1. Tolu Noah recommends a five-step process for composing micro-lectures to her colleagues at California State University, Long Beach (which sounds like it might be a pleasant place to work!): Plan, Create, Record, Caption, and Share.

Here’s her article on that process from Faculty Focus (with some good further reading at the end) https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-course-delivery-and-instruction/microlectures-101-what-why-how/

and here’s a page from her website with a number of useful downloadable resources for iPad (and other tablet?) users, all of which have a QR code link to additional material https://www.tolunoah.com/resources-3

2. Should we be disappointed that Scott Thornbury can only find nine answers to his own question, What’s wrong with the grammar syllabus? Maybe not! https://youtu.be/V6H6QkjXmiE

3. Blimey! Can this really be true? “A third of 15-year-olds have been persistently absent from classrooms in England during the current school year”? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/10/third-of-15-year-olds-persistently-absent-school-england

4. Today’s Word of the Day from the Oxford English Dictionary is angrezi https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/248713

Not sure how long it’s available – maybe just today, so be quick if you want to confirm what you think it means!

5. Here’s Susie Dent’s lexicological take on Valentine’s Day, The old terms of endearment you could revive for Valentine’s Day, from ‘saucy prawn’ to ‘cabbage’ https://inews.co.uk/opinion/susie-dent-valentines-day-old-terms-endearment-2145268

Which reminds me, brain-process-curiously, of the time in the third form that we convinced our French exchange students that ‘greasy motorbike’ was the worst insult in the English language.

6. Et, finalement, un jeu d’esprit de Melanie Butler https://www.elgazette.com/ap-takes-french-leave-of-its-senses/