richmond)

Posted on December 16, 2025 by roycross

1. A Guardian ‘long read’ first today, What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’, by Deepak Varuvel Dennison https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/nov/18/what-ai-doesnt-know-global-knowledge-collapse

Dad’s tumour showed signs of being malignant, so the hospital doctors and my sister (also a doctor) strongly recommended surgery. My parents were against the idea, worried it could affect my dad’s speech. This is usually where I come in, as the expert mediator in the family. Like any good millennial, I turned to the internet for help in guiding the decision. After days of thorough research, I (as usual) sided with my sister and pushed for surgery. The internet backed us up. We eventually got my dad to agree and even set a date. But then, he slyly used my sister’s pregnancy as a distraction to skip the surgery altogether. While we pestered him every day to get it done, he was secretly taking his herbal concoction. And, lo and behold, after several months the tumour actually shrank and eventually disappeared. The whole episode earned my dad some bragging rights.

2. A lecture by Neil Postman from 1998 that has stood the test of time very well, Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs492/papers/neil-postman–five-things.html

Here’s Postman’s conclusion – promise me you’ll read the whole piece, though!

And so, these are my five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.

Neil Postman’s Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman

Thanks to Alan Maley for the first two items today!

3. That Postman lecture sits well alongside this piece about the stock market AI bubble for the London Review of Books by John Lanchester, King of Cannibal Island https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n23/john-lanchester/king-of-cannibal-island

The tulip bubble​ is the most famous financial bubble in history, but as historical examples go it is also, in one crucial respect, misleading. That’s because anyone can see the flagrant irrationality which was at work. At peak tulip madness in 1637, rare bulbs were so expensive that a single one was worth as much as a fancy canalside house in Amsterdam. You don’t have to be Warren Buffett to see that the disconnect between price and value was based on delusional thinking.

4.  Four of my NILE colleagues are telling The NILE Online Story at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, Wednesday 17th December. More info and registration here (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nileelt_nile30at30-nileelt-elt-activity-7406298633987444737-e20o/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAwEhnMBelLV9HB9ZxhbMmNm1K_LeUUtChc

or here if the LinkedIn link doesn’t work https://nile-elt.zoom.us/meeting/register/eZTm4SM-Qu-NNLa1TbN9BQ#/registration

Key decisions, challenges and turning points in the evolution of the NILE online programme with a discussion of what has worked and what hasn’t, learning points and practical insights.

Warts and all, promise!

5. I wasn’t quite sure what to say about the USA’s new National Security Strategy, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

so I asked AI to summarise it for me. PDF of the summary and the strategy itself below. Here’s the beginning of the summary:

The document outlines the National Security Strategy of the United States, emphasizing the need for a coherent foreign policy focused on protecting national interests and ensuring the country’s safety, sovereignty, and global influence.

National Security Strategy Overview

The National Security Strategy outlines the United States’ goals and principles for maintaining national strength and security in a changing global landscape.

Restoration of American Strength and Security

The strategy emphasizes a return to strong national defense and international respect after years of perceived weakness.

• The administration claims to have restored U.S. borders and military strength.

• A $1 trillion investment was made to strengthen the military.

• NATO allies committed to increasing defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP.

• Eight international conflicts were resolved, including significant peace agreements in the Middle East and Asia.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the word ‘claimed’ in the first bullet point below but less pleased to see ‘were resolved’ in the fourth!

2025-National-Security-StrategyDownload
USA NSS AI summaryDownload

6. And, finally, a lovely piece on Henry Oliver’s Substack, The Common Reader, about John Carey, who died last week (and with whom I had the surprisingly unintimidating pleasure of working on a number of occasions) https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/john-carey-the-common-readers-professor

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Thursday, 11th December (Cambridge)

Posted on December 11, 2025 by roycross

1. A sample from a wondrous (and wondrously expensive) book by David B. Wilson, The Experience of Expatriate English Language Teaching https://cspcontents.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/master/samples/978-1-0364-4603-1-sample.pdf

Teaching English overseas is a funny old business. Funny-ha-ha in that it has been a rich source of humour from the very beginning. Funny-peculiar in that it is a very queer occupation which defies definitive designation: although for some it might be thought of as a profession with a career, for others it is little more than a series of precarious, ill-paid jobs in the international gig economy. Other designations consider expatriate TEFLing as a form of “mendicancy,” or of “failure on the move”  or a mode of “existential cruising.”  (In my own case it might be summed up, in a parody of the titles of two famous novels, as “East of Sweden and Legless in Jeddah”.) It is an undertaking that has attracted some of our greatest literary minds but also its fair share of scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells. And the motives for becoming an expatriate TEFLer are so many and various, sometimes absurd and highly improbable, that they almost defy any categorization.

Brought to my attention by Richard Smith, whose hopes for a cheaper paperback edition I share!

2. Prompted by the Geoff Mulgan piece I shared two Thursdays ago, ‘Learning for Long Lives in the age of AI’, Robin Skipsey kindly sent me a link to The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI by Barbara Oakley et al. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5250447 PDF below.

In an era of generative AI and ubiquitous digital tools, human memory faces a paradox: the more we offload knowledge to external aids, the less we exercise and develop our own cognitive capacities. This chapter offers the first neuroscience-based explanation for the observed reversal of the Flynn Effect—the recent decline in IQ scores in developed countries—linking this downturn to shifts in educational practices and the rise of cognitive offloading via AI and digital tools. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and learning theory, we explain how underuse of the brain’s declarative and procedural memory systems undermines reasoning, impedes learning, and diminishes productivity. We critique contemporary pedagogical models that downplay memorization and basic knowledge, showing how these trends erode long-term fluency and mental flexibility. Finally, we outline policy implications for education, workforce development, and the responsible integration of AI, advocating strategies that harness technology as a complement to – rather than a replacement for – robust human knowledge.

The Memory Paradox – Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AIDownload

3. A good piece from last Saturday’s Times by Fraser Nelson, Try this cure for the trainee doctor crisis https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/trainee-doctor-crisis-recruits-wes-streeting-6397cbbfb Samizdat PDF below just in case that ‘share’ link has strings attached.

This is a nerve-shredding time for sixth-formers. University offers and rejections are landing in inboxes at any hour and for those hoping to study medicine, it feels especially cruel. Stories are already circulating of straight-A candidates being rejected without interview or explanation. Demand for medicine surged this year: 25,800 applications for 8,130 places. Rising demand has hit the immovable object of government-capped places. At a time when the NHS is chronically short of doctors, it’s a tragic waste of potential. We are often told the NHS would collapse without immigrant doctors. That is true, but only because Britain has chosen to import roughly 20,000 doctors a year while rejecting about 16,000 med-school applicants. About one in six of Nigeria’s registered doctors now works in Britain, as do one in ten of Pakistan’s. The ethics of raiding the workforces of countries suffering doctor shortages is questionable but the arithmetic is not. Training a doctor costs the state about £160,000. Importing is cheaper.

Try this cure for the trainee doctor crisis v2Download

4. Tech predictions for 2026 and beyond from Werner Vogels, who ought, as Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer, to know what he’s talking about (but may not be quite so hot on E M Forster) https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/11/tech-predictions-for-2026-and-beyond.html

For much of the world, technology has become so intertwined with our day-to-day lives that it influences everything. Our relationships, the care we seek, how we work, what we do to protect ourselves, even the things we choose to learn and when. It would be understandable to read this as a dystopian nightmare conjured up by E.M. Forster or Ernest Cline. Yet, we are on the verge of something fundamentally different. We’ve caught glimpses of a future that values autonomy, empathy, and individual expertise. Where interdisciplinary cooperation influences discovery and creation at an unrelenting pace. In the coming year, we will begin the transition into a new era of AI in the human loop, not the other way around. This cycle will create massive opportunities to solve problems that truly matter. And it starts by addressing one of the unintended consequences of our hyperconnected world—loneliness and a lack of companionship—by turning the very force that created the problem into the solution.

5. And, finally, another home-made PDF, this one of Olga Tokarczuk’s science fiction choices, as shared in The New Yorker’s books newsletter last week: books by Lem, Dick, Aldiss, Chiang and Liu are her choices. Read the PDF to find out which ones.

Olga Tokarczuk’s science fiction choicesDownload

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Tuesday, 9th December (Richmond)

Posted on December 9, 2025 by roycross

1. First out of the blocks today, an article by Uwe Pohl, Developing teacher presence: nature or nurture? PDF below – thank you, Uwe! – and also to be found here, in Klančnik, R.N. and Leva, B. (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 30th International IATEFL Slovenia Conference: What keeps us going https://www.iatefl.si/files/2025/11/KONFERENCNA-BROSURA-2025.pdf

Language teaching is often seen as a mix of craft and applied science. This is certainly true if we consider the linguistic and pedagogical background knowledge as well as the broad professional skills base needed to teach well. In other words, competent and confident EFL teachers know what to do in the classroom because they can rely on experience, methodological and content knowledge, as well as on a wide repertoire of subject-specific skills. But highlighting the closeness of teacher expertise to performative art, educationalists like Schön (1987), Almond (2019), and Sorensen (2023) remind us that teacher expertise is fundamentally improvisatory and that teachers also have a very special way of being in the classroom. One could say they have a personal kind of energy or presence, which creates a “unique psychological atmosphere” around them (Underhill 1987).

Pohl 2025 Developing Teacher Presence 2Download

2. A piece from Saturday’s Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, Only Europe can save Ukraine from Putin and Trump – but will it? Timothy Garton Ash https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/06/europe-ukraine-putin-trump-eu

Europe, you have been warned. President Vladimir Putin has waged a full-scale war against Ukraine for nearly four years and this week threatened that Russia was “ready right now” for war with Europe if need be. President Donald Trump has demonstrated that the US is ready to sell out Ukraine for the sake of a dirty deal with Putin’s Russia. His new US National Security Strategy prescribes “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. How much more clarity do you need?

3. Macmillan English’s Educating Adults Day with Lindsay Clandfield, Carolina E. Kuepper-Tetzel & Karolina Kotorowicz-Jasińska is this Wednesday, 10th December, repeated at 10:00, 15:00 and 21:30 UK time. More info and registration here https://www.macmillanenglish.com/mt/training-events/events-webinars/event/educating-adults-day-2

Teaching adults means adapting to diverse needs, tight frameworks, and fast-changing expectations. In this three-part event, we explore how to stay flexible and focused in that reality. From reworking a syllabus to suit your own teaching context, to applying the latest research on how adults learn best, to supplementing a coursebook without overwhelming your lessons — each session offers practical strategies that speak to the same challenge: making informed, intentional choices in the adult English language classroom.

The pedant in me wonders whether teaching children also ‘means adapting to diverse needs, tight frameworks, and fast-changing expectations’?

4. Andragogy is not the word of the year this year and probably never has been, but here’s another word of the year I’ve never come across or used, this time from Oxford University Press https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

5. And, finally and mysteriously, for Crime Reads by Sarah Meuleman, What Happened to Barbara Newhall Follett? She was a Child Prodigy Novelist. And Then She Disappeared https://crimereads.com/what-happened-to-barbara-newhall-follett/

Meet Barbara. Not exactly your average American kid. Barbara is extremely gifted. She is intelligent and ambitious. A prodigy. Very much in awe of nature, and in love with writing. In 1927, at the incredibly young age of twelve, Barbara published her first novel to great critical acclaim. Two years later, her second novel followed. Then things changed. In spite of her literary success, she suffered several personal blows and reportedly became depressed. In December 1939, at the age of twenty-five, Barbara walked out of her Brookline apartment, never to be seen again.

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Thursday, 4th December (Cambridge)

Posted on December 4, 2025 by roycross

1. We’re not an especially happy bunch here in the UK at present. Here’s the latest Ipsos survey of UK public opinion, taken following last week’s budget https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-more-pessimistic-about-economy-post-budget-though-some-individual-measures-supported

56% say they are ‘more concerned’ about the economy post budget and 77% expect it to be in a poor state in a year’s time.

55% think Rachel Reeves doing a bad job as Chancellor – her worst rating in the role.

Freezing prescription charges, cutting energy bills and increases to minimum wage most supported measures.

Lifting the two-child benefit cap the measure the public have heard of most (along with minimum wage increases) but public divided on whether they support this.

50% think the government is increasing taxes too much – but no party leads on being most trusted on the economy.

2. John Kampfner visited the Czech Republic recently https://johnkampfner.substack.com/p/another-european-domino-set-to-fall

The country, which (as Czechoslovakia) first tasted independence under the inspired inter-war leadership of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and which shook off Communism in 1989 thanks to Vaclav Havel, is on the verge of inaugurating a local oligarch propped up by motorists, assorted far-right weirdos and Putin sympathisers. The Czech Republic of recent times has been a poster-boy for constructive engagement in the European Union and NATO and one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine. And yet could imminently join several of its neighbours on the dark side. I say “could” because, while it’s likely, it’s not yet certain.

3. If you’re going to be in Manchester next Wednesday, 10th December, you could join this NATESOL networking and CPD event, Why Extensive Reading (Still) Matters: a journey into the digital implementation of ER with Donna Cottrell, in person: register here https://tinyurl.com/483bsepp If, as is quite likely, you’re not going to be in Manchester, there’s also an online option, for which you can register here https://tinyurl.com/9bfy252z More details in the PDF below.

NATESOL Live Networking & hybrid CPD 10 Dec 2025 v2Download

4. If you’re on LinkedIn, they’re currently offering a good four-and-a-half hour free course on AI Trends https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ai-trends/welcome-to-ai-trends Broken up into manageable short bits.

5. Two recent posts from the UKFIET blog:

Anudeep Lehal  on Learning together: How a simple idea is transforming classrooms in India and Malawi https://www.ukfiet.org/2025/learning-together-how-a-simple-idea-is-transforming-classrooms-in-india-and-malawi/

When I first stepped into the classroom that morning, the noise caught me by surprise. Dozens of children were talking at once — not in chaos, but in conversation. Groups of three huddled over shared notebooks, whispering, debating, laughing, and scribbling answers on the blackboard. Despite the worn desks and faded walls, the energy in that room was unmistakable. These children were not just learning; they were learning together. I was there to observe a peer learning model that has been quietly reshaping how we think about teaching and learning — the TRIO approach.

Mike Douse on The teacher as AI manager – across all levels of education https://www.ukfiet.org/2025/the-teacher-as-ai-manager-across-all-levels-of-education/

Very few teachers, worldwide, are effectively applying Artificial Intelligence in their classrooms, gymnasia, studios and laboratories, although the proportion doing so in some countries is rapidly increasing. In this blogpost, Mike Douse suggests that, not only should all who teach become familiar and confident with contemporary technology, but also that every teacher should be enabled to become an effective AI Education Manager.

6. And, finally, The Beguiling, Misunderstood Theremin https://tinyurl.com/3e4umddh

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Tuesday, 2nd December (Richmond)

Posted on December 2, 2025 by roycross

1. Two pieces from BOLD to start with today:

There’s no single right way to parent by a team from the School of Psychology at Sheffield University https://boldscience.org/theres-no-single-right-way-to-parent/

The pressure on parents to get parenting ‘right’ is immense. Many people offer parenting advice that is not backed up by evidence, or that may not suit all families. Study findings are sometimes distorted, as when attachment research is misused to claim that parents need to be with their infants constantly, or to allege that gradual sleep training will sever a secure attachment. There is no evidence that sleep training negatively affects attachment, but there is evidence that it helps protect a sleep-deprived mother’s mental health.

When helping your child hurts their progress by Meeri Kim https://boldscience.org/when-helping-your-child-hurts-their-progress/

When parents see their children struggle, their first instinct is often to step in and offer a helping hand. My 3-year-old daughter loves jigsaw puzzles, but sometimes gets frustrated when trying to solve them. I’ll point to a particular piece — “Maybe this one?” I say, knowing full well that it fits. A recent study suggests that giving children such unsolicited help, even in the form of a hint, can actually backfire.

2. A piece by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic, Why Does Steve Witkoff Keep Taking Russia’s Side? Trump’s envoy isn’t promoting peace. His interventions are helping Vladimir Putin. https://tinyurl.com/4wdk7sfn

Pay attention to the dates, because the timing matters. Steve Witkoff spoke with Yuri Ushakov, a Russian official, on October 14. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on October 17. Trump had been hinting that he would offer to sell Tomahawks, long-range cruise missiles, to the Ukrainian army. But he did not. Why not? Perhaps because Ushakov listened to Witkoff’s advice and persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to call Trump on October 16.

3. Rethinking global issues: AI, equity and climate – two webinars from TeachingEnglish at 12:00 UK time this coming Friday. More info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/rethinking-global-issues-ai-equity-and-climate-webinars

In these two webinars, our expert teachers from sub-Saharan Africa will help you rethink two global issues in English language education: artificial intelligence and climate action. In our first session, you will learn how AI can be a force for justice, allowing you to create inclusive learning spaces that allow all your English language learners to thrive. In our second session, our speakers share how they have used indigenous knowledge and set up research projects to help learners find solutions to climate issues where they live, developing their English language skills through practical, real-life projects.

4. And there’s an IATEFL webinar at 15:00 UK time the following day, Saturday 6th December, that’s open to non-members: Flip the Script: A Practical Framework for Reimagining Classroom Engagement with Ngan Phan Le Hai. More info & registration here https://www.iatefl.org/event-details/#/?id=723

This interactive webinar introduces Flip the Script, an innovative approach to English language teaching based on the FLIP framework. The session explores how to transform traditional teaching methods into dynamic, student-centred experiences that promote learner autonomy and critical thinking.

There’s a number of other IATEFL online events open to non-members listed here https://www.iatefl.org/events/ including Ian McMaster at 14:00 UK time the following day, Sunday 7th December on Working in international teams: how can AI help?

5. Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, has just died by assisted suicide. Here’s a report from The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/da314c5867b6e4ab

The founder of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas has ended his own life through assisted suicide at one of his own clinics, the group announced on Sunday. Ludwig Minelli, who became one of Europe’s most committed campaigners for the legalisation of assisted dying, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday.

6. And, finally and hair-raisingly, a piece from Engelsberg Ideas about an early aerial photographer, Alfred Buckham, inspired by the current exhibition at The National Portrait Museum of Scotland, Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer https://engelsbergideas.com/reviews/when-the-photograph-took-flight/ Click on the photo names in the EI piece for the photos themselves, and here’s the exhibition website https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/alfred-buckham-daredevil-photographer

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Thursday, 27th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 27, 2025 by roycross

1. First of three pieces on potential future uses of AI, Job for 2027: Senior Director of Million-Dollar Regexes from Tim O’Brien https://www.oreilly.com/radar/job-for-2027-senior-director-of-million-dollar-regexes/ I don’t understand all of it, not even the title, but I get the gist!

2. Secondly, Learning for Long Lives in the age of AI from Geoff Mulgan https://geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/learning-for-long-lives-in-the-age

I want to end with one final reason why this is going to become a much more important part of the political and policy agenda over the next few years: the evidence on cognitive decline. For most of the last century, there was striking evidence that, overall, IQ was going up across the world, something called the Flynn effect. But around the year 2000 this appears to have hit a maximum and even to have started in decline and since then, there’s been striking evidence that something is going wrong with cognition across the world: PISA test scores in the OECD in mathematics, reading and science have been falling for at least a decade now. There’s evidence from many countries that the share of adults who struggle with numeracy or literacy is rising quite fast, so in the US over a third of people cannot use basic mathematical reasoning to evaluate statements.

Here’s Wikipedia on the Flynn effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

3. Thirdly, what’s sauce for the goose should probably be sauce for the gander, shouldn’t it? Here’s a piece from The Guardian about a stooshie (my favourite Scottish English word) at the University of Staffordshire, ‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/20/university-of-staffordshire-course-taught-in-large-part-by-ai-artificial-intelligence

And here’s the Collins Dictionary entry for stooshie https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/stooshie

and the Cambridge Dictionary one for what’s sauce for the goose https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/what-s-sauce-for-the-goose-is-sauce-for-the-gander

4. Language Teaching and English Literature (LTEL) is a new international peer-reviewed journal that will cover the most recent research in English Language Teaching and the study of classical English literature (defined as ‘the body of written work produced in the English Language by the inhabitants of the British Isles from the 7th century to the present day.’) Here’s the call for submissions for the first issue https://www.ubplj.org/index.php/ltel/announcement/view/28

5. And, finally, the website of the new art museum about migration in Rotterdam, Fenix https://www.fenix.nl/en/ Try their ‘suitcase stories’ https://www.fenix.nl/en/suitcase-labyrinth/

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Tuesday, 25th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 25, 2025 by roycross

1. This Demos report, Inside the mind of a 16-year-old: From Andrew Tate to Bonnie Blue to Nigel Farage – what do first time voters think about social media, politics, the state of Britain and their futures?, is encouraging overall https://demos.co.uk/research/inside-the-mind-of-a-16-year-old-from-andrew-tate-to-bonnie-blue-to-nigel-farage-what-do-first-time-voters-think-about-social-media-politics-the-state-of-britain-and-their-futures/ PDF below.

The key insights, “which challenge many assumptions and misconceptions about this generation”, say Demos, are:

Andrew Tate’s influence is fading – today’s teens follow a far wider mix of creators, from MrBeast to HasanAbi.

Young people are incredibly media-savvy, cross-checking what they see on TikTok with mainstream sources.

Mainstream politicians are not communicating effectively with young people – Nigel Farage is not liked but admired for using social media and for his straight talking. Keir Starmer is not disliked, he is invisible.

Knife crime is the number-one concern raised by young people, and is seen as a symbol of politicians’ failure to keep them safe.

Schools are closing down space for debate and discussion, leaving students craving honest discussion.

Despite their frustrations, most remain hopeful and confident that Britain can improve, and that they’ll build better lives than their parents.

Inside-the-mind-of-a-16-year-old_2025_report_final-NovDownload

2. Carbon Brief have produced a masterful summary of the key outcomes agreed at COP30 https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop30-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-belem/

A voluntary plan to curb fossil fuels, a goal to triple adaptation finance and new efforts to “strengthen” climate targets have been launched at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. After all-night negotiations in the Amazonian city of Belém, the Brazilian presidency released a final package termed the “global mutirão” – a name meaning “collective efforts”. It was an attempt to draw together controversial issues that had divided the fortnight of talks, including finance, trade policies and meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature goal. A “mechanism” to help ensure a “just transition” globally and a set of measures to track climate-adaptation efforts were also among COP30’s notable outcomes.

3. And on the same general theme, Where does our waste go? is a London Review of Books podcast with Brett Christophers & Thomas Jones https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/where-does-our-waste-go

‘Since the 1980s’, Brett Christophers wrote recently in the LRB, ‘firms have made vast amounts of money by sending the rich world’s waste to the global South’ – hazardous waste at first, joined more recently by discarded electronics, clothes and plastics. Literal mountains of our rubbish are accumulating on the peripheries of cities such as Accra and Delhi. Waste, like wealth, is unevenly distributed. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Brett joins Tom Jones to discuss what happens to our rubbish after we throw it away. They talk about where it goes and why it’s so difficult actually to get rid of it, let alone reduce the amount we discard, when the creation of waste is so much more profitable.

4. The BBC has most usually been accused of pro-Palestinian bias, and I was surprised to read this piece https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251110-bbc-editor-suing-owen-jones-over-pro-israel-bias-expressed-admiration-for-mossad/ Puzzling that the only other language that Middle East Monitor seems to offer in addition to English is Portuguese?

5. And, finally, an account of the curious career of James Watson, the author of The Double Helix, who died earlier this month, from STAT, whose mission is “to deliver trusted, tough-minded journalism on the business of making medicines, health tech, science, public health, hospitals, and insurance”. James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/07/james-watson-remembrance-from-dna-pioneer-to-pariah/

And here’s The Telegraph obituary https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b09813cd5a26039d He chronicled the search for ‘the secret of life’ in his bestseller The Double Helix but damaged his career with his controversial views. Has a great photo of the young Watson and his collaborator, Francis Crick, captioned ‘they shared the sublime arrogance of men who had never met their intellectual equals’.

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Thursday, 20th November (Cambridge)

Posted on November 20, 2025 by roycross

1. The first of two events next Thursday, 27th November, with an early 08:00 UK time start for this one from LanguageCert, Creating Spaces for Conversation with Anna Hasper & Kieran Donaghy who “will share practical frameworks and strategies for creating caring classrooms and integrating multimodal approaches that mirror the realities of today’s learners”. https://www.languagecert.org/en/about-us/events/2025/voices-in-education-teacher-edition-event-2025

2. Elements in Research Methods in Education from Cambridge University Press is at 13:00 UK time next Thursday https://cambridge-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/2517628788668/WN_wadYrSq6TrSYlx9hN0fq1w#/registration

Sal Consoli & Samantha Curle will celebrate the inaugural volume in the series ‘Elements in Research Methods in Education’ series and interview the author of How to Use Generative AI in Educational Research, Dr Jasper Roe, to explore why he chose this specific topic, the writing process behind this book, and how he hopes it will influence educational researchers and practitioners. Whether you’re an early-career scholar or an established researcher looking to author your own Element in Research Methods for Education, you’ll find insights, a dash of inspiration and some practical advice.

3. Here’s a recently published White Paper from Sage by Tom Chatfield, AI and the Future of Pedagogy https://www.sagepub.com/explore-our-content/white-papers/2025/11/03/ai-and-the-future-of-pedagogy PDF below

This paper explores how education can respond wisely and imaginatively to the rise of AI in general, and generative AI in particular. Its recommendations are rooted in two principles: a) innovation must draw on what we know about how humans learn; b) AI’s power must not be allowed to hollow out the very skills required to navigate an AI age successfully. The tension at the heart of the second principle bears spelling out. Within the space of a few years, it has become possible to simulate knowledge and understanding of almost any topic while possessing neither. Freely available tools can be used to complete conventional assignments and assessments with ease, in the process potentially preventing students from gaining the very skills required to use AI adeptly: critical discernment, domain expertise, research and verification, analytical reasoning.

ai-and-the-future-of-pedagogyDownload

4. A wonderful teaser for her new (not yet written) novel by Elif Shafak on her blog, Unmapped Storylands, If You Ever Meet A Literary Ghost https://elifshafak.substack.com/p/if-you-ever-meet-a-literary-ghost

I knew then that I should have stayed. I should have talked to him. Fear does strange things to us, I wish I could have the courage to overcome my fear because, you see, he was someone I have always loved. Since then I have been reading and rereading everything about him—his letters, his novels, his travel notes….

Who do you think the ghost she saw was?

5. And, finally, Alexander Pushkin’s ‘The Coffin-Maker’ https://americanliterature.com/author/alexsander-pushkin/short-story/the-coffin-maker

Plus, Pushkin’s Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin

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Tuesday, 18th November (Richmond)

Posted on November 18, 2025 by roycross

1. The Cambridge Dictionary ‘word of the year’ is one I’ve never heard or read or used https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-dictionary-reveals-word-of-the-year-2025 Should I be worried, I wonder?

2. The Flipping Book Club “is free and is intended for those who wish to practice their English with L2 English speakers, joining in discussions about texts from writers from diverse countries and cultures”. More info and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScI7mVwLihLor6U7VSEL_GjiW_7QyYhRFQB3eImZ3zd7UlnWQ/viewform

Sounds like a very good idea. It’s being facilitated by a NILE colleague, Chris Rose, whose latest novel We Live Here Now has been very well received, including by the books team at The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a5fa71658a5d1dd1 (Scroll down through the fiction section: Chris writes as C D Rose.)

3. The open-access ELT Classroom Research Journal aims to “publish teachers’ classroom research, but also, and perhaps more importantly, our aim to mentor teacher-researchers” https://eltcrj.com/ The latest (November 2025) issue includes articles supported and developed in three different ways:

mentorship on campus (Abu-Naji & Nassar)

mentorship through a dedicated mentoring support group (all three book reviews came through our MenTRnet partnership)

mentoring both before submission and during the publication process, by editors and/or by Mentor-Referees (the three papers from Cameroon).

You’ll find it here https://eltcrj.com/v2-i2-full/ PDF below.

ELTCRJ November 2025Download

4. And here’s the complementary Warwick University web archive on Mentor Development for Exploratory Action Research (EAR) https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/mdear It includes a video interview with the fairy godmother of EAR, Richard Smith – I was going to call him the godfather but I suspect he might not like that https://youtu.be/CAOaodHCscI – and lots more besides.

5. I stumbled across Liam Shields from Manchester University’s advice on How to Answer Essay and Exam Questions the other dayhttps://liamshields.com/teaching-and-study-materials/ (Love his site’s author-stuffing-face photos!)

A Good Introduction

•            State the answer you will give up-front. This is not a murder mystery novel!

•            Give an unequivocal answer. Do not simply list objections or conclude “maybe, maybe not”

•            Make it clear what steps you will take to establish your conclusion.

•            Explain why these steps will establish your conclusion

By stating your answer and plan early on you make it easy for the examiner to follow your argument.

It is fine to start the essay with “In this essay I will argue that…”

Think of your introduction as a promise to the examiner about what to expect. Then all you have to do is keep that promise. This will help you to avoid digression and irrelevancies later on.

Plus, a more famous example, Winston Churchill’s ‘Brevity’ memo of August 9th 1940 https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8096/files/policymemos/files/churchill_memo_on_brevity.pdf

PDFs of both pieces below.

answering-philosophy-questionsDownload
churchill_memo_on_brevityDownload

5. And, finally and crunchily, from Katja Hoyer, An Acquired Taste: Germany’s Favourite Crisps … and how their story begins in Ireland https://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/an-acquired-taste-germanys-favourite I had no idea that flavoured crisps were invented in Ireland.

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