I’m taking a little time off to be with my parents up in Yorkshire, so this will be the last ‘Free Resources’ message till next Wednesday, 2nd March.
1. If I’ve ever had a guru, that guru was Mario Rinvolucri. Here he is back in 2009 talking much more sense about burn-out and looking out for each other – ‘mutual supervision’ Mario calls it – than many people who’ve recently jumped on the pandemic burn-out wagon https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/mutual-supervision-mario-rinvolucri
2. ESOL Nexus was a highly successful British Council project funded by the European Integration Fund that has now found a smart new home on the Education and Training Foundation’s website https://esol.excellencegateway.org.uk/ There’s still a fair bit of video material on YouTube that has stood the test of time very well and might work with learners in other contexts https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBha5xeBsF0PTBzcx6VrUew
3. Encouraging and depressing in equal measure, this story from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) about one young Ethiopian’s return to school https://ecw.exposure.co/rohos-story
4. I’ve checked with the ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) and they would welcome non-European participation in their next webinar, Action Research Communities for Language Teachers, at 16:30 UK time on Wednesday 8th March https://www.ecml.at/Resources/Webinars/tabid/5456/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Possibly an area where teachers of English have quite a lot of experience and learning to share? NB: you need to register.
5. We’ve had our own challenges here in the UK with the online tutoring provision that the UK Department of Education put in place in response to the loss of learning resulting from the pandemic, and the company who won the (very large) contract, Randstad, are now very likely to have it taken away as take-up and value for money have both been low https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/dec/07/randstad-england-pupil-catch-up-tuition-scheme-targets Here’s a piece from The Hechinger Report about online tutoring in the USA which raises a number of issues https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-uncertain-evidence-for-online-tutoring/
6. And, finally, from the continually interesting Atlas Obscura site, ‘The Curious Case of Colonial India’s Breakfast Curries’ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/curry-in-colonial-india
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