1. Two pieces on Higher Education for a change of sorts:
i) A trenchant piece for University World News by Nishat Riaz & Mary Stiasny, Universities have a duty beyond the production of knowledge https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2024102508233637
ii) a cool, detached look at the future of international student recruitment in/for the UK by Vincenzo Raimo and Janet B Ilieva for the HEPI blog, Building Sustainable Futures: Rethinking International Student Recruitment in the UK https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/10/31/building-sustainable-futures-rethinking-international-student-recruitment-in-the-uk/
2. The November issue of TTJ (Teacher Trainer Journal), with its usual rich global coverage, is here https://pilgrimsttj.com/ with PDF below.
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3. Free to download from Mark Hancock, The Pair Squares Collection, for work in class on minimal pairs http://hancockmcdonald.com/materials/pair-squares-collection Fifty sets of cards like the example below (which I hope survives its electronic journey). In my day, we used Ann Baker’s Ship or Sheep? – which to my surprise is still in print but a bit more expensive than I remember!
4. As we await the results of the knife-edge US presidential election, here’s a TED talk from Lawrence Lessig, How AI could hack democracy, which begins with some staggeringly high percentages relating to well-educated people who believed the election was stolen last time round – and still believe it was stolen, three years on (as was confirmed big time on last night’s TV news here in UK) https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_how_ai_could_hack_democracy?subtitle=en (Interesting fact in passing: Lessig was the founder of Creative Commons.)
5. And, finally, a very pleasant accidental discovery, the Booker Prize Monthly Spotlight, which this month focuses on ‘The Story of the Lost Child’ by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. Extract, guide and competition (enter before 29th November!) here https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/monthly-spotlight-the-story-of-the-lost-child-by-elena-ferrante
Last month was Sarah Waters https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/monthly-spotlight-the-little-stranger-by-sarah-waters
And the month before, Jon Fosse https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/monthly-spotlight-the-other-name-septology-i-ii-by-jon-fosse-translated Plus a wealth of other interesting stuff here, including ‘Where to Start’ pieces on Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith & J. M. Coetzee, in their ‘Features’ section https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features?page=1
Roy Cross's Blog 