Roy Cross's Blog

A bit of a language education policy riff today …

1. Short notice again of this one, sorry! At 13:00 UK time tomorrow, Wednesday 21st February, George Wilson will be talking about his experiences with multilingual learners and promoting regional languages in a Facebook Live event, How can we promote minority languages in class? https://www.facebook.com/events/756409536064136

2. Here’s a recording of another TeachingEnglish event that I missed at the end of January, How can teacher educators enhance learning and teaching in English-medium education? with Ann Veitch https://youtu.be/ZbOXkaaJOWc?feature=shared

This one’s more for people working in education policy and planning, say the TeachingEnglish team, and it might not be a bad thing at all if more education authorities around the world counted to ten before introducing English-medium education.

Lots more TeachingEnglish webinars and events for teachers here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers

and for teacher educators here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teacher-educator

3. There’s an ECML event with Terry Lamb on Challenging Societal Attitudes towards Language and Culture this Thursday, 22 February 2024, at 15:00 UK time. More info and registration here https://www.ecml.at/Resources/Webinars/tabid/5456/Default.aspx

The purpose of the Council of Europe ‘recommendation’ on ‘The importance of plurilingual and intercultural education for democratic culture’ that Terry will be talking about is explained as follows:

The efficient functioning of democracies depends on social inclusion and societal integration, which in turn depend on an understanding of, respect for and engagement with linguistic and cultural diversity. This recommendation aims to give fresh impetus to the promotion, development, and implementation of plurilingual and intercultural education, recognising its importance for personal and professional development, equity, societal integration, the exercise of human rights and participation in democratic culture.

PDF of the recommendation and appendices below. If you’ve not read a document like this before, you might find the way it’s written interesting – one single six-page-long sentence!

4. Large Language Models: A Survey by Shervin Minaee, Tomas Mikolov, Narjes Nikzad, Meysam Chenaghlu, Richard Socher, Xavier Amatriain & Jianfeng Gao is not an easy read, but neither is it an impossibly difficult read! https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.06196

Abstract here: In this paper, we review some of the most prominent LLMs, including three popular LLM families (GPT, LLaMA, PaLM), and discuss their characteristics, contributions and limitations. We also give an overview of techniques developed to build, and augment LLMs. We then survey popular datasets prepared for LLM training, fine-tuning, and evaluation, review widely used LLM evaluation metrics, and compare the performance of several popular LLMs on a set of representative benchmarks. Finally, we conclude the paper by discussing open challenges and future research directions.

PDF below. Give it a go!

5. And, finally, if that last one seems a bit daunting, here is something magical, the Oscar-nominated The Last Repair Shop https://psyche.co/films/repairing-instruments-for-children-is-its-own-art-in-this-oscar-nominated-short

Still to do with education policy, though?

1. Very short notice of this Green Action ELT event with Griselda Beacon from Argentina at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, Friday 16^th February Capturing young imaginations: greening the curriculum for young learners

More info here (scroll down!) https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

and registration here https://nile-elt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckde2przMtHtz6481s75p4UTuw_GEHzRdc#/registration

2. We need more people like Ali Abu Awwad and Ami Dar. Here’s their TED conversation, An Israeli and a Palestinian talk peace, dignity and safety https://www.ted.com/talks/ali_abu_awwad_and_ami_dar_an_israeli_and_a_palestinian_talk_peace_dignity_and_safety

3. Two for the price of one at the LanguageCert event at 15:00 UK time next Wednesday, 21^st February:

Nik Peachey on ChatGPT in Language Teaching and Learning – Challenges and Opportunities

and Russell Stannard on Key AI Technologies Impacting Language Teaching and Learning

More info and registration here https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E0yZugWvRz6S5XISFqgC8A#/registration

4. Great stuff from The Paris Review podcast: The Victim by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, read by George Takei https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6070/the-victim-by-junichiro-tanizaki

5. And, finally and not entirely unrelated to the Tanizaki story, How to Draw like Kim Jung Gi https://youtu.be/DmqFbgKWoao?feature=shared

Thanks to Toby Litt for this one. Here’s more on Kim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung_Gi

1. First up today, Ethan Mollick’s ‘Tasting notes’ on Google’s new “long-awaited powerful AI” large language model, Gemini Advanced https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/google-gemini-advanced-tasting-notes

Don’t forget to click to enlarge the images – lots of interesting stuff hiding there!

2. From Daisy Christodoulou for Engelsberg Ideas, Will AI revolutionise education? https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/will-ai-revolutionise-education/

Daisy seems to think not.

3. Here’s Alexandra Mihai’s latest post on her The Educationalist blog, It’s all about the process https://educationalist.substack.com/

“Let’s begin by acknowledging that learning is a process, and that, even though harder to measure, the process is at least as important as the product. In fact, for me personally, the most important aspect of learning is learning how to learn.”

4. Segregation or Integration? German language support teachers’ beliefs about ‘ideal’ language support models in Austria by Marie Gitschthaler, Elizabeth J. Erling & Susanne Schwab in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development has, I think, quite a lot to say that’s applicable to English language contexts. Article here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01434632.2024.2301990 and PDF below.

5. And, finally, here’s the last of those three video features from The Guardian, Bhutan Mountain Man, the video diaries of the only glaciologist allowed to climb Bhutan’s sacred mountains, to measure the impact of climate change on the glaciers https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/jan/10/bhutan-mountain-man-videos-from-a-glaciologist-to-a-future-generation

His daughter worries that he’ll annoy the Snow Lion …

1. What’s the point of school? (according to 600 kids) is a blog post by Ewan McIntosh, the founder of No Tosh https://medium.com/notosh/whats-the-point-of-school-according-to-600-kids-392f8f0bd981

Teachers and students agree what the point of school should be, by and large, but there’s quite a gap between their view and the official view of the purpose of school. Ewan’s post draws on the findings of No Tosh’s report into education in Scotland, Exploring the Four Capacities, which suggests that education in Scotland has rather lost its way. Here’s the whole report https://notosh.com/insights/curriculum-purpose-scotland and there’s a PDF below.

The ‘four capacities’ is a term drawn from Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, first implemented in 2004, “which aspires to develop in all children and young people the four capacities to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors”.

Here’s the Cambridge Dictionary definition of tosh if you’re not familiar with the term https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tosh

2.  Two poems by the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who died in an Israeli airstrike on her home last October: “Pull Yourself Together” and “Seven Skies for the Homeland” https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2024-01/pull-yourself-together-and-seven-skies-of-homeland-hiba-abu-nada-huda-fakhreddine/

3. A gift article from the New York Times, Portraits of Gazans http://tinyurl.com/55c3wyw8

4. Killing Eve, based on the ‘Villanelle’ novels by Luke Jennings, was a huge hit for the BBC. Luke is now writing a new ‘Killing Eve’ story on Substack, with twelve instalments so far https://killingeve.substack.com/archive?sort=top

I can’t quite make up my mind whether I like it or not!

5. And, finally, a second video feature from The Guardian, Birdsong, about the dying whistling language of the Hmong people in northern Laos https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/nov/29/birdsong-the-dying-whistled-language-of-the-hmong-people-in-northern-laos Credit to ELT Buzz for this one.

1. Short notice of this short (45”) webinar, Dyslexia Awareness for Language Teachers with Boelo van der Pool tomorrow, Wednesday, February 7^th at 12:00 UK time. Free registration here, “to understand how to help the 10 to 15% of your students with dyslexia learn better” https://forms.gle/3Ub1kM5XdCri4G2RA

2. More than half of UK undergraduates say they use AI to help with essays The Guardian told us last week https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/01/more-than-half-uk-undergraduates-ai-essays-artificial-intelligence If half are prepared to admit they use it, I wonder how many really use it?

3. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) have just published a concise guide to Using research evidence, a surprisingly (?) contentious area in education.

The blog post about the guide is here https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/new-guide-to-help-education-professionals-to-make-best-use-of-research-evidence

and the guide itself here https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/documents/using_research_evidence_-_a_concise_guide.pdf?v=1707066553 PDF below.

‘Red flag warning signs’ to look out for when examining a piece of research evidence include:

• The research is funded by an organisation or individual who has a personal stake in the findings.
• The evidence is shared on a commercial website that benefits from the intervention or approach.
• The number of participants included in the research is small or isn’t representative of the target population.
• The findings have been extended to situations or people – for example, different year groups or subjects – that the research didn’t look at.

4. First mentioned by me exactly (!) a year ago and starting (again) today, is the very popular English in the multilingual classroom course from TeachingEnglish https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/training/english-multilingual-classroom

“This course will introduce you to multilingualism and what it means. Learn how to make your classroom and teaching multilingual so that your learners can learn to celebrate and use many languages in the real world.”

PDF of the work book for the course below, to give you a fuller idea of what you’d be committing to, and details of several other courses currently running, all free, on this page https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/training

5. Three recent case studies from TeachingEnglish next. Links to download all three on their page and PDFs below.

i) Exploratory Action Research in Thai Schools: English teachers identifying problems, taking action and assessing results Twelve Thai teacher-researchers document their research journeys in this very engaging and encouraging publication https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research/exploratory-action-research-thai-schools

ii) Why won’t they speak English? investigates children’s anxiety and autonomy during English lessons in three government primary schools in Alexandria, Egypt through the lens of Self Determination Theory and suggests ways to improve learning experiences https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research/why-wont-they-speak-english

If you need it, like I did, here’s a bit more on Self Determination Theory  https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/

iii) Family attitudes towards multilingualism in bilingual education programmes reports on a large-scale study investigating the overall perception of multilingualism in the family environment of children enrolled in an English immersion programme in primary schools across Spain https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research/family-attitudes-towards-multilingualism-bilingual

Lots more case studies and research here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research

6. And, finally, the first of three video features from The Guardian, Rowdy Flock, a short film about a big undertaking, Rakel’s assuming responsibility for her father’s sheep farm in the Norwegian fjords https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2024/jan/31/rowdy-flock-a-daughter-her-dreams-and-a-sheep-farm-in-norway

Here’s the article that accompanies Rowdy Flock https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/falling-in-love-with-sheep-farming-in-the-norwegian-fjords

1. Just under 25 minutes into this episode of Matt Chorley’s Politics Without The Boring Bits podcast you’ll find an excellent and wide-ranging discussion of education in the UK since the 1944 Education Act which introduced free secondary education – and free milk! – for all pupils. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-red-box-politics-podcast/id660638948?i=1000642106550

2. A provocative piece – with which not everyone will agree – from the latest issue of History Today by Andrew Ong & Minh Bui Jones, How ASEAN Lost its Way https://www.historytoday.com/archive/behind-times/how-asean-lost-its-way

“ASEAN was founded to promote peace between the nations of Southeast Asia. Incapable of moving with the times, what is the point of it?”

Minh Bui Jones founded and edits The Mekong Review https://mekongreview.com/ Try Tales from the Shan hills https://mekongreview.com/tales-from-the-shan-hills/

3. Two pieces about Facebook, neither to be found on Facebook itself, I imagine:

a Whistleblower Aid piece about a Facebook donation to Harvard University and its consequences https://live-whistleblower-aid.pantheonsite.io/joan-donovan-press-release/ Whistleblower Aid home page here https://whistlebloweraid.org/

a piece from The Markup, Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-study-indicates

4. Here’s a BBC Radio 3 production of Thomas Otway’s C17 play, Venice Preserved that I enjoyed this morning on the way up to Yorkshire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g40k

Be ready for the slightly OTT sound effect when someone gets stabbed at the end of the play!

I didn’t know much about Otway: he was just a name on a list of dramatists I’d vaguely heard of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Otway

5. And, finally and challengingly, two quizzes from the BBC for the weekend:

first, one all about the use of apostrophes (I don’t agree with all the answers!) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/12vbByzjT1hcmFgh79f2MHw/are-you-grammatically-gormless-or-a-punctuation-perfectionist

second, Paul Sinha’s Perfect Pub Quiz (very few of the answers agree with me!) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5m4tC2Z6xbk7T7sF5KkDHgV/test-your-perfect-pub-quiz-knowledge

1. Thanks are due, as so often, to Stephen Downes’s OLDaily for this one: AI for Teachers: an Open Textbook https://www.ai4t.eu/textbook/ Here’s a bit more about the project that produced it https://www.ai4t.eu/about/ PDF below.

OLDaily home page here https://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm

2. Still on the AI theme, here’s a largely very positive report from Evelina Galaczi & Nahal Khabbazbashi (of Cambridge University Press & Assessment and the University of Bedfordshire, respectively), Everybody’s talking about Gen AI, but what are English teachers saying? https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2023/12/27/everybodys-talking-about-gen-ai-but-what-are-english-teachers-saying/

No copy of the study itself online that I could find.

3. Advance notice, to give you time to organise your diary, of this year’s Macmillan Global Teachers Festival, which runs for two weeks on weekdays from 19^th February to 1^st March https://www.macmillanenglish.com/global-teachers-festival-2024 Each session repeats three times a day, at 10:00, 14:00 and 21:30 UK time.

“With 20 unique talks and 22 international speakers, you can expect talks on subjects like how second languages shape how we think, the future of grammar instruction, hands-on with ChatGPT, involving parents, tackling bullying, igniting communicative practice, empowering emotional expression, and loads and loads more!” Boom, boom!

4. A gift article from the New York Times, We Need a New Word for Plagiarism, by John McWhorter http://tinyurl.com/3bsbyd4d

5. And, finally, two from Atlas Obscura: a doll hospital in Lisbon, first established in 1830 and still going strong https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hospital-de-bonecas and ten remarkable beaches round the world https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/unique-beaches-from-around-the-world

1. A Bit of a Stretch is a podcast by Chris Atkins, a documentary maker who went to prison for tax fraud in 2016. After his release, he interviewed twenty ex-prisoners about their time in jail, and turned the recordings into a podcast. On Apple here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-bit-of-a-stretch-the-podcast/id1532249561 and on Spotify here https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZTvJeAeEzBumHkXRwZCPc

He wrote a book of the same name: here’s The Guardian review of it https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/05/a-bit-of-a-stretch-chris-atkins-review

2. An online event from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at 15:00 UK time next Wednesday, 31^st January: Learned Indifference: how Russians have adapted to war https://events.ceip.org/alternaterealityhowrussiansoci

“It’s been almost two years since the Kremlin launched what it terms its “special military operation” against Ukraine, and most Russians have learned to cope with wartime pressures by distancing themselves as much as possible from what is unfolding on the battlefield. At the same time, hopes for peace—or at least peace talks—are becoming more and more common. How can this combination of indifference and a desire for peace be explained? What could change the social consensus over the war, or shatter the “new normal” that has taken hold in Russia? What’s the shelf life of the political bargain in which both passive and active conformists support the regime in exchange for not being mobilized to fight in Ukraine?”

3. Happy Notes from OUP offers eight songs, each with a lesson plan and teacher’s notes: https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/happy-notes/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en and there’s a range of other CPD resources available from the same page.

“Music and movement make words more memorable and singing together builds confidence in a new language. Use these fun animated ELT songs and free materials in your primary classroom to motivate your young learners”.

4. Thanks to Jaime Saavedra for this pair of blog posts by his World Bank colleague Gabriel Demombynes on AI:

Misconceptions about artificial intelligence and what it means for people https://blogs.worldbank.org/investinpeople/misconceptions-about-artificial-intelligence-and-what-it-means-people

Will artificial intelligence change the course for human development? https://blogs.worldbank.org/investinpeople/will-artificial-intelligence-change-course-human-development

Interesting reading alongside the Mollick pieces from Tuesday.

5. Here’s a recent post on LinkedIn by Geoff Jordan, My View of General English Coursebooks https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-view-general-english-coursebooks-geoff-jordan-2s4me/

From his conclusion, to give a hint of Geoff’s view of general English coursebooks: “Coursebooks oblige teachers to work within a framework where students are presented with and then practise dislocated bits of English in a sequence which is pre-determined and externally imposed on them by coursebook writers. Most teachers have little say in the syllabus design which shapes their work, and their students have even less say in what and how they’re taught.”

You can subscribe to Geoff’s weekly newsletter via this page (you will need to join LinkedIn, if you’re not already a member, to subscribe) https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/doing-an-ma-tesol-7128407382128250882/

6. And, finally and oenologically, a winner at last in the cork vs screwcap debate! https://www.wineandmore.com/stories/screw-cap-against-cork-in-wine/

1. Ethan Mollick’s blog, One Useful Thing, focuses on AI and its impacts on work and education. Here’s his latest post, The Lazy Tyranny of the Wait Calculation: taking AI timelines seriously https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-lazy-tyranny-of-the-wait-calculation I’m now debating whether I can afford not to spend $20 a month on a subscription to Chat GPT Plus so I can play with some of the GPTs that he’s created. (And, no, I’m not quite sure what creating a GPT for oneself involves.)

Here’s a recent paper he co-authored with his wife, Lilach, Assigning AI: seven approaches for students, with prompts https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4475995 You’ll need to sign up to SSRN here, if you’re not already a member https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/

More Team Mollick papers here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=5621131 and PDFs of all three below.

2. The first Green Action ELT event this year, Staff fridge to conference buffet: reducing our food emissions, at 16:00 UK time this Friday, 26^th January, looks at how we can reduce emissions from food and food waste, from snacks in the board room to full catering at residential schools https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

3. Three recent pieces from Engelsberg Ideas https://engelsbergideas.com/

Grey zones and dark tourism in Europe’s hinterlands by Hannah Lucinda Smith https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/grey-zones-and-dark-tourism-in-europes-hinterlands/

Roald Dahl’s readable but regrettable Uncle Oswald by Alexander Larman https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/roald-dahls-uncle-oswald/

Best of Engelsberg Ideas in 2023 https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/best-of-engelsberg-ideas-in-2023/ Ten for the price of one, that last one!

4. I am way off the pace according to Trinity’s new report, Trinity uncovers the new slang that worldwide Gen Z wants to master when learning English https://www.trinitycollege.com/news/viewarticle/trinity-uncovers-the-new-slang-that-worldwide-gen-z-wants-to-master-when-learning-english

Of the twenty words Trinity list, I only knew ‘rizz’ – and that’s only because it was OUP’s word of the year. I bet Mr Beast knows them all!

Trinity also researched “the turns of phrase which cause the most difficulty for Gen Z”: ‘Elvis has left the building’; ‘cock and bull story’; ‘neck of the woods’; ‘get someone’s goat’; ‘have a bone to pick with someone’; ‘best thing since sliced bread’; ‘sacred cow’; ‘earworm’; ‘monkey business’ and ‘the tail wagging the dog’ – all of which I know and use …

The one my younger colleagues were already flummoxed by a few years ago when I used it was ‘a sprat to catch a mackerel’.

5. And, finally and photographically, the winners in the 2023 Travel Photographer of the Year competition https://www.tpoty.com/galleries/2023-winners/

Be sure to scroll right down the page: there’s some great videos at the end.

1. The Faculty of Education at Cambridge University often highlights interesting recent research on their website https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/news/index.html#2dd826a9

Try this one, Fewer than 1% of schools have school-wide policies on second languages, language learning and English https://content.educ.cam.ac.uk/news/23-forbes-language-policy

or this one, Disadvantaged children’s struggles at school have little to do with character, attitude or a lack of ‘growth mindset’ https://content.educ.cam.ac.uk/content/disadvantaged-childrens-struggles-school-have-little-do-character-attitude-or-lack-growth

PDFs of both studies below (there’s also a link in each blog post).

2. Continuing the theme of disadvantage, here’s two recent press releases from Oxfam:

first, a depressing one on wealth https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/wealth-of-five-richest-men-doubles-since-2020-as-wealth-of-five-billion-people-falls/ (PDF of report below);

second, a less depressing one on millionaires with a sense of altruism https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/nearly-three-quarters-of-millionaires-polled-in-g20-countries-support-higher-taxes-on-wealth-over-half-think-extreme-wealth-is-a-threat-to-democracy/

3. Here’s UNESCO’s Bangkok Priorities for Action on First Language-based Multilingual Education https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000387958.locale=en PDF below. No great surprises, perhaps, but good to see their six priorities spelt out nice and clearly.

4. I’ve just discovered Toby Litt’s blog, which has been fun each day this year so far: https://awritersdiary.substack.com/ I’ve got a bit of a backlog to catch up on!

5. And, finally, Wiki Loves Folklore! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Folklore_2023/Winners?1=1

Be sure to watch the video of the gusli player near the bottom of the page.