Roy Cross's Blog

1. It’s International Women’s Day tomorrow, and one stop english have a lesson on the subject to download here, with versions at intermediate and advanced https://www.onestopenglish.com/international-womens-day/558174.article PDFs below.

There’s a fair bit of free stuff at one stop english if you rummage around on their website, this for example, ‘Eight hours’ sleep! And you must eat breakfast!’ The truth behind 10 of the biggest health beliefs with elementary, intermediate and advanced student worksheets and teacher’s notes to download here https://www.onestopenglish.com/general-english/eight-hours-sleep-and-you-must-eat-breakfast-the-truth-behind-10-of-the-biggest-health-beliefs/1000681.article PDFs also below.

2. British Council are also marking International Women’s Day tomorrow, with a mini-conference starting at 13:00 UK time comprising three separate one-hour webinars, each focusing on a different element of gender and equity in English language teaching:

a) the THEMIS project (Evaluating gender equity and equality in the English language teacher curriculum, ICT policies and learning materials in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa);

b) CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) in ELT;

c) Gender-ing ELT: What can we do in our everyday classes?

More info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/international-womens-day-mini-event

3. The IATEFL English for Speakers of Other Languages Special Interest Group (ESOLSIG) is offering a free webinar at 19:00 UK time this Thursday, 9^th March with Carol Goodey, Making connections and facilitating learning between ESOL and wider communities More info and registration here https://www.iatefl.org/events/426

“This webinar will consider the value of collaborative work that brings people together to learn with, from and about each other. There will be a focus on practice, sharing a local community project developed in collaboration with non-ESOL colleagues. This will include the activities used to facilitate connections between people from different backgrounds with little shared language and reflection on what was learned.”

4. And, finally, if you like reading spy fiction you’ll enjoy this true life ‘gift article’ from The New York Times, The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets https://tinyurl.com/3dmk5tke

Well, maybe that ‘true’ belongs in inverted commas unless you work for the FBI!

1. A bit of light reading for the weekend – not. Tony Blair and William Hague have co-endorsed (rather than co-authored, I think) a new report from Blair’s Institute for Global Change, A New National Purpose: Innovation Can Power the Future of Britain https://institute.global/policy/new-national-purpose-innovation-can-power-future-britain PDF of both the whole report and the three-page executive summary below. Give the summary a chance!

2. Another good one on ChatGPT that I’ve ‘borrowed’ from Stephen Downes’s OLDaily, The Problem is Not the AI by Steve Krause http://stevendkrause.com/2023/02/25/the-problem-is-not-the-ai/

3. Simon Borg doesn’t post on his blog so very often, but it’s always worth a read. Here’s his latest, on initial (or pre-service, as we used to call it) teacher education https://simon-borg.co.uk/initial-teacher-education-in-elt/

4. A bit of a niche one, this, for the lexicographers amongst you: The A.S. Hornby Educational Trust is pleased to invite applications for the A.S. Hornby Dictionary Research Awards (ASHDRA) for 2023. Full details in the PDF below; closing date 14^th April.

5. And, finally and powerfully, a poem by Elizabeth Bishop that I’d not come across before, In the Waiting Room https://poets.org/poem/waiting-room PDF below as well, just in case.

1. I first mentioned Michael Barber’s podcast, Accomplishment, back in June. He’s just begun a new series and his first guest is Malala Yousafzai. On Apple here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-accomplishment-podcast-with-sir-michael-barber/id1605826027 or Spotify here https://tinyurl.com/56t2eum6

2. I’m not sure that the link for last week’s 21st Century English Teacher Express event with Peartree Languages and English Academy worked for everyone, so here goes for a second time: tomorrow, Wednesday 1^st March, at 07:00 UK time it’s a double-header: Developing Critical Thinking Skills & Developing Reflective Practice. Register here for the Zoom link https://britishcouncil.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E9viin0yQ1qpKsBrCtwDqQ

3. Everything you wanted to know about AI – but were afraid to ask from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-to-deepfakes

4. Two ‘gift articles’ from The New York Times:

Read Your Way Through Tokyo with Hiromi Kawakami https://tinyurl.com/yfkyney4

A Doodle Reveals da Vinci’s Early Deconstruction of Gravity https://tinyurl.com/s6drc7pb

5. And, finally and ‘unlocked’ for this week only, three short stories from The Paris Review, to celebrate their winning the 2023 American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) Award for Fiction, each comfortably finished with enjoyment on the bus or train home from work:

‘Trail Run’ by Zach Williams https://theparisreview.org/fiction/7873/trial-run-zach-williams

‘Winter Term’ by Michelle de Kretser https://theparisreview.org/fiction/7912/winter-term-michelle-de-kretser

‘A Good Samaritan’ by Addie E. Citchens https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7954/a-good-samaritan-addie-e-citchens

Also nominated for an ASME award, I noticed, while investigating what the acronym ASME stands for, is an Economist podcast, The Prince, on the life of Xi Jinping https://www.economist.com/theprincepod

1. There’s a lot – a huge amount – on this Pearson page, Evidence about learning: discovering what works, how, and why https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/efficacy/learning-evidence.html#oldp One for the weekend over a cup of coffee, I suggest.

Maybe start with the Evidence about how to design learning experiences section at the bottom of the page, from which I’ve selected two PDFS at random, of which you’ll find copies below:

1. Attention and Cognitive Load https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/global-store/global/resources/efficacy/evidence-about-learning/Pearson-Learning-Design-Principles-Attention-and-Cognitive-Load-summary.pdf

2. Motivation and Mindset https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/global-store/global/resources/efficacy/evidence-about-learning/Pearson-Learning-Design-Principles-Motivation-and-Mindset-summary.pdf

Click on the down arrow ˅ alongside each heading to reveal the goodies within.

2. Here’s Ben Goldstein’s latest blog post for DLA (Digital Learning Associates) on Multilingualism in language learning https://digitallearningassociates.com/whats-new/2023/2/10/multilingualism-in-language-learning

His article has some good short video examples from DLA’s Ready to Run series, many of which are available free on the NILE members resource area (yes, I declare an interest!): here’s Thom Kiddle’s introductory YouTube video https://youtu.be/r4iKtLL3MwM

3. Poignant stuff from the documentary film team at The Guardian, Ghosts of Moria: living in the ashes of Europe’s largest migrant camp https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2023/jan/30/ghosts-of-moria-living-in-the-ashes-of-europes-largest-migrant-camp-documentary

4. A feature of Literary Hub that I especially like is their ‘Book Marks’ section: here’s the harvest for the latest book by Salman Rushdie, ‘Victory City’ https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/all/victory-city/

and there’s lots more recent books reviewed here https://lithub.com/ Scroll down the page a bit.

5. And, finally, by popular request, another Flanders and Swann song, The Gnu Song https://youtu.be/JwJ4iKv0H70

1. It’s International Mother Language Day today. UNESCO’s statement on ‘mother language based education’ begins as follows: “While mother-tongue-based education is essential to the full development of individuals and to the transmission of linguistic heritage, 40% of the world’s students do not have access to education in  the language they speak or understand  best.”

Here’s the full (short) text https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000384469_eng

here’s more background https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/international-mother-language-day-unesco-calls-countries-implement-mother-language-based-education

and here’s a detailed report, Born to Learn, on exactly why it’s never a good idea to inflict English medium education on young people who haven’t yet mastered their first/mother language https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000383289 PDF below as well – quite a big file.

2. Short notice of two events: firstly, the next event in Trinity’s ‘Transformative Teachers’ webinar series at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, 22^nd February, Using songs to build awareness of global citizenship issues with Chris Walklett More info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/using-songs-to-build-awareness-of-global-citizenship-issues-tickets-526340357177

Details of other events – past and future – in the series here https://resources.trinitycollege.com/ttw

and while you’re in the Trinity website, consider submitting a proposal for this year’s 8^th Future of English conference this coming June – the deadline’s 31^st March https://resources.trinitycollege.com/foelt/events/2023

You’ll find recordings of all the very wide range of talks at last year’s 7^th Future of English conference on that same page.

3. Secondly, the second event in the 21st Century English Teacher Express series with Peartree Languages and English Academy is this Thursday, 23^rd February at 07:00 UK time. It’s a double-header: Planning Lessons & Courses and Understanding Learners. It will be streamed live on the British Council Teaching English Asia Facebook page: more info here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=575766161253568&set=pb.100064605672813.-2207520000.&type=3

4. Catch up with the winners of the Greenpeace Poems for the Planet competition here https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/resources/poems-planet-winners-resources/ and scroll down to download posters and teaching notes for Benjamin Zephaniah and Nicola Davis poems. PDFs below as well.

5. And, finally and controversially – and (nonetheless)(therefore) potentially the basis of an excellent lesson for advanced students, I reckon – the veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh has just published an article in which he claims that it was the USA, not Russia, that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream.

Hersh has an impressive track record – for example, he exposed the My Lai massacres in Vietnam and the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq – but not everyone agrees with him, including UnHerd, who’ve published two pieces rebutting his Nord Stream claim in detail (which you’ll be able to access if you’ve not already read eight articles this month, as I have):

i) https://unherd.com/thepost/who-really-blew-up-the-nord-stream-2-pipeline/

ii) https://unherd.com/thepost/osint-picks-holes-in-seymour-hershs-nord-stream-claims/

All I can say is that not everyone agreed with him on My Lai or Abu Ghraib either …

1. Two online events next week. Here’s the first, from OUP (Oxford University Press) at 13:00 UK time on Thursday 23^rd February: Harmonize: Breaking down barriers to project-based learning. Three (ever-so-slightly-unintentionally aggressive?) questions from the blurb: “Do you like the idea of project-based learning (PBL)? How often do you do it? And what stops you from including more of it in your classroom teaching?”

It’s primarily the launch of the new OUP series, Harmonize (sic), but I’d also expect it to be of value to people who’re not in a position to buy the book. More info and registration here https://events.oup.com/oxford-university-press/Harmonize-Breaking-down-barriers-to-project-based-learning

What would these distinguished gentlemen say about that ‘z’, I wonder? https://public.oed.com/history/chief-editors/

Perhaps it just reflects the relative size of the American English and British English markets?

2. The second is the following day, Friday, 24^th February at 10:30 UK time, A tool does not replace the craft, from the Academic Writing Centre at UCL (University College London) https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2023/feb/tool-does-not-replace-craft

“This talk will trace the impact of online translation on international education and modern language teaching, particularly the evolution of this technology. Today, the use of online translation is raising fundamental questions about the teaching and assessment of writing in higher education. This talk will further explore ideas of ownership, authorship and academic integrity. It will also look at parallels and contrasts between EAP and generative AI, most notably Chat GPT.”

3. The British Council are holding a major one-day event, The Future of English: the why and the how on Friday, 3^rd March, starting at 09:00 UK time, “bring(ing) together researchers from four international UK-led projects which were awarded Future of English Research Grants to exchange ideas, share findings and, for the first time, showcase the projects to a wider audience. In this event, the focus will be on exploring why and how the future of the world’s most spoken language should be investigated”.

Both online and in-person attendance is possible. More details, including full programme, and registration here https://www.britishcouncil.org/english-assessment/research/future-english-research-forum

I wouldn’t expect this event to be overly linguisticky – and the ‘visual minutes’ are almost being taken by Frank O’Hara, the ‘New York School’ poet …

4. A story about British principles and pragmatism from the 1930s that I’m not sure would have the same outcome today, Deporting Ho Chi Minh https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/deporting-ho-chi-minh. Compare and contrast Julian Assange’s case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange.

5. And, finally, some (weekend?) listening about “the challenges of translating foreign language books into the English language” from Elena Ferrante’s translator in the BBC’s In the Studio series: Ann Goldstein: The art of the translator https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cszvc4

Lots of other good stuff from the series here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04vfd0x

1. Tolu Noah recommends a five-step process for composing micro-lectures to her colleagues at California State University, Long Beach (which sounds like it might be a pleasant place to work!): Plan, Create, Record, Caption, and Share.

Here’s her article on that process from Faculty Focus (with some good further reading at the end) https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-course-delivery-and-instruction/microlectures-101-what-why-how/

and here’s a page from her website with a number of useful downloadable resources for iPad (and other tablet?) users, all of which have a QR code link to additional material https://www.tolunoah.com/resources-3

2. Should we be disappointed that Scott Thornbury can only find nine answers to his own question, What’s wrong with the grammar syllabus? Maybe not! https://youtu.be/V6H6QkjXmiE

3. Blimey! Can this really be true? “A third of 15-year-olds have been persistently absent from classrooms in England during the current school year”? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/10/third-of-15-year-olds-persistently-absent-school-england

4. Today’s Word of the Day from the Oxford English Dictionary is angrezi https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/248713

Not sure how long it’s available – maybe just today, so be quick if you want to confirm what you think it means!

5. Here’s Susie Dent’s lexicological take on Valentine’s Day, The old terms of endearment you could revive for Valentine’s Day, from ‘saucy prawn’ to ‘cabbage’ https://inews.co.uk/opinion/susie-dent-valentines-day-old-terms-endearment-2145268

Which reminds me, brain-process-curiously, of the time in the third form that we convinced our French exchange students that ‘greasy motorbike’ was the worst insult in the English language.

6. Et, finalement, un jeu d’esprit de Melanie Butler https://www.elgazette.com/ap-takes-french-leave-of-its-senses/

1. This LanguageCert webinar is quite an early start for UK attendees (only fair for a change!), 07:30 UK time on Wednesday, 15^th February: Cultivating a Culture of Care in Language Education with Jane Arnold and Kieran Donaghy. More info and registration here https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PTC6fksQQNer6sTDQZe6zw

2. Ample notice of the 2nd Decentring ELT conference: Exploring New Opportunities which will take place on Friday 10^th and Saturday 11^th March from 13:00 to 16:00 UK time each day. More info here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2nd-decentring-elt-conference-exploring-new-opportunities-tickets-523865875937 Home-made PDF below. Scroll down this page for the (sensibly short) proceedings of the first Decentring conference in December 2021 https://www.hornby-trust.org.uk/decentring-elt and you’ll find recordings of all the sessions at that conference here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhQnWbX4q7NnGqUIpV7FH8NlmD00-wadj

3. Here’s a piece about light and darkness for The Guardian by the Ukrainian novelist, Andrey Kurkov https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/04/ukrainians-2023-putin-russia “The war is a battle with Putin’s Russia, and a life plagued by darkness”, he says. If you get chance to read Kurkov’s first novel, Death and the Penguin, do take it! https://en.wikipedia.:org/wiki/Death_and_the_Penguin

4. This piece from The Conversation has occasioned a certain  amount of discussion in our family: https://theconversation.com/men-often-dont-see-mess-like-women-do-changing-that-could-make-housework-more-equal-197373

5. And, finally, I found this lurking on my Google search page on 6^th February, Bob Marley Day in Marley’s home country, Jamaica https://artsandculture.google.com/project/bob-marley

1. Here’s exactly one week’s notice of the start on 14^th February of a new course on English in the multilingual classroom https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/training/english-multilingual-classroom

“This course will introduce you to multilingualism and what it means. You’ll 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.” Sounds good to me!

2. In a similar vein, Nayr Ibrahim was self-confessedly thrilled late last week to share the news of the foundation of ELLRA, the Early Language Learning Research Association, which “will seek to federate and further research into Early Language Learning (ELL): the acquisition of two or more languages by young learners (2-12 years), and the teaching of additional languages to these younger age groups.”

If you’re interested in finding out more, join the ELLRA Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/524159253154802

By the way, I think the Macmillan Dictionary definition of ‘in a similar vein’ is excellent https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/in-a-similar-vein. I only wish that Leeds had been more exemplary of the phrase this season!

3. Here’s the first of two gift articles today from The New York Times, a piece by their Editorial Board about the pros and cons of making many professions ‘graduate only’ with which it’s very hard to disagree, See Workers as Workers, Not as a College Credential https://tinyurl.com/yckkhcmb

That one was courtesy of Stephen Downes’s OL(Online)Daily, which often has good stuff, including this recent post with stacks of ChatGPT links https://www.downes.ca/post/74832 – you can subscribe here https://www.downes.ca/index.html

4. Continuing with the theme of ChatGPT, Did a Fourth Grader Write This? Or the New Chatbot? is today’s second NYT article, where you get to judge for yourself whether it was the bot or the student who was the author of three pieces of writing https://tinyurl.com/bdcsd3pp

5. And, finally and elegiacally, ‘Once Elephants Lived Here’ by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell, the story of “a young office worker in a teeming metropolis (becoming) intrigued with a chimerical elderly woman”:

Part 1 https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-01/once-elephants-lived-here-part-one-geetanjali-shree-daisy-rockwell/

and Part 2 https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-02/once-elephants-lived-here-part-two/

1. Three pieces from The Conversation that have caught my eye recently:

Seychelles is becoming overwhelmed by marine plastic – we now know where it comes from https://theconversation.com/seychelles-is-becoming-overwhelmed-by-marine-plastic-we-now-know-where-it-comes-from-198350

This one includes a frightening video showing marine debris flows in the Indian Ocean https://youtu.be/ma0wlFfA6dI

Sugary drinks tax may be reducing obesity in girls but not boys – an expert explains what we know https://theconversation.com/sugary-drinks-tax-may-be-reducing-obesity-in-girls-but-not-boys-an-expert-explains-what-we-know-198743

We drank gallons of ‘fizzy pop’ as children, my own two favourites being dandelion and burdock and limeade – I wonder if the former had ever seen a dandelion or a burdock, or the latter a lime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelion_and_burdock

Myanmar: two years after the military seized power the country is mired in a bloody civil war – but there are grounds for optimism https://theconversation.com/myanmar-two-years-after-the-military-seized-power-the-country-is-mired-in-a-bloody-civil-war-but-there-are-grounds-for-optimism-198254

I’m ashamed to say I’d forgotten about the conflict in Myanmar until I bought a suit recently, which I found to my surprise had been made in Myanmar – sanctions notwithstanding, it would seem.

2. More from UnHerd, who I mentioned on Tuesday: this is the sad tale of the decline of Boston in Lincolnshire here in the UK https://unherd.com/2023/01/how-brexitland-lost-control/ And if you’ve time, skim the almost unanimously critical (of the piece) comments.

3. Something I’m never quite sure I really understand is what exactly it is that The Economist’s Big Mac Index tells us about economies around the world. “The British pound is 12.9% undervalued against the US dollar” – what should I do with this information, I wonder? Here’s this year’s https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index

4. A New York Times ‘gift article’, a great photo-gallery, Gandhi’s Life in Photos, 75 Years After His Assassination https://tinyurl.com/4rentbab

5. And, finally and profoundly, How Deep The Ocean Really Is from InsiderTech https://youtu.be/UwVNkfCov1k