1. A good ‘long read’ from The Guardian by Aida Edemariam, initially inspiring but ultimately depressing, ‘Parents are frightened for themselves and for their children’: an inspirational school in impossible times https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/06/parents-are-frightened-inspirational-primary-school-impossible-times

“Children will do anything for a sticker” – but does that mean they’re a good thing?

2. Here’s an OUP blog post by Shigeru Yamada from Waseda University in Tokyo on the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary – Now and then, reviewing the changes in the OALD since A S Hornby and colleagues first conceived it in Japan in the 1930s https://oupeltglobalblog.com/ (That URL may only point to the Yamada article for the time being, I think.)

The previous post on the OUP blog, also well worth a read, was on Effective professional development for English language teachers https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2022/09/05/effective-professional-development/

3. Here’s a Pearson blog post I missed at the time from Mike Mayor, What’s the most effective way to learn English? https://www.english.com/blog/whats-the-most-effective-way-to-learn-english/

and here’s the panel discussion from this year’s ASU (Arizona State University) + GSV (Global Silicon Valley) Summit that informed Mike’s post, On the Edge of Proficiency: The Most Effective Forms of English Language Learning https://youtu.be/f6s1gmnry4M

Here’s more info on the 2023 ASU+GSV Summit https://www.asugsvsummit.com/about-the-summit

4. And, finally, The Hidden, Magnificent History of Chop Suey from Atlas Obscura. Often unfairly characterised as a “brownish, overcooked stew, strangely flavorless (sic), with no redeeming qualities, and redolent of bad school cafeterias and dingy, failing Chinese restaurants”, chop suey has a much more distinguished heritage https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chop-suey-history