Roy Cross's Blog

1. We prefer things to be black and white, with no shades of grey. Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, made the mistake of suggesting in a video recently that the Taliban had some positive achievements to their name, and the political roof came down on his head, Tory MPs try to oust Tobias Ellwood from defence role for praising Taliban https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/20/tory-mp-tobias-ellwood-apologises-video-praising-taliban

More acceptably – very – critical is this piece from Persuasion, Slipping Past Taliban Censors https://www.persuasion.community/p/slipping-past-taliban-censors

But there probably is a bit of grey there somewhere, isn’t there?

2. Here’s a piece by Yun Li from Xinyang Normal University in China in the Frontiers in Psychology journal, courtesy of Maja Mandekic, which addresses how best learners of English develop their oral skills, Teaching mode of oral English in the age of artificial intelligence https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.953482/full PDF below.

3. A Vegan diet has just 30% of the environmental impact of a high-meat diet, reports this piece in The Conversation https://thec onversation.com/vegan-diet-has-just-30-of-the-environmental-impact-of-a-high-meat-diet-major-study-finds-210152

How much of the world, though, enjoys – if that’s the word I want – a ‘high meat’ diet?

4. Not Uganda! Here’s a blog post from William Henry Gates III on bean engineering there, Clare Mukankusi will make you geek out on beans https://www.gatesnotes.com/Heroes-in-the-Field-Clare-Mukankusi

5. And, finally and sticking with food, Jonny Crickmore from Fen Farm Dairy shows just how easy it is to make cheese at home https://youtu.be/5COLzyqaL5g

Late again this week, this time due to an unusually painful bout of sciatica. Suggestions from fellow-sufferers will be most welcome!

1. This one doesn’t mince its words: “The use of English as the common language of science represents a major impediment to maximising the contribution of non-native English speakers to science”.

The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002184 PDF below.

Good word, manifold!

2. Two opportunities for the consultants among you next, one in Kazakhstan and one in Uzbekistan:

a) British Council Kazakhstan are looking for a suitably experienced and qualified consultant to lead policy-oriented work with stakeholders and provide effective guidance and support to a working group that will focus on developing a policy proposal regarding teacher continuing professional development (CPD) in Kazakhstan. More information in the PDF below.

b) British Council Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Preschool and School Education are looking for a UK education agency or university to develop CPD portfolios and Good Practice guidelines for English teachers in public schools. More info here (and links to both tender documents and interesting background reading) https://www.britishcouncil.uz/en/cpd23-24 Might be worth asking if a small team of consultants would also be eligible?

3. An opportunity for those of you who are members of an English teachers association: Hornby Trust Teacher Association Project Awards provide up to £6,000 to support ELT Teacher Associations to engage in small-scale projects, with the overall aim of enhancing English teaching in public education systems in low- and middle-income countries. More info and link to application form here https://tinyurl.com/42wva94s

4. A veritable treasure trove from Cambridge, their Cambridge papers in ELT series, all downloadable for free here https://www.cambridge.org/gb/cambridgeenglish/better-learning-insights/pedagogy

5. And, finally and elegiacally, A funeral for fish and chips: why are Britain’s chippies disappearing? https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jul/20/a-funeral-for-fish-and-chips-east-neuk-fife-anstruther-scotland

Done well, still takes an awful lot of beating!

1. I can’t remember where I came across this ELT Buzz collection on nativespeakerism – LinkedIn, maybe? https://www.eltbuzz.com/tag/native-speaker/

Ironically, ELT Buzz itself https://www.eltbuzz.com/ has a bit of a native speaker vibe, but it does a good job hoovering up news and info on ELT from across the world.

2. Prompted by the fact that unfortunately ELT Buzz’s post, Who are the top ten people in ELT (English Language Teaching) globally? doesn’t seem to be available any longer, I asked ChatGPT myself who the top twenty people in ELT and the top twenty people in English language and linguistics might be. Here’s a link – a new ChatGPT feature, I think, and certainly a useful one – to our conversation: https://chat.openai.com/share/26352f9d-291f-4322-928b-1f5eaf72a23d

Fittingly, the ubiquitous Scott Thornbury comes in at number 2 and at number 13 in the ELT list. Care to guess who came top? There’s only one in the ELT top twenty that I hadn’t heard of – I’ll not embarrass myself by saying who – and rather more I’d not heard of in the language and linguistics top twenty. Both lists were pretty good attempts, though, I thought.

3. And still with ChatGPT, here’s a recent piece from The Guardian, As AI cheating booms, so does the industry detecting it: ‘We couldn’t keep up with demand’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/05/as-ai-cheating-booms-so-does-the-industry-detecting-it-we-couldnt-keep-up-with-demand

4. I’ve just discovered Jotter, the Cambridge University Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational Research https://jotter.educ.cam.ac.uk/ Well worth a rummage around in their archives!

Try this one by Rachel Evans, “She can’t learn while playing in sand!”: Reception and year 2 pupils’ perspectives on the relationship between play and learning https://jotter.educ.cam.ac.uk/volume7/033-079-evansr/index.html

or this one by Catrin Osborne, Rule Britannia?: An insight into pupils’ perspectives on the fundamental British values https://jotter.educ.cam.ac.uk/volume14/027-054osbornec/index.html

PDFs of both below.

5. And, finally, an interview with Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, from the Canadian magazine, The Walrus https://thewalrus.ca/annie-ernaux/

Here’s a site dedicated to her work (written with Annie Ernaux, rather than by her) https://www.annie-ernaux.org/

1. Here’s an update on the current free IATEFL offer:

• A podcast on The Future of Teacher Development in ELT with Silvana Richardson https://tdsig.org/developod-tdsigs-podcast/
• A webinar, Entering the world of materials writing, at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday, 19^th July with Bethan Stokes https://www.iatefl.org/events/448
• And one for your diary, a little further ahead, at 15:00 UK time on Saturday, 5^th August, Reflective Practice Groups: A visionary journey of professional development with Burak Aydin https://www.iatefl.org/events/368

2. It’s World Youth Skills Day on Saturday, 15^th July. Here’s a sobering post on the World Bank Education for Global Development blog https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/youth-economic-disengagement-harsh-global-reality-remember-world-youth-skills-day

Seven out of every 10 youth globally are economically disengaged or under-engaged – ouch!

3. This UNESCO competition is ‘only’ for colleagues in the Asia-Pacific region, which, depending on how you define it, is at least half the world. Thanks to Amy Lightfoot for drawing this one to my attention. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-invites-schools-compete-asia-pacific-living-heritage-lesson-plan-contest-2023

$1,000 for each of the winning four lesson plans, and a free online course to increase your chances of winning here https://www.gcedonlinecampus.org/_HTML/closed_course_view.php?id=81

4. And, finally and shamefully (because I thought Milan Kundera had died some time ago) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/12/milan-kundera-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-author-dies-aged-94

Here’s John Banville’s account of re-reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being twenty years after its first publication https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/01/fiction.johnbanville

One day late as I got carried away with Hansjörg Schneider’s ‘The Basel Killings’ yesterday …

1. Something a little different to start with today: two articles from The Conversation by Gavin Harper of Birmingham University on rare metals and batteries, certain to have an impact on all our lives in the medium term

China’s gallium and germanium controls: what they mean and what could happen next  https://theconversation.com/chinas-gallium-and-germanium-controls-what-they-mean-and-what-could-happen-next-209156

Huge phosphate discovery in Norway could fully charge the electric vehicle industry https://theconversation.com/huge-phosphate-discovery-in-norway-could-fully-charge-the-electric-vehicle-industry-209189

I can’t be the only one who’d never heard of gallium and germanium, can I?

2. Teachers Talk Radio have just completed an interesting three-episode series on Languages beyond the classroom: The relevance of language learning in partnership with Pearson. Here’s the links – not especially easy to find! – to all three episodes:

#1 https://teacherstalkradio.podbean.com/e/the-relevance-of-language-learning-a-ttr-special-hosted-by-darren-lester-with-pearson-schools/

#2 https://teacherstalkradio.podbean.com/e/addressing-the-cultural-capital-chasm-in-language-learning-the-late-show-with-darren-lester-and-pearson-schools/

#3 https://teacherstalkradio.podbean.com/e/languages-beyond-the-classroom-the-relevance-of-language-learning-with-darren-lester-and-pearson-schools/

Depending on my mood, I find podcasts with less than completely professional production values either annoying or endearing!

3. A reminder from Al Jazeera of an almost entirely forgotten conflict – here in Europe, at least Fighting recedes, but peace in Yemen remains distant https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/7/7/analysis-peace-yemen-remains-distant

4. And, finally, a truly remarkable story, Jason Arday: he learned to talk at 11 and read at 18 – then became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/11/jason-arday-cambridge-university-youngest-black-professor I can’t help thinking that the Black Lives label somehow diminishes Jason’s extraordinary story, though.

1. I’m going to try to keep this simple. At 12:00 UK time this Saturday, 8^th July, British Council China are reporting on their recent research project, Online Teacher Research Mentoring for Professional Learning: Experiences of Chinese English Teachers.

Five Chinese teachers will share their research processes, findings and reflections on their journey, and Harry Kuchah will be talking about his experience of being a mentor. Should be good! More details here https://www.britishcouncil.cn/en/teach/JulyWebinar

However, the QR code and link on the page will take you to the registration page for colleagues in China; to register from outside China, you need to download the Voov Meeting app here https://voovmeeting.com/ and enter the meeting code 789925710 just before 12:00 on Saturday.

2. The first of two pieces on education inequality, this one about music education courtesy of Maja Mandekic, Hooked on classics? But if you want to learn to play, you’d better be posh https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/02/classical-music-cuts-fighting-for-its-life-preserve-of-rich

3. And a second, a predictable but effective ad hominem attack on Rishi Sunak from The Daily Mirror about donations he’s made to a number of schools recently, Tightwad Rishi Sunak gives £10 wine to local school after $3million US college donation https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-gives-10-wine-30367843

The Mirror article was linked to in this thoughtful piece on Labour’s developing education policy by Paul Waugh https://link.news.inews.co.uk/view/5f526c8538b2837cc74b00c0j1zgb.lrc/2737c9e6

4. Alexandra Mihai wants to know What’s your tribe? https://educationalist.substack.com/p/whats-your-tribe Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be an echo chamber, says Alexandra!

5. And, finally and musically, Tim Minchin performs ‘Playing Nancy’ from Groundhog Day and ‘When I Grow Up’ from Matilda, for the finale at this year’s West End LIVE last month https://youtu.be/8VmySmRyxTY

1. Thanks to Robin Skipsey for sending this one, prompted by the 110-year-old Cambridge exam questions the other day, 10 ‘grammar rules’ it’s OK to break (sometimes) by Steven Pinker https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/steven-pinker-10-grammar-rules-break

2. Native Speakerism – what is it and why does it matter? is the title of a trenchant piece that three British Council former colleagues, Ann Veitch, Ebru Weston & Huma Riaz, have just published on the British Council blog https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/native-speakerism-%E2%80%93-what-it-and-why-does-it-matter Plus, lest there be any doubt about whether or not native speakers make good teachers, a 2016 piece from the BBC archives, Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators

Is former colleagues the expression I want, I wonder, for people with whom I used to work but no longer do, now I’m retired? Neither ex-colleagues nor one-time colleagues sounds quite right, either.

3. One of the things I do in retirement is to serve as a trustee of IH London. You can now sign up to their Teacher Portal for a month free – no credit card details required. Click on the Monthly Individual Membership button on this page https://teacherportal.ihlondon.com/membership And if you’re quick, you can use your free month’s membership to sign up for a webinar with Neil Anderson at 16:30 UK time tomorrow, Wednesday 5^th July, on TBL (Task-Based Learning) for Teens https://teacherportal.ihlondon.com/events (and five other webinars in the course of July).

4. And, finally, I’m not sure what the French for schadenfreude is; I’m not even sure what the English for schadenfreude is! When I asked Google to translate schadenfreude into French, it claimed it was an English word, the word for which in French is – you guessed! Larousse, Langenscheidt and Pons all suggest joie maligne, which has a certain ring to it and also sounds – malign joy – pretty good when translated back into English. Not that it’s at all relevant to this piece by Ed West from The Spectator, The long defeat of the French language https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-long-defeat-of-the-french-language/

I once visited the Ministry of Education in Bucharest just after the new French ambassador’s introductory visit to the ministry, to find the whole place having a collective fit of giggles because they’d arranged English translation for his meeting with the minister …

1. Ever been to a conference and regretted not being able to go to two concurrent sessions at the same time? Here’s the recordings of all the sessions, concurrent or otherwise, at Trinity’s 8th Future of English Language Teaching Conference (FOELT) 2023 earlier this month. A truly global collection of speakers, covering most topics one could imagine! https://resources.trinitycollege.com/foelt/events/2023

2. How about an exploration of the principles of effective continuing professional development for teachers in low- and middle-income countries? What does the evidence tell us is most likely to be effective CPD for these teachers? Answer(s) here: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research/exploring-principles-effective-continuing PDF below.

3. Non-state or low-cost private education plays an increasingly important role around the world, no longer stigmatised as a purely profit-driven enterprise with no interest in student outcomes. Here’s a recent Global Schools Forum report on the topic, Regulating non-state education which looks at low-fee private schools, school networks, and schools operating within public-private partnerships in Colombia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Uganda https://www.globalschoolsforum.org/page/Regulating_non-state_education PDF below.

4. Thanks to Cecilia Nobre for the heads-up on this one. Two new publications in the Cambridge Elements series, free to download for the next two weeks: New Frontiers in Language and Technology by Christopher Joseph Jenks https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/new-frontiers-in-language-and-technology/67A70193E5EEEFDB809CF3F8ACF12F1E and Collocations, Corpora and Language Learning by Paweł Szudarski https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/collocations-corpora-and-language-learning/7876732E8021897423EDB4555C470CD8 PDFs of both below.

5. And, finally, here’s a NYT gift article for the weekend: Barbie, Her House and the American Dream https://tinyurl.com/2bbt6r89

1. EL Gazette were typically quick to pick up on this one from Cambridge Assessment, Can you answer a 110-year-old exam question? https://www.elgazette.com/can-you-answer-a-110-year-old-exam-question/ Cambridge have been kind enough to supply me with the answers, and here they are:

a. is a split infinitive, so would have been considered wrong. Most of us now think it’s fine, although it’s best to avoid it in very formal writing – the answer they were looking for is ‘seriously to improve’, but this sounds very old fashioned.

b. is a so-called hanging participle and is still considered wrong. The best way to say it would be ‘Shakespeare is by no means inferior to Aeschylus’, although this is also quite old fashioned; we would say ‘not at all’.

c. the tenses are wrong – it should be ‘to make peace’

d. We are not quite sure how they thought about this 110 years ago, but ‘would admit’ is probably what they were looking for.

e and f are correct.

I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the examiners at the time might have required more of an answer than ‘this sentence is correct’ for (e) and (f), as the question rubric asks the candidate to ‘correct or justify four of the following sentences, giving your reasons’, which rather implies that they felt that (e) and (f) would need justifying, doesn’t it? Here’s the original Cambridge piece, with a little more background https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/news/view/110-years-of-cambridge-english-exams/

2. A splendid collection from The Conversation, Windrush 75, rounding off a month of commemoration of the arrival at Tilbury Docks in London of HMT Empire Windrush seventy-five years ago  https://theconversation.com/download-our-latest-e-book-75-years-of-windrush-208217 PDF below, just in case that’s easier.

HMT = His Majesty’s Troopship, and here’s a potted history of the ship, which I’d no idea had been captured from Germany during World War 2 http://www.kingsownmuseum.com/galleryship021.htm

3. Stephen Downes of OLDaily recommends this nine-instalment series by Leon Furze on ‘the many complex ethical concerns well worth discussing with our students’ that artificial intelligence presents https://leonfurze.com/ai-ethics/

4. Hope this works: here’s a ‘saved search’ of all the online events at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, for which the Festival ask that you pay whatever you’re able to pay: https://tinyurl.com/hvnw385w Don’t pay if you can’t afford to; do pay, if you can!

5. And, finally, for one week only, the short story Careful by Raymond Carver, courtesy of The Paris Review https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/3062/careful-raymond-carver

1. Stephen Downes just had a half-hour conversation with an AI (Artificial Intelligence) interlocutor-bot about the ethics of AI https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2023/06/my-conversation-with-pi-ai-on-ethics-of.html

Why didn’t I think of that idea first?

2. A message from Sergio Monteiro, the President of BRAZ-TESOL: “Saudações do Brasil. This year we are holding our 19th BRAZ-TESOL International Conference. The conference will take place from July 13 to 15 and it will be totally online. We are certain it’s going to be a breakthrough event as we are doing it on Metaverse. So, participants will not only have the opportunity to learn, share experiences, and network, but will also have the opportunity to explore this new tool. It will be a three-day event with seven plenaries, more than ten keynote speakers, and more than 130 concurrent talks and workshops. For further info, please check out https://braztesol.org.br/internationalconference/

BRAZ-TESOL have very kindly offered to make twenty places available free of charge to people who would otherwise be unable to afford to attend. Please send me a private reply to this message with your name and e-mail address if you’d like one of the free places. First come, first served!

3. With all the usual caveats about what exactly the criteria underpinning this selection of ‘the world’s most liveable cities’ are and should be, here’s this year’s list from the Economist Intelligence Unit https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/06/21/the-worlds-most-liveable-cities-in-2023 Hover your mouse over the dots to reveal the city names.

4. And, finally, A Second of Stillness from Assam https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-06/a-second-of-stillness-jintu-gitarth-harsita-hiya/