Tuesday, 19th November (Cambridge)

1. Regardless of its easy to use clickable map, I rather doubt this Carbon Brief publication, Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world, will be much read in the Trump White House https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/attribution-studies/index.html

2. The Cambridge University Press ‘Elements’ series is wonderfully eclectic. Here’s some recent publications, all free to download here (scroll down to the bottom of the page) until 12th December https://www.cambridge.org/core/publications/elements#

Feminism, Corpus-assisted Research and Language Inclusivity by Federica Formato

The Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams by Alan Thomas

The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism – How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal … And What to do About it by Malcolm S. Salter

Peace Leadership – A Story of Peace Dwelling by Stan Amaladas

Ukraine not ‘the’ Ukraine by Marta Dyczok

Aegeomania – Modern Reimaginings of the Aegean Bronze Age by Nicoletta Momigliano

Contemporary Body Horror by Xavier Aldana Reyes

That last one is in their Elements in the Gothic series. Here’s the summary, so you can decide if it’s one for you:

‘Body horror’, a horror subgenre concerned with transformation, loss of control and the human body’s susceptibility to disease, infection and external harm, has moved into the mainstream to become one of the greatest repositories of biopolitical discourse. Put simply, body horror acts out the power flows of modern life, visualising often imperceptible or ignored processes of marginalisation and behavioural policing, and revealing how interrelations between different social spheres (medical, legal, political, educational) produce embodied identity. This book offers the first sustained study of the types of body horror that have been popular in the twenty-first century and centres on the representational and ideological work they carry out. It proposes that, thanks to the progressive vision of feminist, queer and anti-racist practitioners, this important subgenre has expanded its ethical horizons and even found a sense of celebratory liberation in fantastic metamorphoses redolent of contemporary activist movements.

3. Here’s Jessica Mackay’s updated list of CPD Opportunities Autumn 2024 https://eim-ub.blogspot.com/2024/08/cpd-opportunities-autumn-2024.html

There’s an interesting looking one at 16:00 UK time tomorrow from Trinity, Making Listening Work: Do’s, Don’ts and Tech for Engaging Listening Activities with Chiara Bruzzano https://www.trinitycollege.com/qualifications/teaching-english/transformative-teachers/Making-Listening-Work-for-Engaging-Listening-Activities

4. ‘Best book’ lists are always good for an argument. Here’s 100 (fiction) books to read in a lifetime from AbeBooks https://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/100-books-to-read-in-lifetime/ which contains equal numbers of books I’ve read and books I’ve never heard of.

5. And, finally, free to read on Granta till the end of this year, ‘Hunter’ by Shuang Xuetao, translated by Jeremy Tiang https://granta.com/hunter-shuang-xuetao/

Here’s the first paragraph: Lu Dong moves the standing lamp, turns to gauge how far he is from the wall, then goes back to the chair he’d carefully positioned – no, never mind the chair, better to be prone on the floor. Pulling open the glass door, he steps out onto the balcony and extends a clothes-drying pole into the open air. Not heavy enough. That’s the most pressing problem – not the lamp, not the color of the floorboards, not the table in his peripheral vision distracting him from his target, but the pole’s insufficient weight.

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Thursday, 14th November (Cambridge)

1. Personality traits that typify job roles revealed in study is the claim made by a recent post on the Edinburgh University blog: Stereotypes about which personality traits are associated with different jobs are largely true, an extensive study by psychologists (at the universities of Edinburgh and Tartu) suggests https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2024/personality-traits-that-typify-job-roles-revealed

You can jump straight to the test here https://apps.psych.ut.ee/jobprofiler/ You’ll need ten or fifteen minutes, if you don’t agonise over your answers too much.

The questionnaire results give you a) a job list of the people doing jobs that tend to give the most or least similar responses to yours; b) a job map showing your position relative to average job incumbents according to their personality profiles; c) your ‘Big Five trait’ scores. My scores on that last one? High on extraversion and openness; medium on disagreeableness and conscientiousness; low on neuroticism

2. The LSE Impact Blog describes itself as ‘a platform for understanding and increasing the impact of academic research’. Here’s an enthusiastic recent post by Friedrich Geiecke & Xavier Jaravel, AI can carry out qualitative research at unprecedented scale https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2024/10/30/ai-can-carry-out-qualitative-research-at-unprecedented-scale/

3. An intriguingly-titled post from Ben Williamson’s blog, code acts in education, on the Oblongification of education https://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2024/05/24/oblongification-of-education/

Ben’s latest post is on Critical keywords of AI in education https://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2024/11/08/critical-keywords-of-ai-in-education/

4. Here’s an NYT gift article, the latest in their ‘Read Your Way Through’ series, Shanghai https://tinyurl.com/bdfxkjvb

5. As the first week of COP29 in Baku (at which oil and gas were described as a ‘gift of God’ by the president of the host country) comes to a close, the Carbon Brief team are offering an “ask-us-anything” webinar at 14:00 UK time tomorrow, Friday 15th November, to explore the key emerging topics and themes of the summit https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3117314089955/WN_olK1_zCjSkSBZfP40pvvBQ#/registration

6. And, finally, sex, scandal and the death of a poet in 1970s Karachi on the Southasia Review of Books podcast https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/society-girl-sex-lies-scandal-karachi-pakistan-media-1970-mustafa-zaidi-shahnaz-gul

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Tuesday, 12th November (Richmond)

1. First up today, The Place of English, Tony Capstick & Harry Kuchah Kuchah’s discussion for TeachingEnglish https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator/place-english

How can teacher educators help teachers to think through and make sense of questions about the place of (varieties of) English in relation to other languages? Questions of correctness and variety choices and ownership of English; questions around native speaker/anglonormative teacher language proficiency; questions around the ‘English only classroom’, multilingual approaches and linguistic diversity; questions about the value, benefit and practice of English as the language of teaching and learning.

2. The poets shortlisted for this year’s T S Eliot Prize will all eventually be found each reading three of their poems and talking about their work here https://www.youtube.com/@TSEliotprizeYT/videos Four out of six so far: Raymond Antrobus, Hannah Copley, Helen Farish & Peter Gizzi.

3. Tim Harford’s new podcast, Cautionary Tales is fun https://timharford.com/etc/more-or-less/

Together (says Tim) we weave stories of human error, of tragic catastrophes and hilarious fiascos. Oil tankers crash in broad daylight, vital military ideas are carelessly given away to the Nazis, and a shouty man in a uniform pulls off an audacious heist. Alongside the drama, each story has a moral that emerges from psychology, economics, even design. Each story will make you wiser.

4. Here’s the Goethe Institut’s Word! language column – in English! https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/kre/spk.html

Dedicated to language – as a cultural and social phenomenon – (Word!) examines how does language develop, what attitude do authors have towards “their” language, how does language shape a society?

5. And, finally, make what you will of Bubble Pop! https://bubblepop.lol/

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Thursday, 7th November (Richmond)

1. Here’s the thoughtful first episode of Carne Ross’s Gentle Anarchy podcast, in which he interviews Daniel Levy, a  member of the Israeli negotiating team in Oslo in 1993 who has since altered his stance on Middle Eastern affairs https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gentle-anarchy/episodes/DANIEL-LEVY-e2q4f1t

2. Details here of an UKFIET online and in-person event with a no-punches-pulled title in London on Monday 18th November, Responding to ‘Scholasticide’ in Gaza: The Role of the UK International Education and Training Community https://www.tickettailor.com/events/ukfiet/1399229

3. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is somehow still operating in Gaza. Here’s a recent account of their work, Rebuilding Gaza – the paradox of shelter without resources https://www.nrc.no/expert-deployment/news/rebuilding-gaza—the-paradox-of-shelter-without-resources/

How can you provide shelter to people in a humanitarian crisis when there are no buildings or building materials available? This is the main struggle for Alison Ely and her colleagues in Gaza.

Medical Action for Palestinians (MAP) also continue their work against all the odds. Here’s a short film by three of their staff https://www.map.org.uk/landing-pages/watch-now-gaza-one-year-in

Three of our colleagues, Tarneem, Amal and Mohammed, have shared their experiences over the last year, living under Israel’s constant military attacks and a suffocating siege.

4. It’s time for a visit to Ethan Mollick’s blog, One Useful Thing, where his latest post is The Present Future: AI’s Impact Long Before Superintelligence. “You can start to see the outlines of an AI future, for better and worse,” says Ethan https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-present-future-ais-impact-long

5. And, finally, here’s Elif Shafak reading and talking about Charles Bukowski’s ‘Bluebird’ https://elifshafak.substack.com/p/the-bluebirds-in-our-hearts-and-creative Here’s the text of the poem https://allpoetry.com/poem/8509539-Bluebird-by-Charles-Bukowski

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Tuesday, 5th November (Cambridge)

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.

[file x 1]

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

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Thursday, 31st October (Cambridge)

1. First up, the answers to Tuesday’s ‘name the novels’ quiz in the document below.

2. I attended a powerful Hands Up Project (HUP) event online last Saturday on Emergent education in war zones. Here’s some of the links that people shared:

The Zinn Education Project https://www.zinnedproject.org/

Teach Palestine https://teachpalestine.org/

Social Justice Books https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/palestine/

DevelopmentEducation.ie https://developmenteducation.ie/ and here’s their handout on teaching Palestine and Israel (PDF below as well) https://developmenteducation.ie/media/documents/Palestine_and_Israel_CDU.pdf

Here’s Nick Bilbrough explaining what HUP is all about https://youtu.be/P8CXvHeZkeU and here’s the HUP YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@thehandsupproject71

3. Gemma De La Cruz-Duffy from Manchester Adult Education Service will be giving the next NATESOL webinar, on AI Tools for Differentiation and Feedback at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday, 6TH November. More info and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OGe4ZDk39RVLMha_OeFTLIg9G_crRA-Dtq7LiX4PBQ4/viewform?edit_requested=true and PDF of flyer below.

Join us for a workshop where Gemma shares how teachers at her workplace are saving time and improving efficiency using AI-powered tools in differentiation and feedback [and discover] practical strategies for utilising free and accessible AI tools in your classroom, real-world examples of how AI can help you personalise learning and provide effective feedback to diverse learners, and time-saving tips for streamlining your workload and maximizing your impact.

4. This one’s a good blend of transcript and video and, in addition to being an interesting listen, would make the basis of a good lesson for students of Business Studies/English, I think: Reinventing Rolls-Royce: a conversation with Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgiçconducted by Michael Bershan from McKinsey & Companyhttps://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/reinventing-rolls-royce-a-conversation-with-ceo-tufan-erginbilgic

5. And, finally, autumn leaves in Tokyo https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/10/18/travel/top-10-locals-guide-see-autumn-leaves-tokyo/ Even better than Cambridge!

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Tuesday, 29th October (Richmond)

1. This year’s IATEFL Themes online conference is this coming Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd November, and it’s 50% highlights from this year’s f2f conference in Brighton in April (on Saturday) and 50% Special Interest Group (SIG) presentations (on Sunday). More info and registration here https://www.iatefl.org/events/621 Programme preview below.

IATEFL Themes is free if you’re a member of IATEFL or an associate member of IATEFL through your local English teachers’ association: details of associate membership in the flyer below, if you’re not yet a member.

2. Macmillan English Young Learners’ Festival is on 4th, 6th & 8th November, repeated at 10:00, 14:00 & 21:30 each day. More info, including programme and registration here https://www.macmillanenglish.com/test-page/young-learners-festival

The world inside a child’s head truly is a magical one, and the best part is that it’s totally unique for each child. They all have their own dreams, ideas, experiences and abilities, which, to say the least, offers a certain level of challenge for their brave, creative and patient teacher! The Young Learners’ Festival will shine a spotlight on various development opportunities for teachers of young learners like individuality, personalisation, respect, imagination and academic progress.

Macmillan also have a Connecting Teens Day on Tuesday 19th November and an Educating Adults Day on Wednesday 4th December, both repeated three times in the course of the day.

3. No fewer than three pieces from Ipsos, the polling company:

What Britons are expecting/fearing from tomorrow’s budget https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/half-britons-more-fearful-hopeful-about-how-labours-budget-announcements-will-impact-public

A technically over-complicated but rewarding piece on British Brands https://www.canva.com/design/DAGTj0mFh2g/ioNSHMo4aGyOs6jwpgtgow/view

And the latest in the Ipsos KEYS series of webinars, Global Trends 2024: In Search of a New Consensus, which presents the new Ipsos set of nine global trends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvungLJ7okM

Screenshot of those nine trends below, just in case that’s helpful

4. Fleur Adcock died earlier this month at the age of 90. Here’s the Poetry Book Society’s tribute to her, one of her own poems, Magnolia Seed Pods

MAGNOLIA SEED PODS

Among the wonders vouchsafed to me

during my suburban wanderings

in two countries, this one and that one,

were these exotic excrescences,

each a miniature pineapple,

framed in petals the size of saucers.

The first I saw were strewn underfoot,

with no magnolia bloom in sight:

a mystification until I asked.

It was late in life when I found them.

Who would have thought I’d still be allowed

to walk out freely where there were trees

and carry on as I’ve always done:

picking things up and looking at them?

I’ve attached a picture of a splendid looking magnolia seed pod below!

Here’s Fleur reading her own work (and looking very healthy) earlier this year https://vimeo.com/976452996

5. And, finally, which twenty novels are represented in the picture below? Answers on Thursday!

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Thursday, 24th October (Cambridge)

Some reading for the weekend!

1. First up tonight, a thought-provoking LinkedIn piece from Richard Culattta, Why we need to reconsider banning phones in schools https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we-need-reconsider-banning-phones-schools-richard-culatta-q0d1e/

2. Ceibal, now nearly twenty years old, was (and is) Uruguay’s imaginative response to educational challenges. One strand is Ceibal en Inglés (Ceibal in English) and they have a new publication just out, edited by Gabriela Kaplan & Antonieta Reyes, Collaboration as the axis of Ceibal en Inglés  https://ceibal.edu.uy/plataformas-y-programas/ceibal-en-ingles/sobre-biblioteca/publicaciones/

This publication brings to light the main ingredient of success in Ceibal en Inglés, which is the capacity to learn to collaborate and cooperate at all levels, that is in the classroom and beyond. Readers will find in this book several examples of successful collaboration between teachers, within institutes, between institutes and Ceibal, between Ceibal en Inglés and the public education sector, between Ceibal en Inglés and our partners in Uruguay and abroad. These articles give clear evidence that collaboration is possible, that it is possible for everyone to learn to work with interdependence, and that once this is attained, excellent educational experiences can be lived by hundreds of students in Uruguay. Each one of the articles in this publication seems to bring home one of the main tenets of collaborative learning, “Working together to achieve a common goal produces higher achievement and greater productivity than does working competitively or individualistically”.

PDF below. Thanks to Emma Rogers from Little Bridge (p. 131!) for bringing this to my attention.

3. Chrissi Nerantzi, Delyth Edwards, Simon Green & Lou Harvey from The University of Leeds have just published With love from a dissertation supervisor: Advice for the journey https://zenodo.org/records/13939375

Blurb: We are delighted to release this open book. It has been co-authored by four scholars in the School of Education at the University of Leeds to support master’s students working on their dissertations. What you will read in this book is based on the scholars’ experiences supporting students as supervisors and what they have observed and learnt individually and collectively over the years in relation to dissertation supervision. The book is written in a conversational style to connect directly with those reading and using it as a resource during their dissertation journey. While this book has been written with students in education in mind, the book may also be useful for students in a range of disciplines and professional areas, also where final projects may be used instead of dissertations. Before finalising the book, we invited students and recent graduates to review it and are grateful for their input. We have taken their valuable feedback on board to finalise the book. This book could be used by dissertation students and supervisors alike. Supervisors may also wish to use numbered pages 1-30 as a flashcard set in seminars when preparing students for working on their dissertation. It could also form the basis of a board game and other playful workshop activities to support students. Check out the licence to identify how you can use, repurpose and build on it. If you would like to get in touch with the team please contact c.nerantzi @ leeds.ac.uk (without the spaces).

PDF below.

4. Here’s an advance open-access article from ELTJ by Fruzsina Szabó & Joanna Szoke: How does generative AI promote autonomy and inclusivity in language teaching? https://academic.oup.com/eltj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/elt/ccae052/7784519 PDF below.

Abstract In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly made advances across various fields, including ELT. In this article we embrace an egalitarian dialogue framework to explore and understand the role of AI in language education. This format provides a useful backdrop for navigating the dual responses—enthusiasm and scepticism—by which AI’s influence in education has often been characterized. We critically assess both the advantages and limitations of AI in ELT, highlighting and praising how AI-powered tools can assist educators in differentiating instruction, promoting learner autonomy, and creating personalized and inclusive learning environments, thus making education more accessible to students with diverse and individual needs. However, the article also addresses the challenges posed by the digital divide, particularly the inequities in access to (AI) technologies in low-socioeconomic-status regions. We also reflect upon how AI can become an obstacle in developing learner autonomy due to the risks associated with overdependence on such technologies and the lack of critical skills. The article concludes that although AI presents exciting opportunities for advancing and facilitating language learning, its integration must be approached with a rational mindset to ensure that it serves to bridge educational gaps rather than intensify them.

Latest issue of ELTJ here https://academic.oup.com/eltj/issue with a number of open-access articles, including Raising awareness among the TESOL community about the professional identity tensions of women EFL teachers in Africa, From notes to writing: three students in focus and Imagining an anti-racist pronunciation pedagogy   

5. And, finally and one hopes not elegiacally, from Wicked Leeks, The Declining Butterfly Effect https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/opinion/food-farming-fairness-with-will-white-a-future-without-butterflies/

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Tuesday, 22nd October (Richmond)

1. Preply is one of the bigger online tutorial organisations. Their Online Teaching Conference 2024 starts this Thursday, 24th October, https://preply-tutors-conference-2024.vfairs.com/

PDF of programme below and here’s the high-octane blurb:

Unlock your career potential: Connect, learn & grow. Get ready for three days of unmissable talks from leading minds in the teaching industry. Our conference gives teachers worldwide the chance to discover insights, techniques, and cutting-edge tools to take their teaching and career to new heights. We’ve also prepared a number of virtual meetups, Q&A sessions, and goodie bags to help you get the most out of the event. Completely free, catering for eight languages, and open to all teachers worldwide – you’re going to want to be there.

2. Well intentioned, certainly, the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact https://www.un.org/techenvoy/global-digital-compact

The preamble states

1. Digital technologies are dramatically transforming our world. They offer immense potential benefits for the well-being and advancement of people and societies and for our planet. They hold out the promise of accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

2. We can only achieve this through strengthened international cooperation that closes all digital divides between and within countries. We recognize the challenges that these divides pose for many countries, in particular developing countries, which have pressing development needs and limited resources.

3. We recognize that the pace and power of emerging technologies are creating new possibilities but also new risks for humanity, some of which are not yet fully known. We recognize the need to identify and mitigate risks and to ensure human oversight of technology in ways that advance sustainable development and the full enjoyment of human rights.

4. Our goal is an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all. This Global Digital Compact sets out the objectives, principles, commitments and actions we undertake to achieve it in the non-military domain.

5. We have strong foundations on which to build. Our digital cooperation rests on international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, international human rights law and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We remain committed to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society reflected in the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. The United Nations provides a critical platform for the global digital cooperation we need, and we will harness existing processes to do so.

6. Our cooperation must be agile and adaptable to the rapidly changing digital landscape. As Governments, we will work in collaboration and partnership with the private sector, civil society, international organizations, the technical and academic communities and all other stakeholders, within their respective roles and responsibilities, to realize the digital future we seek.

PDF of full text below.

3. JELI is the open-access Journal of Education, Language, and Ideology and has just published its fourth issue https://jelipub.com/

The Journal of Education, Language, and Ideology (JELI) is an international peer-reviewed academic journal (online-only) that publishes rigorous scholarship that advances inquiries in issues related to ideology, language, and education. Although articles are written in English, the journal welcomes studies dealing with the teaching and learning of languages other than English as well. JELI invites cutting-edge research from around the world with sound and diverse methodological designs and innovative implications for teaching multiple languages or any one language as a first, second, or third language. The journal is open-access, and the published articles are freely available to anyone.

Their most downloaded article thus far has been Ideologies of Mother Tongue at an Indian University: From Stage to Discussion by Christina P. Davis & Chaise LaDousa PDF below. https://jelipub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/davisladousa_2023_ideologies_of_mother.pdf

The concept of mother tongue gained salience in India in the mid-nineteenth century and has been central to language and education policy, scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, and lay conceptions of language. While scholars have outlined the multiple meanings and uses of the term, we move the analysis of mother tongue from its possibilities to moments of practice.

(How does JELI manage with quite such a large editorial board, I wonder?)

4. There’s an ECML BarCamp on AI for Language Education from 16:00 to 18:00 UK time on Tuesday, 5th November, for which I think places might be limited, hence this early notice.

Flyer here (and below) https://www.ecml.at/Portals/1/7MTP/AI-Lang/documents/AI%20Lang_invitation-BarCamp1%205nov24.pdf?ver=2024-10-07-165315-707

registration here  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6x72-3fDUcyJWQpFTOjhKcb53TfpDqbnfd-L-nYc19xVAAA/viewform

and more on the AI for language education project here https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2024-2027/AIforlanguageeducation/tabid/5856/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

Just in case you need it, like I did, more on the etymology of the term BarCamp here! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp

5. And, finally, Dish, a weekly podcast dinner party https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dish/id1626354833

Not all the guests will be known to listeners outside the UK, but Damian Lewis, Anna Maxwell Martin, Mary Berry and Stanley Tucci may be?

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Thursday, 17th October (Cambridge)

1. The latest edition of Oxford University Press’s English Language Teaching Online Conference, ELTOC begins next Thursday, 24th October. More info and registration here https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/eltoc/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en

Topics to be covered include ‘How AI can save your time’, ‘Video and multimodal literacy’ & ‘The power of concept-based inquiry’.

2. The Carbon Brief strapline is ‘Clear on Climate’. They’re offering a webinar at 15:00 UK time next Tuesday, 22nd October: What to watch at COP16. Registration here https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5817289937503/WN_PIykxVlUTZKt5vip5YzEjw#/registration

Carbon Brief’s specialist team of food, land and nature journalists has travelled to Cali, Colombia to cover the COP16 UN biodiversity summit. They are hosting a free webinar where they will discuss the key issues facing negotiators in Cali, plus what outcomes to expect from the summit. They will also be answering your questions.

3. Two free-to-view pieces from The Paris Review:

A conversation between Merve Emre & Sally Rooney, Loving the Limitations of the Novel https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/10/09/loving-the-limitations-of-the-novel-a-conversation-between-sally-rooney-and-merve-emre/

Unlocked for this week only, a short story by Morgan Thomas, ‘Everything I Haven’t Done’ https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/8326/everything-i-havent-done-morgan-thomas

4. McKinsey have just issued a new report, The Skills Revolution and the Future of Learning and Earning https://tinyurl.com/5eysf8ue PDF below.

As companies in all sectors deploy new technologies including automation and artificial intelligence (AI), workers need to adapt their capabilities continuously. Private- and public-sector leaders have a critical role to play in helping prepare the workforce of tomorrow for this skills revolution. Based on the latest McKinsey research, this paper examines trends across the major stages of education, from early childhood to lifelong learning, with a particular focus on the Middle East and North Africa. It highlights the growing importance of skills at all these learning stages and examines how new technologies and approaches can help students prepare for the future.

5. And, finally and possibly unexpectedly, the Kate Bush experience of your dreams, Baby Bushka, is finally here! https://www.ilovebabybushka.com/

Thanks to Neil Cooper for that one, from his blog, The Noise of Art https://neilcooper.substack.com/

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