1. Belonging Matters, two practical webinars from TeachingEnglish, starting at 09:00 UK time on Friday 13^th March, with experts from Southeast Asia which focus on learner well-being and including home languages in the classroom to create a sense of belonging: more info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/belonging-matters-webinars

Session 1 with Mai Tuyet Ngo will focus on teacher and learner well-being, drawing on classroom practice to explore how joy, emotional safety and positivity can enhance English learning and will share practical ways teachers can create happier, more connected classrooms.

Session 2 with Donna Lim & Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali will bring together two teacher educators to discuss how multilingual realities shape English teaching in Southeast Asia and explore how teachers can use learners’ home languages as a resource, challenge ‘English-only’ assumptions and promote inclusive, culturally responsive practices.

2. Effective Reading Instruction in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: What the Evidence Shows is a report from the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) https://geeap.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Effective-Reading-Instruction-in-Low-and-Middle-Income-Countries-What-the-Evidence-Shows-EN.pdf PDFs of the whole report and the executive summary below.

The report shows that learning to read is both a moral duty and an economic necessity. Despite its importance, 70% of ten-year-olds in LMICs cannot read a simple text. Drawing on more than 150 studies across 173 languages, the report identifies six core skills—oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and writing—that must be taught explicitly and systematically. It urges policymakers to ground instruction in scientific evidence, support teaching in home languages, and ensure every child becomes a skilled reader.

3. Here’s a World Bank blog post by Jaime Saavedra, Ezequiel Molina & Cristóbal Cobo, Who is Raising Our Children? Screens, Baby Shark, and the Impact on Early Childhood https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/latinamerica/impact-screen-time-in-early-childhood

Sixteen billion. That’s how many times the popular children’s song Baby Shark has been viewed on YouTube. That’s more than twice the world’s population—and here’s what’s truly striking: 5 of the 10 most-viewed videos in YouTube’s history are content for young children. Not Bad Bunny. Not Taylor Swift. But baby sharks and buses with spinning wheels. These numbers reveal something important: early childhood is being reshaped by screens, long before Instagram or TikTok enter the picture.

Yes, I’ve heard Baby Shark once or twice!

4. Here’s the OECD’s recent Digital Education Outlook 2026, Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-digital-education-outlook-2026_062a7394-en.html PDFs of the whole thing, 247 pages long, and the executive summary, two pages long, below.

The OECD Digital Education Outlook is the OECD’s flagship publication presenting our latest analysis of emerging digital technologies in education. This 2026 edition synthesises evidence and expert insights to show how generative AI has the potential to transform the quality and effectiveness of learning, as well as the productivity of education systems, provided its associated risks are carefully managed. Its applications include enhancing student learning, supporting teachers’ performance while preserving professional autonomy, and strengthening education systems, as well as institutional and research capacities. For students, generative AI can scale personalised learning through intelligent tutoring systems, including in low infrastructure settings. Generative AI can also support knowledge acquisition by enabling collaborative learning and enhancing creativity. However, evidence shows that overreliance on generative AI tools that provide direct answers can reduce students’ active engagement, improving task performance without corresponding learning gains. When used as a shortcut rather than a learning tool, generative AI can displace cognitive effort and weaken the skills that underpin deep learning.

5. And, finally, un peu de flânerie, an essay from The Public Domain Review by Paul Sullivan, The Blinkered Flâneur: Walking with Franz Hessel in 1920s Berlin https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-blinkered-flaneur/

Does the flâneur, that curiously modern figure who wanders metropolitan streets, have a political consciousness? For Franz Hessel – author of ‘Spazieren in Berlin’, “a memorization while strolling” that Walter Benjamin called “thoroughly epic” – the answer seemed to be no. Paul Sullivan explores Hessel’s perambulations through Berlin and the achievements and limitations of his vision.