Roy Cross's Blog

1. I’ve somehow contrived to miss this report, Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review, over the last four years since it was published by Cambridge Assessment International Education and Evidence Based Education (EBE) in 2020 https://2366135.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/2366135/Great%20Teaching%20Toolkit%20Evidence%20Review.pdf

Here’s a short video introduction from Rob Coe of EBE https://evidencebased.education/great-teaching-toolkit-evidence-review/

PDFs of the full report and the Executive Summary only below, and here’s the beginning of that executive summary:

What are the best bets for teachers to invest time and effort in if they want their students to learn more? We have reviewed existing research studies and frameworks that are relevant to the components and routes to improvement of teacher effectiveness. Our aim is to help teachers make better decisions about what they can best do to improve their effectiveness. In summary, we have identified four priorities for teachers who want to help their student learn more:

1. understand the content they are teaching and how it is learnt

2. create a supportive environment for learning

3. manage the classroom to maximise the opportunity to learn

4. present content, activities and interactions that activate their students’ thinking

Some of you may now be saying to yourselves, “That’s all very well and easily enough said, but the how is what interests me”. You’ll be pleased to learn that the report goes into considerable detail on the how!

2. I meant to include this on Tuesday, when I mentioned Vicky Saumell’s plenary at the IATEFL conference in Brighton, but better late than never! IATEFL continue to offer a wide range of professional development opportunities, the large majority free to non-members. Lots of good stuff here https://www.iatefl.org/events

What, I wonder, should one read into the fact that the two Business – business! – English SIG events listed fall within that small minority of events that are not free to non-members?

3. Two new posts from Alexandra Mihai on her blog, The Educationalist https://educationalist.substack.com/

i) Let’s burst some bubbles (again)! expressing nostalgia for the pandemic;

ii) The Facilitation Survival Guide about how “taking a step back and not being in the centre of attention, while actually guiding the discussion or learning process, can sometimes take more effort than ex cathedra teaching”.

4. Here’s something deeply depressing which I hope doesn’t upset too many people, America’s Monster: How the U.S. Backed Kidnapping, Torture and Murder in Afghanistan https://tinyurl.com/hxdtzank

And something less depressing and ever so slightly surprising on the part of our justice system – but maybe I’m just getting old and cynical – from The Guardian, Julian Assange wins right to appeal against extradition to US https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/may/20/julian-assange-wins-high-court-victory-in-case-against-extradition-to-us

5. And, finally, here’s a recent article from The Spectator by Philip Patrick, Why are the Japanese so bad at English? https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-the-japanese-so-bad-at-english/ A more sympathetic piece than its title might at first suggest!

1. Two recordings from this year’s IATEFL conference in Brighton on the subject of AI:

i) another excellent plenary, this one by Vicky Saumell The AI factor have we figured it out? https://www.youtube.com/live/2IkCub2jFXs

Vicky’s abstract: The development of AI has become a huge challenge. Predictions abound about how it will affect not just ELT, but the world in general. After a whole year of fast-moving advances in AI development and available tools for a variety of uses within the ELT field, we are still working out what it means for us. We have been learning what it is and what we can use it for, from lesson planning to image creation and automated language learning. But there is more! We have also been trying to elucidate its positive and negative aspects, though it is all quite subjective. Reducing a teacher’s workload, marking learners’ work, planning a marketing campaign can be placed in different parts of the positive-negative continuum. What seems apparent is that it is changing the ELT landscape. But how? What are the implications for different stakeholders in the language learning industry? And how are we coping with the challenges it poses? Becoming aware of AI’s functioning so that we can detect biases and work together towards an ethical use of AI seems to be a logical pathway, which we will explore together in this talk.

ii) The British Council’s very engaging ‘signature event’ – more engaging than some (but not all!) I was involved in – The future of English in the age of AI, described as “a dive into the findings from recent British Council research into the use of artificial intelligence in English language teaching and learning” and including an update on their recent report, Artificial intelligence and English language teaching: Preparing for the future https://youtu.be/g53gW31TLVg PDF of the report below (again!)

2. Also concerned with AI – as nearly everything will be soon? – The future of assessment with Andreas Schleicher, Hayo Reinders & Fran Woodward is the latest in the English with Cambridge Teachers Talk Tech podcast series https://youtu.be/MIzsk0LSmlA?feature=shared A wee bit of an advert for Cambridge but acceptably so!

More Teachers Talk Tech podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmCHL8PnXq_7otZSpb-n4IHEFoZpYYbR

3. Some good, clear thinking from Daisy Christodoulou in this post on the No More Marking blog, Your digital education transformation strategy, https://substack.nomoremarking.com/p/your-digital-education-transformation

4. This one’s not about AI: a New York Times ‘gift article’, Can You Lose Your Native Tongue? After moving abroad, I found my English slowly eroding. It turns out our first languages aren’t as embedded as we think https://tinyurl.com/47w4he8n

My family still chortle when they remember me ordering beer in Croatian in Paris and getting more and more exasperated because the waiter didn’t understand me …

5. And, finally, a good piece about Berlin from Katja Hoyer’s blog, Zeitgeisthttps://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/the-battle-for-the-heart-of-berlin

1. First up this evening, two webinars next week:

The first is an ECML event at 16:00 UK time on Tuesday, 21^st May, Exploring the potential of action research in language education: Opportunities and challenges in local and global contexts. More info and registration here https://www.ecml.at/Resources/Webinars/tabid/5456/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Don’t worry about ‘first come, first served’ any more – the ECML has had such a good response they’ve decided to stream the event on YouTube – but it would be helpful if you registered.

Our interactive webinar will explore the potential of action research in language education.

• Why action research?
• How does an action research methodology support language education both in terms of research and practice?
• What are the opportunities and challenges that arise in conducting action research in the sphere of language education?
• How might I go about integrating action research into my practice as a language educator?

The second is an ETS event at 12:00 UK time on Friday, 24^th May, Humanizing AI for Learning and Assessment. More info and registration here https://join.clickmeeting.com/elt-virtual-seminar/

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been transforming education in many ways, a testament to its extraordinary power. With its seemingly limitless capabilities, it affects the way we learn, teach, and assess English language proficiency today. As educators, we have learned to embrace change. The AI revolution, however, can also be a source of doubt and concern. How can we ensure that AI truly contributes to improved teaching and learning? Does the use of AI put academic integrity at risk? Is it possible for assessments using AI capabilities to remain both reliable and fair?

2.  Jamie Clark offers Professional Learning Insights and Digital Content for Busy Educators https://www.jamieleeclark.com/ and produces free posters on key teaching ideas https://www.jamieleeclark.com/graphics

Here’s his poster on Feedback https://tinyurl.com/53c59fnb

and another on Why Don’t Students Like School? https://tinyurl.com/mks9w88s

PDFs of both below.

3. Thanks to Rob Gibson for drawing my attention to this article from Nature, Worldwide divergence of values by Joshua Conrad Jackson & Danila Medvedev from Chicago University https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5 PDF below.

Social scientists have long debated the nature of cultural change in a modernizing and globalizing world. Some scholars predicted that national cultures would converge by adopting social values typical of Western democracies. Others predicted that cultural differences in values would persist or even increase over time. We test these competing predictions by analyzing survey data from 1981 to 2022 (n = 406,185) from 76 national cultures. We find evidence of global value divergence. Values emphasizing tolerance and self-expression have diverged most sharply, especially between high-income Western countries and the rest of the world. We also find that countries with similar per-capita GDP levels have held similar values over the last 40 years. Over time, however, geographic proximity has emerged as an increasingly strong correlate of value similarity, indicating that values have diverged globally but converged regionally.

4. Here’s a gift article from The New York Times with a quarter century of reading recommendations, The Book Review’s Best Books Since 2000, all 3,228 of them https://tinyurl.com/4e2kffds Be sure to click on the ‘Show all notable books’ link for each year.

And if that makes you want start writing, here’s On How to Start a Short Story from Ali Smith via Toby Litt’s blog, https://awritersdiary.substack.com/p/on-starting-a-short-story-from-scratch

Seductively simple!

5. And finally, from Engelsberg Ideas, Celebrating a century of the red telephone box by Clive Aslet https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/celebrating-a-century-of-the-red-telephone-box/

1. Thanks to Jaime Saavedra for this one from the OECD, Students, Digital Devices and Success,  https://www.oecd.org/ – scroll down the page a bit. Download here https://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/English%20V3_WEB.pdf

PDFs below of the whole report and the ‘Key Findings’ only.

While we’re visiting the OECD site, here’s their recent Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence – it’s one of those ‘having regard to’ and ‘recognising’ documents  https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/oecd-legal-0449

It was amended just a week ago, possibly for the first time since its adoption in May 2019, possibly not.

2. Staying with AI, here’s a recent blog post from Ethan Mollick, Superhuman? What does it mean for AI to be better than a human? And how can we tell? https://substack.com/home/post/p-144115962

plus the paper he refers to that he co-authored with no fewer than eight other humans, Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4573321

You’ll need a free SSRN account to download the paper for yourself; PDF below.

3. The Warwick ELT Archive is a treasure trove curated by Richard Smith. Here’s Richard’s recent blog post on Louis Alexander https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/elt_archive/entry/louis_alexander_19322002 and here are the links that Richard includes in his post:

to the page on L.G. Alexander’s life and career https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collections/elt_archive/halloffame/louis_alexander/biography/

and to a 1981 talk by Alexander which Alexander describes in his introduction as an ”off the cuff, impromptu attempt to survey some of the significant landmarks in the history of English language teaching in the twentieth century” https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collections/elt_archive/halloffame/louis_alexander/archive/alexander_l_g.mp3

Would that I had cuffs like Mr Alexander’s!

4. I’ve just discovered this Cambridge University Press feature, (well-known ELT person’s) Essential Bookshelf https://tinyurl.com/mpb58fh7 PDFs of Rod Ellis’s essential bookshelf: Focus on form, Martin East’s essential bookshelf: Task-based language teaching and Ema Ushioda’s essential bookshelf: Teacher engagement with classroom motivation research below.

5. And, finally, prompted by last Thursday’s statue piece, John Drew has sent me another piece from his Dhaka Daily Star archive, On Shelley, Shoes and the Shifting of Statues – PDF below.

1. At 11:00 UK time next Tuesday 14^th May, the latest in the Lancaster Talks on Linguistics series is on Corpus Linguistics. Three short lectures – a nice idea! – from Elena Semino on Corpus linguistics and healthcare, Vaclav Brezina on New tools and methods in corpus linguistics & Dana Gablasova on Corpus linguistics and data-driven learning. More info and registration here https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/events/lancaster-talks-on-language-corpus-linguistics/

2. At 18:00 UK time next Wednesday 15^th May from OUP, The role of music in the classroom with Michael Lacey Freeman. More info and registration here https://events.oup.com/oxford-university-press/The-role-of-music-in-the-classroom and Michael’s abstract here

Music has always had a key role to play in language learning and this is why most of us can remember fragments of foreign language songs from our childhood. These songs, or pieces of songs can creep into our subconscious and stay there. Music sticks in the mind and for this reason, it can help us as teachers to recycle, and reinforce language structures in the classroom, and it can assist students in retrieving important vocabulary. It can also, however, serve many other purposes in the classroom. If used appropriately, it can increase levels of attention, confidence, and engagement, all ingredients that make for motivated students. But how do you find the right music and when should you use it? Join me in this presentation about how to use music to obtain the best results for your students.

3. Also from OUP, the latest issue of ELTJ is a special issue on positive psychology and wellbeing https://academic.oup.com/eltj/issue/78/2 The introduction to the issue by Pia Resnik and Sarah Mercer is free to view, as are the Key Concepts in ELT piece on Intercultural Communication by Will Baker and the piece on ELT teachers’ agency for wellbeing by Giulia Sulis, Astrid Mairitsch, Sonja Babic, Sarah Mercer & Pia Resnik. PDF of the introduction below.

4. Find where your country is in the Reporters without Borders 2024 World Press Freedom Index? https://rsf.org/en/index

5. And, finally and invertedly, a new statue in Washington DC https://tinyurl.com/3e2p7485

1. Something a bit more challenging than usual from Julie Rattray, On the affective threshold of power and privilege https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-023-01093-x PDF below.

A threshold concept= a core idea that’s conceptually challenging for students, who struggle to grasp it—but once grasped, it radically transforms the students’ perception of the subject.

Epistemic justice = universal participation in terms of equality of all inquirers in access to information and knowledge.

2. An interesting NESTA event at 17:30 UK time this Thursday, 9^th May: UK 2040: David Miliband in conversation with Ravi Gurumurthy https://www.nesta.org.uk/event/uk-2040-rt-hon-david-miliband-in-conversation-with-ravi-gurumurthy/

David Miliband, had the political cookie crumbled differently, might have been about to become the new UK Prime Minister; as it is, he’s the president of the International Rescue Committee https://www.rescue.org/

3. Here’s one free CPD opportunity, with the Language Assessment Professionalisation Programme (LAPP) https://lapp.education/en

Are you a language teacher or trainee teacher? Would you like to develop your skills in assessing your students’ language proficiency? If so, this initial training course, developed by Eaquals and ALTE in partnership with mint-digital, will help you.

4. And another, a NILE free Teaching English with Authentic Video course https://learning.nile-elt.com/d2l/le/lessons/6733/units/184886 You’ll need to sign up to the free NILE member’s area.

A new free 10-hour self-access course which will help you to make effective use of the Ready-to-Run video collection and other authentic videos you use in your teaching. You will be able to generate a NILE certificate on completion of the course. Additionally, completing this course will give you access to an additional selection of teaching video materials from the Ready to Run video collection of authentic video, including video content for young learners and the newest of the secondary and adult collection.

5. And, finally, how about some ‘simple’ rice? https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-rice

1. Here’s a recent Ipsos report on attitudes to climate change in 33 countries around the world https://resources.ipsos.com/rs/297-CXJ-795/images/Earth%20Day%202024%20Global%20Report.pdf

LinkedIn is usually a fairly polite, even staid environment but the abuse that Kelly Beaver received – from people who believe the earth is flat? – for posting this report was astonishing. PDF below.

2. As promised last week, here’s the other recordings in the IH World Global voices on nurturing inclusive practice series:

Busting Myths of Autism in the EFL Classroom with Sisi Rabenstein https://youtu.be/ZphSSiV86tQ?feature=shared

The Unpublished: Are We Editing LGBTQ+ Identities Out of the Classroom? with Giovanni Licata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoutwXtn3y8

How to Handle Hot Moments in (and out) of the Classroom with Verónica Higareda and Reena Mistry https://youtu.be/zEDtJqhnpNk?feature=shared

Deconstructing EDIB: What, why, and how? with Amina Douidi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEv1MgJfKwM

3. The ECML’s new three-year programme, Language education at the heart of democracy, launched recently, and you’ll find links to all the project websites here https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2024-2027/tabid/5628/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

Here’s a fairly random three projects (not random in that all three have a short introductory video):

Unlocking educational opportunities in sign languages in Europe https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2024-2027/DeafSign/tabid/5861/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Introductory video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WDDC5RUAL8

Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2024-2027/Plurilingualwellbeing/tabid/5863/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Introductory video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFrm2hfgyTo

AI for language education https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2024-2027/AIforlanguageeducation/tabid/5856/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Introductory video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3AEEowJPSY

4. Here’s Simon Borg’s latest blog post, Improving the Effectiveness of Professional Development, in which he outlines six key elements that in his experience give professional development programmes for teachers a greater chance of being effective  https://simon-borg.co.uk/improving-the-effectiveness-of-professional-development/

5. And, finally and imaginatively and resourcefully, Great Escapes: Remarkable Second World War Captives, the video of the National Archives exhibition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMrYocrxBeA

Here’s more on the exhibition itself https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/great-escapes/

and here’s the National Archives YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@TheNationalArchivesUK

1. Three pieces on language(s) to start with today:

a) Thanks to Rod Bolitho for this piece by Ana Schabl, a Slovenian short story writer, for The Guardian: Do you speak a ‘big’ global language? Here’s what my tiny language can teach you https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/24/language-speak-big-slovene-english-germanThere are lots of even tinier languages than Slovene out there with lessons to teach us – for the time being.

b) A piece in The Conversation from Abigail Parrish of Sheffield University, Young people in Britain aren’t bad at learning languages – but the school system doesn’t make it easy for them https://theconversation.com/young-people-in-britain-arent-bad-at-learning-languages-but-the-school-system-doesnt-make-it-easy-for-them-227485

c) Another piece in The Conversation, this one from Sascha Stollhans of Leeds University, The UK is poorer without Erasmus – it’s time to rejoin the European exchange programme https://theconversation.com/the-uk-is-poorer-without-erasmus-its-time-to-rejoin-the-european-exchange-programme-227498 Chance would be a fine thing …

2. Thanks to Alan Maley for giving me a sharp poke in the ribs on this one: HLT’s new regular Eco Issues section, for which Alan wrote this inaugural article, Global Ecological Collapse and the Power of Teachers https://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr24/global-ecological-collapse

Chimes in many ways with Rose Aylett’s IATEFL plenary on learner and teacher agency that I mentioned last week – here’s the link to Rose’s talk again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hor2Iyx80is

3. And on this one – ouch, Alan! The new, Winter 2024 issue of Teacher Training Journal has just come out https://pilgrimsttj.com/  and has the usual wide range of interesting articles, this time including Teacher Education during “unteachable” times:  teacher preparation and induction in areas of intractable conflict by Julia Schlam Salman & Brigitta R. Schvarcz from Israel and Many hands make light work: team-teaching within the Hands Up project (in Palestine) by Nick Bilborough. PDF of the whole issue below.

4. The week before last, I had the great pleasure of chairing a reading by David Howard, a New Zealand poet who should be much better known in the UK. David has written a wonderful sequence of poems, Mate (which is a Dalmatian name, pronounced Maat-eh, not a greeting!), about the encounter between Dalmatian immigrants to Aotearoa and the local Māori people at the turn of the century. Each poem in the sequence is told from the perspective of a different member of the Petricevich family. PDF of the sequence below, with explanatory notes at the end, and David’s website here https://davidhowardpoet.com/

5. And, finally and melodically, the Tord Gustavsen Trio play Right There, one of my favourite songs of theirs (or anyone else’s) https://youtu.be/DzFPZ01tFjg?feature=shared More of TGT here https://www.youtube.com/live/XN-QRGhJ8TY?feature=shared

This ‘Free Resources’ message has been sent out earlier than usual in the hope it gives you a little more time to sign up for #1 below.

1. Short notice of this one, for which I apologise: Dyslexia in Language Learning with Boelo Van der Pool is the fifth in the IH World series of talks celebrating diversity, Global voices on nurturing inclusive practice, and it’s at 13:00 UK time tomorrow, Friday 26^th April. More info and registration here https://ihworld.com/events/events/ih-celebration-of-diversity-webinar-5/

I’ll post links to the other talks in the series next week.

2. Bit of a shame about the less-than-welcoming title of this thought-provoking piece by Margit van Wessel from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Reimagining Transcalar Civil Society Advocacy Collaborations: Starting from the Global South https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12116-024-09426-2.pdf PDF below.

“Based on 29 interviews with staff of civil society organizations, the article shows that country-based actors see collective process, centered at country level, as the foundation for effective collaboration in advocacy, centering on facilitation and support. This turns collaborations with the international NGO that is involved upside down (my emphasis). It also highlights the limited scope for international advocacy from such understandings, while underlining the role of international NGOs in expanding this scope.”

3. Two diametrically-opposed accounts of the same session of Prime Minister’s Questions last week – for an advanced class to compare and contrast?

The first from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/17/tory-mps-limp-into-pmqs-after-finally-accepting-their-fate

and the second from The Spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/rishi-gets-witty-at-pmqs/ 

Hard to believe the two writers were at the same session!

4. Here’s a dissenting review from Tiffany Jenkins of Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewriting of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, in which she says that The smart phone is not to blame for the ‘epidemic’ of anxiety in young people https://tiffanyjenkins.substack.com/p/the-smart-phone-is-not-to-blame-for “Haidt’s brilliant insight is that kids are over protected offline but under protected online.”

This report from Ofcom, the UK media regulator, has just popped up again a year after its first publication, almost certainly because of the discussion (all over the media here in UK recently) Tiffany refers to in her piece, Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2023 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/media-literacy-research/childrens/children-and-parents-media-use-and-attitudes-report-2023 87% of children aged 3-4 went online in 2022, as did a whole lot of two-year-olds. PDF below.

5. And, finally, beer is a subject close to my heart stomach. Here’s an account from The Conversation of Trinity College Dublin’s research into medieval brewing, Five things our research uncovered when we recreated 16th century beer (and barrels) https://theconversation.com/five-things-our-research-uncovered-when-we-recreated-16th-century-beer-and-barrels-223599

It’s accompanied by a rather good virtual exhibition https://foodcult.eu/exhibition/brewing-historical-beer/

1. This coming Saturday, at 10:00 UK time, NATESOL welcomes you to Infusing enjoyment into reading novels with Rym Ghosn El-Bel Chelbi from the University of Ouargla in Algeria. More info and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8bV6eWlRrEeM2mrv37juqJnMv_KEBkE-5AGYMJ7TcrUKbRw/viewform PDF below.

NATESOL’S fortieth (!) annual conference is from 10:00 to 15:00 UK time on 11^th May, and they are again kindly offering free places to readers of this Free Resources message. More info here (and PDF of flyer below) https://www.natesol.org/event-details/natesol-annual-conference-2024 Send me a WhatApp, LinkedIn or e-mail message if you’d like a ticket!

2. Here’s Rose Aylett’s wonderful closing plenary from IATEFL last week, Disrupting the commonplace: embedding critical literacy within language education https://youtu.be/Hor2Iyx80is?feature=shared There’s a ‘show transcript’ button halfway down the page that you might find helpful.

“If language teaching is to foster criticality for active and reflective social involvement amongst learners, language teachers themselves should also be critically literate practitioners. But what does ‘critical literacy’ actually mean? And is it something we can learn and/or teach? Using Lewison et al.’s (2002) four dimensions framework of critical literacy, this talk will explore practical ideas to disrupt the status quo in language education, by embedding action for social justice within the many layers of our educational practice(s): from the individual to the institutional. The presentation will unpack the definition of critical literacy proposed by Lewison et al: (1) disrupting the commonplace, (2) interrogating multiple viewpoints, (3) focusing on socio-political issues, and (4) taking action to promote social justice.”

I’m all for disrupting the status quo!

3. Language Trends Wales: an AI-powered experiment to inspire students to learn languages https://youtu.be/O9yZGB4eGyU?feature=shared offers an imaginative use of AI in education, at a time when language learning in UK schools is at an all-time low. See what you think!

4. This one from The Guardian raises all the issues you need for a discussion of colonialism in class, Tory MP from slave-owning family set to gain £3m from sale of former plantation https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/20/tory-mp-from-slave-owning-family-set-to-gain-3m-from-sale-of-former-plantation

5. And, finally and free for a few days only from The Paris Review, Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov

Q. E. M. Forster speaks of his major characters sometimes taking over and dictating the course of his novels. Has this ever been a problem for you, or are you in complete command?

A. My knowledge of Mr. Forster’s works is limited to one novel, which I dislike; and anyway, it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand; it is as old as the quills, although of course one sympathizes with his people if they try to wriggle out of that trip to India or wherever he takes them. My characters are galley slaves.