Late yet again this week, but this time for an excellent reason: this year’s cohort of Hornby Trust MA scholars paid a visit to Cambridge yesterday!

1. Thanks to Graham Stanley for this, UNESCO’s Global education monitoring report, 2023: technology in education: a tool on whose terms?

“The report underscores the importance of learning to live both with and without digital technology; to take what is needed from an abundance of information but ignore what is not necessary; to let technology support, but never supplant, the human connection on which teaching and learning are based. The focus should be on learning outcomes, not digital inputs. To help improve learning, digital technology should be not a substitute for but a complement to face-to-face interaction with teachers.”

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000385723 PDF of whole report on blog only, as it’s big; PDF of one page summary below. Also well worth a browse through the UNESCO archive https://unesdoc.unesco.org/home

2. Two holiday ideas from the latest TeachingEnglish newsletter: i) My holiday English book for A1 and A2 students https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-primary/lesson-plans/level-1/my-holiday-english-book

ii) The holiday maze for B2 students https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-adults/activities/upper-intermediate-b2/holiday-maze

and here’s the whole newsletter https://britishcouncil-teachingenglish.cmail19.com/t/y-e-pdhuuhl-iyhlkhkjjy-r/ to which you can subscribe here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/subscribe-our-newsletter

3. Issue 65 of the European Language Gazette has just been published. It contains news of an imminent update to Lara’s Language Journey Across Europe, to include additional regional and minority languages, including Walloon, Meänkieli and Greenlandic https://edl.ecml.at/Activities/languagejourney/Sounds/tabid/3224/Default.aspx

and the third poster in the 20 things you might not know about the world of languages series https://www.ecml.at/News/Newsletter/Gazette65/tabid/5677/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

(Scroll down the page a bit.) PDFs of the English-language versions of all three posters below.

Here’s the whole newsletter https://www.ecml.at/News/Newsletter/Gazette65/tabid/5677/language/en-GB/Default.aspx and you can subscribe here https://www.ecml.at/News/Newsletter/tabid/1385/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

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4. Here’s The Guardian’s three broad principles setting out how they will and won’t use Generative AI tools for the benefit of readers, their mission, their staff and the wider organisation, and with respect for those who create and own content https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2023/jun/16/the-guardians-approach-to-generative-ai

5. And, finally, The Proclaimers are playing at Cambridge Folk Festival tonight. Here’s their most famous song, ‘Sunshine on Leith’ https://youtu.be/ZmELS03_4So I may well be in a minority of one globally, but for my taste, it’s just a little over-plaintive ….