1. Launched yesterday here in Harrogate, the British Council’s new research exploring “the key themes shaping the future of the English language and its role in our world”, The Future of English: Global Perspectives. Get your free copy here https://www.britishcouncil.org/future-of-english

2. The first of three items mentioned in talks I went to yesterday, also very recently published, by AINET & the A S Hornby Educational Trust, and edited by Amol Padwad and Richard Smith, Decentring ELT: Practices and Possibilities https://irp.cdn-website.com/a6c67b5e/files/uploaded/Padwad%20-%20Smith-%202023.pdf

The collection has “a particular focus on mapping, publicizing and further supporting what teacher associations (TAs) in countries of the Global South do to value and develop local expertise”. No PDF below (for the time being, at least), as it’s too big a file for the wifi in this hotel to cope with!

There’s also an ELTJ article on the topic, Decentring ELT: teacher associations https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/76/1/69/6491225 and here’s one of its authors, Dario Banegas, elucidating the concept https://youtu.be/3DAIg8cOeuM PDF of the article is below.

3. Also mentioned yesterday, Trinity College London have published a series of twelve short videos on Assessment Literacy series https://www.trinitycollege.com/qualifications/teaching-english/resources/assessment-literacy

As the series blurb has it: “This series of 12 videos is designed to give teachers an introduction into the area of assessment literacy. Each video covers a different area of assessment literacy and is accompanied by a worksheet to help guide learning. The series does not set out to provide a definitive explanation of the areas (dealt with), but to introduce some key ideas and considerations in assessment literacy.”

4. And the third from yesterday: Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley are Lexical Lab https://www.lexicallab.com/ and they have a long-running ‘One Minute English’ YouTube series which this week saw Hugh explaining the idiom ‘to blow it’ with reference to his beloved football team, Arsenal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OewDOm_HHM

5. And, finally, here’s Philip Larkin reading one of my favourite poems of his, The Importance of Elsewhere https://youtube.com/shorts/H5_m5SlXyQI?feature=share

Shoe-horned it into my own talk at IATEFL today …