1. Great title for the next talk in the Reading University Applied Linguistics Research Circle series by Maria Sabaté-Dalmau from the University of Lleida, ‘I speak small’: Unequal Englishes and transnational identities among Ghanaian migrants in Catalonia Contact Rodney Jones if you’d like to attend r.h.jones@reading.ac.uk

Sometimes it suits Ghanaian migrants to disclaim any knowledge of English – ‘I speak small English’; on other occasions, however, they claim native speaker superiority over local Catalan people. PDF of abstract below.

2. ‘Haemorrhaging: why some words are so easy to mispronounce (and why that could be a good thing)’ is the title of a piece in The Conversation prompted by the Scottish MP Ian Blackford getting his tongue in a tangle in Parliament last week https://theconversation.com/haemorrhaging-why-some-words-are-so-easy-to-mispronounce-and-why-that-could-be-a-good-thing-175746

And while we’re at it, how are the following names pronounced – Featherstonhaugh, Cholmondeley, Mainwaring?

3. Iscriverti qui for the next talk in the Eaquals multilingual series at 16:30 on Wednesday 9th February, Applicare la metodologia Dogme all’italiano — idee pratiche con Giulia Brazzale https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/event/applicare-la-metodologia-dogme-allitaliano-idee-pratiche/

“La metodologia Dogme, nata all’interno dell’insegnamento della lingua inglese a stranieri, si incentra sulla comunicazione e sulle strutture linguistiche “emergenti”. ma può essere applicata all’italiano, con la sua grammatica complessa? In questo webinar porterò la mia esperienza nell’utilizzare questa tecnica con studenti di italiano come lingua straniera, i suoi vantaggi e svantaggi, e quello che ho appreso dall’esperienza.”

4. And, finally, watch Boris Johnson get the Dame Edna treatment https://youtu.be/WTIOWecB1ao  Dame Edna Everage is one of Australian actor Barry Humphries’ two most famous comic creations, the other being (non-) cultural attaché Sir Les Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Humphries