Roy Cross's Blog

I’m taking a little time off to be with my parents up in Yorkshire, so this will be the last ‘Free Resources’ message till next Wednesday, 2^nd March.

1. If I’ve ever had a guru, that guru was Mario Rinvolucri. Here he is back in 2009 talking much more sense about burn-out and looking out for each other – ‘mutual supervision’ Mario calls it – than many people who’ve recently jumped on the pandemic burn-out wagon https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/mutual-supervision-mario-rinvolucri

2. ESOL Nexus was a highly successful British Council project funded by the European Integration Fund that has now found a smart new home on the Education and Training Foundation’s website https://esol.excellencegateway.org.uk/ There’s still a fair bit of video material on YouTube that has stood the test of time very well and might work with learners in other contexts https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBha5xeBsF0PTBzcx6VrUew

3. Encouraging and depressing in equal measure, this story from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) about one young Ethiopian’s return to school https://ecw.exposure.co/rohos-story

4. I’ve checked with the ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) and they would welcome non-European participation in their next webinar, Action Research Communities for Language Teachers, at 16:30 UK time on Wednesday 8^th March https://www.ecml.at/Resources/Webinars/tabid/5456/language/en-GB/Default.aspx Possibly an area where teachers of English have quite a lot of experience and learning to share? NB: you need to register.

5. We’ve had our own challenges here in the UK with the online tutoring provision that the UK Department of Education put in place in response to the loss of learning resulting from the pandemic, and the company who won the (very large) contract, Randstad, are now very likely to have it taken away as take-up and value for money have both been low https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/dec/07/randstad-england-pupil-catch-up-tuition-scheme-targets Here’s a piece from The Hechinger Report about online tutoring in the USA which raises a number of issues https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-uncertain-evidence-for-online-tutoring/

6. And, finally, from the continually interesting Atlas Obscura site, ‘The Curious Case of Colonial India’s Breakfast Curries’ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/curry-in-colonial-india

I’m still not quite sure whether dedicating Tuesdays to Climate each week and Thursdays to Multilingual works – any views out there?

1. As recommended by Hala Ahmed in her BBELT talk on Climate Action in Language Education last week, the Earth Day site  https://www.earthday.org/

Try their personal plastic footprint calculator https://www.earthday.org/plastic-pollution-calculator-2/ I’ve not dared calculate my own plastic footprint yet – it will be horrendous.

2. Something a bit different, a report from the Medinge Group thinktank from Trondheim in Norway: ‘Brands with a Conscience – A research study into how business can do the right thing and be profitable’ https://medinge.org/brands-with-a-conscience-a-research-study-into-how-business-can-do-the-right-thing-and-be-profitable/ PDF below.

Here’s the ‘who we are’ section on the Medinge website https://medinge.org/who-we-are/

3. A recent LRB (London Review of Books) podcast, The Climate Colossus, was dedicated to a discussion of the influence of the work of the 2018 Nobel Prize winner for Economics, William Nordhaus https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/the-climate-colossus

There’s also a review in the recent issue of Nordhaus’s recent book, The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n03/geoff-mann/check-your-spillover

I fear that may be behind a paywall, but you can usually get a number of LRB free articles each month. I’m resisting the temptation to add a PDF below…

4. Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ last week was ‘Treeline’ by Ben Rawlence. Five fifteen-minute episodes, one each on Scotland, Norway, Siberia, Canada and Greenland https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014g14

“The trees are on the move, and they shouldn’t be. Ben Rawlence discovers what the moving treeline can tell us about the past, present and future of our planet.”

Episode 2 is about the Sami people’s experience with climate change, which was also described in the DDRN piece last Climate Tuesday.

5. Free till this Friday only, a Finborough Theatre piece, An Earl’s Court Miscellany https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/finboroughfrontier-an-earls-court-miscellany/  https://youtu.be/rBI4Nb-jYFU Dip in and out – you may not want to watch straight through.

Here’s a bit more on the tiny Finborough https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/about-us/

6. And, finally, prompted by my usual experience on a Monday when watching the University Challenge quiz show, recognising a tune immediately and not having a clue who wrote it or what it is called https://youtu.be/-7jjo8UICjQ

And it wasn’t much better forty-five years ago – photo below.

1. Something serious to start with today: ‘Caught between COVID-19, Coup and Conflict—What Future for Myanmar Higher Education Reforms?’ by Khaing Phyu Htut, Marie Lall and Camille Kandiko Howson https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/12/2/67 Serious, yes,  but also readable, important and brave. PDF below.

2. ‘Decolonising Co-Design in International Teacher Education’ is easier said than done, say Kris Stutchbury and Clare Woodward from the UK Open University in this UKFIET blog post https://www.ukfiet.org/2021/decolonising-co-design-in-international-teacher-education/ The world is full of good intentions subverted (typically) by the power imbalance between educator and educated. Explore the rest of the UKFIET blog while you’re there!

3. This free course starts today on Coursera: Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task Based Approach https://www.coursera.org/learn/esl-reading Myrrh Domingo, Andrea Révész and Amos Paran are the tutors. 23 hours long, work at your own pace. Home-made PDF of course description below. 34,006 people had enrolled when last I looked but Amos assures me they can cope with many more!

4. Here’s the February edition of Humanising Language Teaching (HLT) from Pilgrims https://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb22/ No geographical focus this time -a wonderfully global issue!

5. And, finally and a bit depressingly, here’s a story of online entrapment from The Markup https://themarkup.org/machine-learning/2022/02/15/a-network-of-fake-test-answer-sites-is-trying-to-incriminate-students

“The face-to-face comparison”, says one of the people interviewed for the article, “is a teacher walking around with the answer key and putting it on the corner of each desk and then penalizing students if they look over at it”.

I never really know whether to mention events good and early (and run the risk of people forgetting all about them before they happen) or closer to the time, by which time diaries may already be full. Anyway, here goes with no fewer than three events next Thursday, 24th February.

1. At 14:00 UK time that day, Simon Borg will be giving a talk for Aqueduto, the Association for Quality Education and Training Online https://aqueduto.com/about-aqueduto/, on COVID-19 and the Shift to Online Teacher Education. Register here https://bit.ly/34y6YaQ PDF of Simon’s abstract below.

2. The second event next Thursday, 24th February, at 19:30 UK time, is an interview with Abdulrazak Gurnah, who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”, talking about ‘After the Nobel Prize for Literature’. On YouTube, so no need to register https://youtu.be/tN7IfgNIe0g

I could imagine his life has changed quite a lot in the last three months! And just in case you’re interested, here’s a list of all the Literature winners since 1901 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes-in-literature/

3. The third one sounds intriguing – A Narrative context lesson: The Class is the Story. Earlier in the day, at 11:00 UK time on 24th February; more info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/a-narrative-context-lesson-class-story

4. ‘Belonging inclusion and mental health are all connected’ is the title of this WONKHE blog post, which reports on recent research by WONKHE and Pearson with over 5,000 university students https://wonkhe.com/blogs/belonging-inclusion-and-mental-health-are-all-connected/ “It’s been known for at least a decade that feeling a “sense of belonging” while at university can make or break students’ overall experience” – it’s the ‘key variable’. PDF of report below.

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5. Here’s a good short clear (adjective order OK?) piece on the current Ukraine crisis from Robin Niblett of Chatham House: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/02/russias-end-games-and-putins-dilemmas

6. And, finally, a high-flying wheelie bin from earlier today somewhere in London https://twitter.com/putasinghonit/status/1494349347470954503?s=20&t=KfbJf5iUiXhUqUI2cLXq6A

In Cambridge thus far – thus far – we’ve got off very lightly!

1. More or less this time next week, at 19:00 UK time on Thursday, 24^th February, the National Centre for Writing here in the UK are hosting ‘Meet the World: Translation as Witness’. More info and registration here  https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/whats-on/meet-the-world-translation-as-witness/ NB: you need to register in advance.

2. Available any time you like, this piece in The New York Times about Jennifer Croft, who recently declared “I’m not translating any more books without my name on the cover” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/books/literary-translation-translators-jennifer-croft.html

3. Another free piece from the current issue of International Affairs, this one by Amitav Acharya, ‘Race and racism in the founding of the modern world order’ https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/98/1/23/6484842

Acharya calls for racism to be viewed “as an inter-linked global challenge, (…) integral to the emerging research agenda of Global International Relations.” PDF below.

4. I mentioned Scott Thornbury last week, and now he’s re-vamped his website http://www.scottthornbury.com/ Not entirely sure I can claim cause and effect.

5. And, finally, Kate Folk reads her own story, ‘Out There’, for The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/kate-folk-reads-out-there

Text of ‘Out There’ here, all being well with the paywall https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/out-there

1. The Wonder Foundation’s mission is to empower women and girls to get the education they need to exit poverty for good https://wonderfoundation.org.uk/

They’ve recently produced a report on women’s exclusion from online learning and the gender digital divide more generally https://wonderfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Women-Disconnected-Report.pdf PDF below and thanks to Ellen Darling for this tip!

We’ve all heard stories, I’m sure, of how school-age daughters are right at the end of the queue for use of the family mobile, behind father, mother and brother(s).

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2. With each year that passes, the ELTons Innovation Awards become more international, and nominations are now open until 17th March for the 2022 awards. More info here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/eltons-innovation-awards-2022-applications

Excellence in Course Innovation, Innovation in Teacher Resources, Innovation in Learner Resources, Digital Innovation and Local Innovation are the five categories – the judges may not thank me, but the more applications they receive, the better!

Fair to say that most innovation nowadays is to some extent digital, which might render the digital innovation category ever-so-slightly problematic?

3. This Saturday, 19^th February is the 2022 Qudwa-PISA Global Competence Forum, a partnership between the OECD and the Bussola Foundation. More info on speakers and programme here https://www.qudwa.com/ and registration here https://registration.qudwa.com/StandAloneRegistration/Registration

The Arabic word ‘qudwa’ means ‘example’ or ‘model’ in English (I think).

 4. If, like me, you’re not quite 100% sure what is meant by ‘competence’, here’s a useful piece from Cambridge on the topic, What is Competence? https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/insights/What-is-competence-A-shared-interpretation-of-competence-to-support-teaching-learning-and-assessment PDF of report below.

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5. And, finally, how about some humility? Here’s a piece from Psychology Today, Are You Intellectually Humble? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-questionologist/202103/are-you-intellectually-humble How does that reconcile with this week’s phobia, the barely pronounceable kakorrhaphiophobia, I wonder?

1. Another piece from the Danish Development Research Network (DDRN): “Sami-youth in Finland: ‘Our culture is threatened by climate change – and we are not even part of the conversation about it’”, in which a young member of the Sami Parliament in Finland, a reindeer-herder by tradition and profession, talks about the impact of climate change on her people. https://ddrn.dk/7147/

 2. The EU (…) is moving to label nuclear energy sustainable if it meets certain criteria, says this World Economic Forum (WEF) piece, which also makes mention of a recent report which found that the nuclear sector helped avert the emission of 74 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 1971 and 2018 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/nuclear-energy-fuel-supply-crunch/

3. This one from NESTA is for anyone that uses gas to heat their home or their water,  https://www.nesta.org.uk/project-updates/how-much-your-gas-boiler-costing-earth/ I tried their calculator and our gas heating produces approximately 2,927 kg of CO² per year – the equivalent of nine transatlantic flights or 18 trips from Land’s End to John O’Groats – 24,300 kms – by car. Which maybe isn’t a complete disaster?

4. An honest piece in The Scottish Review by Anthony Seaton from Aberdeen University, ‘Preparing for Climate Change’ https://www.scottishreview.net/AnthonySeaton604a.html “I’m not sure that my profession has done a very good job of explaining the implications of climate change,” says Professor Seaton.

5. Here’s more lesson plans than you can shake a stick at from the Climate Action in Language Education team https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/climate-action-language-education-lesson-plans

 6. And, finally, ‘The epitome of joy’, a Guardian celebration of the life and songs of Lata Mangeshkar https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/08/the-epitome-of-joy-10-of-lata-mangeshkars-greatest-songs

1. The University of Bristol is offering a number of PhD scholarships in fields including Education https://www.bristol.ac.uk/fssl/courses/postgraduate/scholarships/ Closing date 28^th March – nothing ventured, nothing gained?

2. Here’s a speaking lesson plan from onestopenglish on Film and TV: Romance movies  with downloadable pupil worksheet and teacher’s notes https://www.onestopenglish.com/speaking-lesson-plans/film-and-tv-romance-movies/556095.article PDFs below. Scroll down the page for lots more film and television lesson ideas and materials.

3. The OECD use the attainment gap within a country’s education system between weaker and stronger pupils as a useful indicator of the quality and equity of that system, and eligibility for ‘free school meals’ has long been used in the UK as both a reliable indicator of disadvantage and a useful way of tracking progress made (or not made) by disadvantaged pupils relative to their non-disadvantaged peers. This press release from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) about a new report, Investigating the changing landscape of pupil disadvantage by Jenna Julius and Anusha Ghosh, explains how that’s all about to become more difficult https://www.nfer.ac.uk/news-events/press-releases/changes-to-fsm-eligibility-will-make-tracking-progress-of-disadvantage-pupils-almost-impossible/ Report download here https://www.nfer.ac.uk/investigating-the-changing-landscape-of-pupil-disadvantage/ and PDF below.

4. And, finally, a free piece from the next issue of the London Review of Books to encourage those of you that don’t subscribe to do so, Out of Sir Vidia’s Shadow by Paul Theroux https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/paul-theroux/diary Cross fingers crossed this works; PDF below in case it doesn’t.

Another late return to Cambridge from Yorkshire today …

1. The impact of informal second language learning, motivation and formal instruction on EFL learners’ spoken use of discourse markers is the title of Christina Lyrigkou’s talk next Wednesday, 16^th February for the University of Reading Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism Research at 16:00 UK time.

Registration here https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=xDv6T_zswEiQgPXkP_kOXwztINXnyqFGmnzjsWjaQMFURU5FQ1Y4WkczOE0zUkdJQ0xZSFlFWlpWRS4u and home-made PDF below.

I have to admit that over-use of discourse markers such as well, so, you know, I mean, is a bit of a red rag to the Cross bull, whether or not it’s “considered an integral part of spoken discourse”!

2. Are teachers workers? Simple question, simple answer? The Teachers as Workers SIG certainly thinks so https://www.teachersasworkers.org/ Here’s a piece from their blog from a while back in which Phil Longwell talks openly about mental health https://www.teachersasworkers.org/time-to-talk-about-mental-health-interview-with-phil-longwell/

3. Nedim Türfent has been imprisoned in Turkey for six years. Here’s his reply to a letter he received from Ai WeiWei on the English PEN blog https://pentransmissions.com/2022/02/08/something-shadowless-like-you-nedim-turfent-writes-back-to-ai-weiwei-from-prison/

4.And, finally, a video from the Bradford Literature Festival: ‘Squib’ by Anthony Anaxagorou and the One6th Animation Studio https://youtu.be/eScWbcCksKg

1. Perhaps more for information than for action for most of us, the European Commission’s Safeguarding endangered languages in Europe initiative: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl2-2022-heritage-01-01 Click on the ‘show more’ buttons.

2. Why do we always have to tell people where we come from? is the title of the most recent post on the Danish Development Research Network (DDRN) blog https://ddrn.dk/

3. The Universitas Negeri Jakarta’s Zoominar programme for Semester 2 starts at 09:00 UK time next Thursday, 17^th February with Subhan Zein from the Australian National University talking about Examining Indonesia’s sociolinguistic situation: From diglossia to superglossia Zoom link to follow as soon as I have it, and home-made Cross PDF of the whole programme below.

4. Community Languages and EAL Can Benefit Each Other is the title of a recent Bell Foundation webinar by Li Wei from UCL Institute of Education https://youtu.be/q3iY-ogrKEk

Lots of other videos to explore on the Bell YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4Z-7UIVaKNiC23EYjl1eg

including this series of ‘Great Ideas’ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoFvKa9dRKjcl01Pfo_gjgRZPmfqs9SCF

5. And, finally, the story of How Killer Rice Crippled Tokyo and the Japanese Navy https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-edo-tokyo-navy-beriberi