1. Good old World Bank! The clue’s in the first three words of the title: LOUD AND CLEAR: Effective Language of Instruction Policies For Learning, which I take to mean “Let us say this loudly and clearly, so governments around the world can hear” … https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/517851626203470278/pdf/Loud-and-Clear-Effective-Language-of-Instruction-Policies-For-Learning.pdf PDFs of summary and the whole report below.

Here’s a taste of the summary: In some countries, children with three years of primary education cannot identify a single written word and may only know one letter. Without consideration of language of instruction (LoI) issues, one might erroneously conclude that teachers lack the knowledge and skills to teach, or that students are too disadvantaged to learn. An alternative, plausible consideration is that teachers are required to provide instruction in a language that students do not speak or understand. The low test scores in some instances simply reflect this near-total lack of understanding of the language used for teaching and/or testing; they do not indicate any inability to learn under the right learning conditions.

2. Two blog posts from TeachingEnglish: one on Finding the Unusual in the Usual https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/ninamk/finding-unusual-usual

and a second on Word Wall – an excellent vocabulary building technique https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/sakilandeswari/word-wall-%E2%80%93-excellent-vocabulary-building-technique-mrs-s-akilandeswari

Several more here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/featured-blog-posts-april-june-2021

3. Here’s a recommendation from a friend in Thailand, Doug Lemov’s talk on Strategies to teach like a champion for the Open University of Catalonia https://youtu.be/Ar-31jygtAk It’s quite long but dipping in and out and watching in instalments works pretty well.

4. This year’s Booker Prize long list comprises 13 authors from 7 different countries; no translations, all written in English. Best to click on the photo of each book in ‘The Longlist’ section halfway down this page https://thebookerprizes.com/fiction/2021

Here’s a short introductory video with Maya Jasanoff, the chair of the judges this year https://youtu.be/PIrKprfwhJM

and here’s a really good introduction to all thirteen books by Eric Karl Anderson – who’s been doing this for several years now, unknown to me! https://youtu.be/Ugo8oo9bEhc

5. And, finally, today’s phobia – very common, it’s said – is one that I’ve never suffered from: mageirocophobia!