Books destined for Cameroon: more info at item 3 below! © Harry Kuchah Kuchah
1. SHORT NOTICE! There’s an IH London webinar with Florencia Giudici at 16:30 UK time this Wednesday, 14th October, Engaging teens through Authentic Audiovisual Materials. You’ll need to register – it’s free – if you haven’t already done so https://teacherportal.ihlondon.com/course/webinars
Teenagers can be one of the most challenging age groups to motivate in the EFL classroom. Connecting lessons with their interests, experiences and the media they enjoy is key to increasing engagement and creating meaningful learning opportunities. In this practical webinar, participants will explore how to design short, dynamic five-minute activities that capture teenagers’ attention and encourage active participation. Using authentic and familiar content such as TV series, music videos, commercials, movie trailers and talk shows, teachers will discover creative ways to bring language learning to life. Participants will leave with practical ideas and adaptable activities ready to use with teenage learners.
2. A gift article from The Atlantic by Konstantin Kakaes, OpenAI Just Carpet-Bombed Mathematics https://tinyurl.com/ymytv982
In the growing chorus of mathematicians revolting against AI companies, Hugo Duminil-Copin, who in 2022 received the Fields Medal, math’s highest honor, has perhaps put mathematicians’ concerns most vividly. In an essay published just before OpenAI announced last month that it had solved one of seven grand mathematical challenges known as the Millennium Prize Problems, he wrote that AI proofs “nuke the mathematical landscape, making it increasingly difficult to inhabit after each blast.”
3. Not free, the opposite, but a very worthy cause! Harry Kuchah Kuchah is raising money to ship 3,500 books to Cameroon, some of which can be seen in the photo above, Help Me Give 3,500 Books a New Home in Cameroon! https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/harry-kuchah-kuchah
In 2011, I co-authored “Pedagogy of autonomy in difficult circumstances: from practice to principles” in which I described and reflected on my experience, in the late 1990s to early 2000s of teaching 232 students in a classroom designed for 60, in temperatures exceeding 42°C, with very limited resources for students to use. That was my experience as a young teacher in Maroua, a town in the Far-North of Cameroon. More than 25 years later, students and lecturers in the region still face a desperate shortage of academic resources.
4. Thanks to Ben Knight for this one, Shared Resources: Raising a Bilingual Child by Isabelle Berten, Dongxia Nie, Catherine Hamilton and Faidra Faitaki https://www.education.ox.ac.uk/oxford-education-deanery/resource/shared-resources-raising-a-bilingual-child/ I like the reflection worksheet for children idea, which I hope my granddaughter gets to complete!
Many bilingual families have questions about raising bilingual children. This resource explores some of these common questions in depth and provides practical, evidence-informed answers and guidance for parents. This resource also shares findings from research involving bilingual children and their parents, highlighting families’ experiences of navigating bilingualism. It also includes a child-friendly worksheet designed to help children reflect on their own experiences of being bilingual and provide an opportunity for conversations about language within the family.
5. And, finally, another freebie from The Atlantic, The Guardians, a short story by Sebastian ‘Restrepo’ Junger https://tinyurl.com/ms97jjn4
Raleigh stood in the morning sunlight under the big maple with a chainsaw in one hand and a heavy splitting maul in the other looking at his friend of 30 years. ’Course I got mix, he said. Next to the lawn-more in the back. Says mix on the side and don’t forget the bar and chain as well.
Lawn mower, Silas said. It was an old joke between them. Raleigh was big and round-shouldered and had brown eyes that went flat and unseeing when he was thinking about something else. I’m a librarian trapped in a prizefighter’s body, he liked to say. An out-of-shape prizefighter. Silas came back with fuel mix and bar and chain oil and his maul. He was 60 but moved with the precision of an athlete and checked the corners of every room he walked into as if he always expected something to happen.
CLAUDE CONFESSION (VERBATIM)
Claude proofread this issue, found a stray “Unit” in a link and a missing full stop, and wrongly suspected that a granddaughter was a grandson. All selections and opinions are Roy’s own.
