1. Two opportunities next Thursday, 18th November, to join this OUP web event with Jane Setter, Pronunciation for a Global World, at 09:30 and 17:30 UK time. More info and registration here https://elt.oup.com/events/global/Pronunciation-for-a-Global-World?cc=global&selLanguage=en and below is another copy of the OUP position paper on the topic just in case. Three cheers for international intelligibility: hip, hip, hurrah!
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2. Time for a Thai perspective on ELT, I think. Here’s the research blog of King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok https://sola.pr.kmutt.ac.th/homesola/index.php/sola-researchblogs/ Assessment, ASEAN, class size, attitudes to native speaker teachers of English – and much more.
3. I missed Climate Tuesday yesterday, so here’s The Conversation’s current page on COP 26 by way of reparation https://theconversation.com/uk/cop26 Articles including meat eating, transport, shipping, wave power and – to my astonishment – the endangered coral reefs of Scotland!
4. Can Our Societies Withstand the Pace of Technological Change? was the title of a NESTA event last week with Azeem Azhar, the author of the well-regarded Exponential View newsletter on the future of technology and society https://www.exponentialview.co/ The recording of the event is here https://www.nesta.org.uk/event/nesta-talks-to-azeem-azah/ Azeem talks about his new book, Exponential, and outlines “four areas of technology that are accelerating at exponential rates: AI and computing, biology, renewable energy, and manufacturing. These technologies are getting cheaper and more widely available but our institutions, from legal systems to businesses, are struggling to adapt to this pace”. Not free, strictly speaking, but at present – here in the UK, at least – the Kindle version of Azeem’s book is available from Amazon for 99p.
5. And, finally, this week’s phobia, metathesiophobia, will sit uneasily with that last item on Change …
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