1. This collection of papers from Bloomsbury Academic publishers, The Sociopolitics of English Language Testing, edited by Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini and Peter I. De Costa, is definitely not to be read through in one sitting by most of us, but maybe we should all dip into it, as the issues it raises are not often aired.
Online here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338876690_The_Sociopolitics_of_English_Language_Testing and PDFs of whole text and preface only below.
“The contributions in this volume highlight marginalized but significant perspectives on the sociopolitical essence of English language tests and testing by exploring the implications of testing theories and practices from a critical perspective, that is, a view that foregrounds concerns surrounding power inequalities.”
2. Oxford University Press want to know Have your views on teaching changed since 2019? Direct link to survey here https://yonder.online-host.solutions/ASP/P019501/landingpage.asp and they’re honest enough to say it will take twenty minutes to complete.
One possible annoyance is the warning that “If you need to leave the survey and come back please do not close the window as you will have to start again from the beginning”, so settle down with a cup of coffee!
3. The Cambridge University REAL (Research for Equitable Access and Learning) Centre’s Michaelmas (Autumn) Term webinar series starts at 13:00 UK time next Tuesday, 2nd November, with a talk by Gabriela Martinez Sainz from University College Dublin on “Paulo Freire and climate change education – the role of critical pedagogy and lessons from the Global South”. Series poster here https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/real/events/Michaelmas%202021%20Seminar%20Series%20Poster.pdf (PDF below) and registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/real-centre-seminar-series-tickets-180023293517 .
4. It depends how you look at this latest Teacher Tapp blog post. It’s either ‘more than 50% of teachers think that the behaviour of the students in their classes has remained constant over the last decade’ or ‘more than 40% of teachers think the behaviour of the students in their classes has declined over the last decade’ https://teachertapp.co.uk/whats-the-worst-weather-for-behaviour/
5. And, finally, a recent joint reading from their new books by three very different Bloodaxe poets, George Szirtes, Claire Askew and Annemarie Austin https://youtu.be/cFhfkBi_SNw
More on George Szirtes (inc. video and sample poems) here https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/fresh-out-of-the-sky-1280
Claire Askew here https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/how-to-burn-a-woman-1279
and Annemarie Austin here https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/shall-we-go–1253
Scroll down to the ‘extract’ button on each page for the poems.
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