Author Archives: roycross

1. I’ve mentioned Oxford University Press ‘position papers’ before. Here’s one on The Role of the First Language in English Medium Instruction https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/elt/general_content/global/expert/oup-expert-english-medium-instruction.pdf?cc=us&selLanguage=en&mode=hub – PDF copy below – further below than I’d planned! When I started teaching, the ‘direct method’ … Continue reading →

1. The Climate Connection podcast is proving very popular. Episode 5, explaining why every child should bring their own plant to school and with a report from the Hands Up project in Palestine, is now available https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/climate-connection-episode-5-greenhouse-classes PDFs of episode … Continue reading →

1. The Olympics start on Friday, almost spectator-free, and the sport karate will be included – to my surprise – for the first time ever. Here’s a good long (free) read from The Smithsonian magazine on the history and traditions … Continue reading →

1. This one’s not light reading – thanks, Amy! – but will repay a half-hour’s quiet attention, Ofsted’s review of research into factors that can affect the quality of education in languages, “its purpose to identify factors that contribute to … Continue reading →

1. More on the interface between the hands and the brain, from my colleague Robin in Tokyo https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/202107/touch-typing-may-unclamp-the-brain-and-promote-flow-state Never having learnt to touch type remains one of the embarrassments of my life when working in an open-plan office; I can … Continue reading →

1. When I was in primary school, handwriting was a very big deal – we spent hours practising our letters. Years of keyboard work later, I can now hardly write a legible sentence. Just as well I learnt to read … Continue reading →

1. UnHerd is new to me https://unherd.com/ If you’re pushed for time, all its articles are tagged with how long they take to read! It has an ambitious mission: UnHerd aims to do two things: to push back against the … Continue reading →

1. The Teacher Tapp app allows teachers to share thoughts and opinions by answering three short multiple-choice questions sent to their phone at 3:30 pm each day. Answers are collated and the findings shared. The idea’s a good and simple … Continue reading →

1. ReadListenLearn have added comprehension questions to some of their stories, most of which already have an audio version https://readlistenlearn.net/en Here’s a science fiction story, The Ablest Man in the World, by Edward Page Mitchell, a one-eyed writer I’d never … Continue reading →

1. The first of two items on academic writing. Tomorrow, Friday 9th July, at 14:00 UK time Ana Frankenberg-Garcia from Surrey University here in the UK will be talking about Academic English Collocations: from corpus data to assisted writing with … Continue reading →