1. Early notice of this Trinity College – Regent’s University conference in June, so you have ample time to get in your proposals by the 6^th April deadline. Those of you who are involved in PRELIM, how about a report on the learning from your partnership? https://learn.trinitycollege.co.uk/foelt/events/2021

You’ll find lots of recordings from last year’s conference here, together with a list of forthcoming events.: https://resources.trinitycollege.com/teachers/english_language/webinars/tag/foelt-2020

2. British Council colleagues in Spain have a webinar at 17:30 UK time next Wednesday, A practical tool for Literacy in the Bilingual Primary School, with Louise Van Laar and Richard Stenhouse, looking at the “Dear Greenpeace” storybook. More info here https://www.britishcouncil.es/en/events/webinar-practical-tool-literacy-bilingual-primary and register here https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8896699848402336271

You can find a recording of the previous webinar in the series, Literacy in Bilingual Primary Schools: an effective text based approach, here: https://youtu.be/KZSdb2kU_sQ

3. The latest edition of Humanising Language Teaching from Pilgrims has just come out, this time with a focus on Australia: https://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb21/

Tomorrow, Saturday 13^th February, Pilgrims are hosting another of their Pilgrims Cafes for trainers from 13:00 to 16:00 UK time: https://www.pilgrims.co.uk/page/?title=Pilgrims+Cafe&pid=139 In their own words, “Short talks, activities, music, poetry, drama: whether you teach young learners or older students, whether you’ve been to Pilgrims or planning to come to Pilgrims, anyone can attend: there will always be something for everyone!”

And, guess what? As a result of Brexit, Pilgrims are moving their Teacher Development summer courses to Limerick, so participants still qualify for Erasmus+-funding. (I realise that makes a difference to only a minority of the readers of this message, but for many of us Pilgrims was synonymous with Canterbury!)

4. The latest edition of EL Gazette has also just come out: https://www.elgazette.com/elg_archive/ELG2011/mobile/index.html I’m still not quite convinced by their page-flicking-with-sound-effects software! Nice piece on standing up to gurus, Guruism can be detrimental to your professional health, by Paula Rebolledo – who has to guard against becoming a guru herself, I guess!

The EL Gazette’s home page is here: https://www.elgazette.com/

5. That Moonflower still hasn’t flowered, it seems: https://youtu.be/uFBp1Eg_0F0 Maybe not too surprising, as it’s been below freezing all day today.

6. And, finally: prompted by a moment of epiphany with a blood orange yesterday evening, I went off in search of this poem of William Carlos Williams, to check I’d remembered it correctly, which I’m pleased to say I had: https://poets.org/poem/just-say And I didn’t need to leave a note on the fridge, as I shared the orange with my wife!