1. First up tonight, a (very!) short notice invitation from the University of Oslo to attend their (slightly delayed) celebration of International Mother Language Day tomorrow, Friday 12th March. The event starts at 08:30 UK time. More info and Zoom link for tomorrow here https://www.hf.uio.no/multiling/english/news-and-events/events/conferences/2021/International-Mother-Language-Day/Mother-Language-Day
I’ve attached a PDF of the programme below.
2. Two events next Monday, 15th March: the earlier of the two, at 10:00 UK time, is The Spectator magazine’s debate on the impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged children’s learning, The Learning Gap. More info and a registration link here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-learning-gap-tickets-141437811301 I’m aware there are degrees of disadvantage globally which position this UK debate very much at the less disadvantaged end of the cline, but I’d expect The Spectator’s editor, Fraser Nelson, to chair a lively event. You need to register in advance.
3. The second event next Monday, at 12:00 UK time, is a talk by Ken Hyland, who’s a professor of applied linguistics at the University of East Anglia. Ken’s talk is entitled Why is peer review broken and how do we fix it? and will examine whether it’s true that all peer reviewers are ‘slow, biased, contradictory, hurtful or wilfully obtuse’? More info and a registration link here: https://www.bigmarker.com/UEAUK/Why-is-peer-review-broken-and-how-do-we-fix-it
4. WARNING! This one’s actually an advert and the product it is advertising, a virtual reality course, is well beyond the means of most of us, not to mention the cost of the virtual reality googles. I’m posting it, though, not as an advert but as an example of what is now technologically possible https://www.ecenglish.com/en/young-learners/virtualreality Click on the embedded videos and while you’re at it, do some window shopping for goggles https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/ How long before we can all afford this technology, I wonder? Maybe not so very long?
5. And, finally, having conducted a small straw poll yesterday evening, I now suspect that not as many people know about this site as I had thought! https://theenglishchannel.britishcouncil.org/content
Roy Cross's Blog 