Roy Cross's Blog

A little later this evening, as I’ve just driven home to Cambridge from Yorkshire, much enjoying BBC Radio 3’s ‘The Miser’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013k5l and BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Woodlanders’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000vp38 en route!

1. I’m meeting Ben Knight in the pub in Cambridge next Tuesday evening, but not until after he’s given his talk on ‘Helping your students become independent learners’ at 13:00 UK time next Tuesday, 24^th January https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/helping-your-students-become-independent-learners I guess he thinks he might need a drink?

2. What makes a great novel? How is a novel woven together? How can we best appreciate works of fiction? Find out on this University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh International Book Festival FutureLearn course, How to Read a Novel https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel

3. There’s a stellar line-up at 20:00 UK time on Thursday, 27th January for the Best and Brightest of English Language Teaching (BBELT) conference preview event: more info and registration here https://americas.britishcouncil.org/new-ways-of-teaching/events/bbelt-preview Those of you with long memories will notice that the BBELT acronym has been re-interpreted!

4. I very much hope that this UK Royal Society blog post, We are not powerless in the face of online misinformation, is right https://royalsociety.org/blog/2022/01/we-are-not-powerless-in-the-face-of-online-misinformation/ PDF of the full report, ‘The online information environment: Understanding how the internet shapes people’s engagement with scientific information’, here https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/online-information-environment/the-online-information-environment.pdf and below.

5. And, finally, some predictions from NESTA for 2022 to mull over over (MS Word didn’t like that repeated ‘over’) the weekend in their Future Signals series https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/signals-2022/

Will your next avocado be grown in Aberystwyth? – probably not if you live in Bogotá – and The rise (and rise) of screen time for kids – equally probable if you live in Bogotá – are two of the nine think pieces currently available.

1. Thanks to Ann Veitch for this one: great new mini-site from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) on Varieties of English https://public.oed.com/varieties-of-english/

“The OED has always included words from across the English-speaking world. What’s changed – drastically – since the first edition (first published in fascicles – instalments – between 1884 and 1928) is the size and breadth of the English-speaking population.”

More on the history of the OED here https://www.oed.com/public/editions/loginpage

2. The new issue of Chatham House’s International Affairs journal is free to view, and it’s a special issue guest-edited by Jasmine K. Gani and Jenna Marshall on Race and Imperialism in International Relations: theory and practice https://academic.oup.com/ia/issue/98/1

Here’s the editors’ introduction, ‘The impact of colonialism on policy and knowledge production in International Relations’ https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/98/1/5/6484845 PDF below.

3. I’ve mentioned OASIS – Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies – before https://oasis-database.org/?locale=en It aims to “make research on language learning, use, and education available and accessible to a wide audience.”

Try a search for ‘multilingualism’ https://oasis-database.org/catalog?f[summary_general_research_area_sim][]=32&locale=en&q=&search_field=all_fields

or for ‘translanguaging’ https://oasis-database.org/catalog?utf8=%E2%9C%93&locale=en&search_field=all_fields&q=translanguaging

4. Eaquals are now running a series of webinars in languages other than English. Robert Martinez is opening the batting with Mejorando la interacción entre estudiantes en lecciones híbridas at 10:00 UK time next Monday, 24^th January.

More info here https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/event/mejorando-la-interaccion-entre-estudiantes-en-lecciones-hibridas/

and registration here https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1uzrrja2TgGS9qzcZnwEDw

5. And, finally, listen and read ‘On Pleasing’, read here by the author, Kimiko Hahn https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/on-pleasing

1. Trinity run an interesting Transformative Teachers series of webinars; you’ll find both recordings and details of future events here https://learn.trinitycollege.co.uk/ttw Register for the next one, ‘Am I Good Enough?’ with Paula Medina, at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday, 26^th January, here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/am-i-good-enough-tickets-245638690937

“What does it mean to be a good teacher? This session will look at both the challenges and advantages of teaching as a non-native speaker of English.”

2. The partners in the European Language Grid initiative aim to establish it as “the primary platform for Language Technology in Europe”, and they seem to have made a pretty good start https://live.european-language-grid.eu/ Explore? Explore!

3. The 2022 Hay Festival in Cartagena de Indias doesn’t start until 27^th January, but you’ll need time to explore the programme, I think. It’s a hybrid (and bilingual) event: for most of us that will mean digital https://www.hayfestival.com/c-262-colombia-digital.aspx or – for a lucky few – in person https://boleteria.gematours.co/hayfestival/index.php?id=113&categoria=&la=en&tp=

I’ve booked for a number of events, including Patrick Radden Keefe in conversation with Verónica Smink at midnight UK time (!) on Wednesday 26^th January and Reni Eddo-Lodge and Djamila Ribeiro in conversation with Vanessa Rosales at (the more civilised) UK time of 17:00 on Saturday 29^th January.

4. I wonder whether the pandemic cloud has had a silver lining for those of us who suffer from apanthropy (as I do occasionally)? All the book festivals one could possibly want and none of the crowds ….

5. And, finally, Alan Bennett, a ‘professional Yorkshireman’ a generation older than me and someone I can imagine suffers from at least intermittent apanthropy, reading extracts from his diary for 2021 https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/diary-for-2021 for the London Review of Books podcast.

I’m never quite sure how well Alan Bennett’s whimsical humour travels outside the UK – let me know, please!

More LRB podcasts on an eclectic range of themes here https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos

1. ‘Teachers have their say: Motivation, skills and opportunities to teach education for sustainable development and global citizenship’ is the title of a report on a survey of 58,000 teachers worldwide conducted by UNESCO and Education International https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/25552:teachers-have-their-say-motivation-skills-and-opportunities-to-teach-education-for-sustainable-development-and-global-citizenship

The good news is that teachers feel they have the power to help learners develop the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to address global challenges and contribute to the building of a more just, peaceful, sustainable world, and many feel motivated to do so.

The less good news is that a quarter of teachers still do not feel ready to teach themes related to education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship education (GCED).

Here’s a blog post summarising the main themes of the report https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/25601:education-international-and-unesco-report-teachers-motivated-to-teach-sustainable-development-and-global-citizenship-but-need-more-support PDF below.

2. Education International have also recently marked the climate homework of 95 countries, in terms of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as of September 30, 2021. NDCs are countries’ national climate action plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change.

The pass mark was 60% – and all 95 countries failed. Report summary and download here https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/25313:new-research-world-fails-in-climate-education-despite-urgent-need-to-act PDF below.

Only three countries scored 50% or more, and it might surprise you who they were:

C@@@@@@@ scored 58%;

the D@@@@@@@@ R@@@@@@@ scored 51%;

C@@@@@@@ scored 50%.

3. Lots more material to explore on the Teach for the Planet home page https://www.ei-ie.org/en/dossier/1361:teach-for-the-planet

4. Two short New Yorker videos on serious themes:

‘Reckoning with Laughter’, directed by Amber Fares, follows the Israeli comedian Noam Shuster as she returns home amid the COVID pandemic and quarantines with both Palestinians and Israelis https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-new-yorker-documentary-how-one-woman-is-using-comedy-to-speak-up-about-palestinian-rights;

‘Your Street’, directed by Güzin Kar, tells the story of Saime-Genç-Ring (street) in Bonn in Germany, named after the youngest victim of an arson attack in which neo-Nazis killed a Turkish family of five https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-new-yorker-documentary-a-quiet-german-street-with-a-neo-nazi-history

Lots of other New Yorker videos here https://www.newyorker.com/video Frustratingly – here in the UK at least – a fair number of them are not available, though; see if you have better luck – or a VPN!

5. And, finally, how about some coffee? Perhaps an espresso? https://youtu.be/I8uStVXNf0M More on espresso here https://youtu.be/iI09bbH22vQ and here https://youtu.be/j5rygXblZJU, verging on the obsessive some people might think, and lots more coffee videos here on James Hoffmann’s YouTube channel, which has 1.15m subscribers https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMb0O2CdPBNi-QqPk5T3gsQ

1. Is Big Brother watching you watching (or not)? The next UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics Research Seminar is at 14:00 UK time this Wednesday, 19^th January: Understanding the role of attention in second language acquisition: Empirical contributions from eye-tracking with Aline Godfroid from Michigan State University. Abstract below; register here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoTH7NxDdv7Rnp5rBCXGv_xRpP3kkUAR-YsHgexY87zgxYkw/viewform

2. This coming Saturday, 22^nd January, at 11:15 UK time, IH World are offering a Free Training Day for ELT Academic Managers and Trainers with:

George Pickering – ‘The principled manager: leading with the head and the heart’

Marie Willoughby – ‘Shifting sands: Causes, impacts and strategies to manage Trainer Trainer Imposter Phenomenon’ and

Lucie Cotterill – ‘Stepping into the Unknown – Future-proofing your Language Teaching Organisation’

More info and registration here https://ihworld.com/events/events/free-training-day-for-elt-academic-managers-and-trainers-2022/

PDF of programme and talk abstracts below – just in case, like me, it’s not immediately clear to you what Marie Willoughby is talking about. NB: you need to register by Thursday 20^th January.

3. The second in the TESOL Master Class series from China is at 11:30 UK time this Wednesday, 19^th January. Lixian Jin from the City University of Macau will be talking about Approaches for Teaching Intercultural Communication Skills in ELT. More info and registration here https://tesol.21elt.com/lecture – scroll down the page a little.

4. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) now has a Girls’ Education Department, and here’s a blog post by the head of that department, Emma Spicer, on Educating girls despite a global pandemic https://blogs.fcdo.gov.uk/fcoeditorial/2021/12/21/educating-girls-despite-a-global-pandemic/

Emma’s department leads on the implementation of the FCDO’s five year plan for girls’ education, ‘Every girl goes to school, stays safe, and learns: Five years of global action’ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/986027/FCDO-Girls-Education-Action-Plan.pdf PDF below in case that’s easier to access.

5. And, finally, meet the Feelings Monster! https://youtu.be/3O7S_wUdI0w More info, ideas and materials here https://create.kahoot.it/profiles/cf9a98a0-0186-4a3f-b92f-2c54ee9df3d5

1. Here’s another free-access piece from the next issue of ELTJ, Decentring ELT: teacher associations as agents of change by Darío Luis Banegas, Deborah Bullock, Richard Kiely, Harry Kuchah Kuchah, Amol Padwad, Richard Smith and Martin Wedell https://academic.oup.com/eltj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/elt/ccab090/6491225

Some interesting thoughts on what exactly constitutes ‘the centre’ from which one would wish to ‘decentre’ oneself. PDF below.

2. Is decentring the same as decolonialising, I wonder? Probably not quite. Decolonial perspectives on English language teaching with Lorena Bustos from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota and Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu from the University of Leicester is the title of an IATEFL ESPSIG event at 18:00 next Monday, 17th January. More info and registration here https://www.iatefl.org/events/298

More free IATEFL events here https://www.iatefl.org/events

3. The first Eaquals webinar of 2022 is at 10:00 UK time next Tuesday, 18^th January and is also concerned with where things should be centred: Gillian Davidson & David Byrne will be talking about Visible learning: Putting teachers at the centre of their development. More info and registration here https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/event/visible-learning-putting-teachers-at-the-centre-of-their-development/

4. Which three of the following things do most teachers in the UK take with them to school at the beginning of a new school term: a plant for the classroom; a supply of painkillers; a supply of coffee or tea; some spare clothes? Find out here https://www.teachertapp.co.uk/what-are-teachers-must-have-items-at-the-start-of-term-this-and-other-findings/

5. Have you tried Wordle yet? https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/ A new word at midnight UK time every day, and it’s now keeping me up a little later than I might like on a regular basis … NB! American English spelling – was ‘favor’ on Tuesday!

6. And, finally, the shape of your supermarket shopping trolley handles affects how much you buy, according to a recent study of more than 2,000 supermarket customers, says the German business paper, Handelsblatt. Carts with wheelbarrow-style handles prompt an average spend of 25% more than the traditional horizontal bar, because wheelbarrow handles activate your biceps, which are psychologically associated with pulling things you want towards you. The bars of traditional trolleys activate your triceps, associated with pushing away things you don’t want.

Here’s a link to the original (you’ll need to register) https://www.handelsblatt.com/meinung/gastbeitraege/pruefers-kolumne-wer-einen-einkaufswagen-mit-griffen-schiebt-der-kauft-mehr/27950858.html

So why don’t more supermarkets have wheelbarrow-style trolleys, I wonder?

1. Thanks to Fraser Bewick – thanks, Fraser! – here’s Philip Kerr’s typically forthright take on ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) and translanguaging,  Out with the old, in with the new: ELF and translanguaging https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/2021/12/30/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-elf-and-translanguaging/ and here’s his previous blog post on Multilingualism, linguanomics and lingualism https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/2022/01/12/multilingualism-linguanomics-and-lingualism/

2. So, in the interests of balance, here’s an ELTJ piece by Li Wei on translanguaging, Translanguaging as a political stance: implications for English language education https://academic.oup.com/eltj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/elt/ccab083/6483197?s=09

Several more interesting pieces listed in the sidebar on the right, some of which are also free-access (bravo, ELTJ!):

this one by Francesca Helm is, Exploring English as a ‘glocal language’ in online EMEMUS https://academic.oup.com/eltj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/elt/ccab085/6491227

and this one by Christa van der Walt, Training multilingual English language teachers: challenges for higher education https://academic.oup.com/eltj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/elt/ccab088/6483450

PDFs of all three below – maybe save some for the weekend?

[file x 3]

3. Looking back: if you missed Emma Dafouz’s talk for UCL on English medium education ROADMAPPING for UCL the other day and as a result don’t know what EMEMUS (or ROADMAPPING) are, you can find it here, on the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrwOFOP-tU84A6R5SSNsSA

Looking forward: if you’re quick, you can still book for Eowyn Crisfield’s talk for NATESOL on Multilingualism in the Classroom: Productive strategies for supporting teaching and learning at 10:00 UK time this Saturday 15th January https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0IsENkrKvAFeJzZKVyfcIfcnVKNvjx-Xs0VM06wes4yJSxg/viewform You need to book by 17:00 UK time tomorrow.

4. Thanks to Mark Henebury – thanks, Mark! – here’s A Reading from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales by Jess B. Bessinger Jr, whose Middle English accent lives on twenty-seven years after his death: https://archive.org/details/P_CHA_GEO_01

And here’s a nice legible text of The Canterbury Tales https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43926/the-canterbury-tales-general-prologue

and a bit more on Middle English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English

5. And, finally, Joelle Taylor is a major force in UK poetry and she’s just won this year’s T S Eliot Prize.

Here’s her reading three of her poems:

Valentine https://youtu.be/oQ5qGoOJAlQ

Angel https://youtu.be/etSftpvnB5o

and Heaven, 1995 https://youtu.be/IDB4SaVpQ1w

talking about her work https://youtu.be/bxmp0eUl2xU

and her website http://joelletaylor.co.uk/

And one more for luck, a bravura performance-reading by Joelle that I’ve just stumbled over: https://youtu.be/ZXtLqCXSHLI

1. Something for your students or children, probably, on the (I hope reasonable) assumption that not too many under-30s read this message: Youthwise is the OECD’s ‘Youth Advisory Board’ and applications are now being accepted. More info here https://www.oecd.org/about/civil-society/youth/youthwise/  and registration here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7YNKX23 PDF with more info below

and here’s more on OECD work with youth https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/youth

Me, I’ve never quite come to terms with the fact that you can be 30 and still qualify as ‘youth’.

2. A treasure trove from King’s College London, Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies https://kcl.academia.edu/WorkingPapersinUrbanLanguageLiteracies

PDFs of one by Ben Rampton, Sociolinguistics: 50+ years in under 10 minutes, and one by Pippa Sterk, Navigating airport security as a Person of Colour, below. If you register with https://www.academia.edu/ (for free) you can download them all and a whole lot more besides.

3. Two good recent pieces on the Cambridge University Press and Assessment website:

Diary insights into teaching during lockdown https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/insights/teachers-diaries

and Why don’t we just put our high stakes exams on screen? https://cambunipress.prod.acquia-sites.com/news-and-insights/insights/Why-don%E2%80%99t-we-just-put-our-high-stakes-exams-on-screen

4. PMQs – Prime Minister’s Questions – was an especially bruising encounter for Boris Johnson today:  https://youtu.be/Sh9yEhbYZyE Starts just shy of eleven minutes in.

5. And, finally, Pride or Prejudice: How we Read Now – three half-hour BBC Radio 4 programmes on Reading, Teaching and Writing Novels with Abigail Williams from Oxford University https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010x29

Did Elizabeth Bennet or Fitzwilliam Darcy suffer from this week’s phobia, pistanthrophobia, I wonder? Or any other characters here? https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/jan/05/jane-austen-10-best-characters

1. Here’s a good, comprehensive FutureLearn blog post that would make the basis for a lesson or even a project: How to reduce plastic waste: 20 tips to save the planet https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/how-to-reduce-plastic-waste

Here’s one worrying quote from it: “In 2014, the ratio of fish to plastic (in the oceans) was 5:1. (The WEF) predicted that by 2050 this ratio would be 1:1, so there would be as much plastic as fish.”

2. There’s an online event in NESTA’s A sustainable future series at 13:00 UK time next Tuesday, 18^th January with ‘three carbon-cutting pioneers’, Stories from the frontline: let’s hear from our green home pioneers: more info and registration here https://www.nesta.org.uk/event/stories-from-the-frontline-green-home-pioneers/

and here’s the home page for A sustainable future https://www.nesta.org.uk/sustainable-future/

3. The World Economic Forum has a short piece, These countries are leading the transition to sustainable energy, on its Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2021 report, which highlights global progress in tackling greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation.

On the one hand, says the report, more than 70% of tracked countries have made progress on energy access and security; on the other, just 13 out of 115 countries have made consistent improvements over the past 10 years.

Piece here https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/these-countries-are-leading-the-transition-to-sustainable-energy/ and PDF of report below.

4. And, finally, from The New York Times, 52 Places for a Changed World – ‘places around the globe where travellers can be part of the solution, a choice of 52 places to travel to in 2022’. Window shopping for most of us, I think, but fun, nonetheless! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/travel/52-places-travel-2022.html (I think you’ll find it’s easier to use the page down key if you’re on a laptop.)

1. This four-week course, Teaching pathways: How to teach speaking, which is intended to help with the design of speaking tasks and improve the speaking skills of your students, starts tomorrow: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-pathways-how-teach-speaking

You need to register – that’s free – and you can enrol at any point in January. For participants who successfully complete all tasks and achieve a score of 70% or above in the online exercises, there’ll be a downloadable certificate of completion at the end of the course.

2. The OECD are running a series of three events on Fostering 21st-century skills in higher education – How can governments and institutions support students’ skill development? Unless you’re the leader of an institution, you may find Sessions 2 and 3 more interesting.

Session 1: Institutional perspective: Dialogue with institutional leaders on Wednesday 12^th January at 12:30 UK time: more info and registration here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WTUzG1yWQwa9KaVkiLhzXQ

Session 2: Approaches to 21st-century skills in Europe and North America on Wednesday 12^th January at 15:00 UK time: more info and registration here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_X64LroVjQXmLBizAcGWnhA

Session 3: Approaches to 21st-century skills in Asia-Pacific on Thursday 13 January at 08:30 UK time: more info and registration here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1Tnh36KJSYOAIS5MJZ2UvQ

If I taught in school, I’d be tempted to listen in to Session 2 or 3, to see what value my HE colleagues place on the work I do in school.

3. This coming Saturday, 15^th January, at 09:00 UK time, Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Coventry University will be presenting their Viet Nam Virtual Exchange for English Language Teaching (ViVEXELT) project.

More info here https://www.facebook.com/vivexelt/

registration here https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wXVirt3MRkCyoWJFosyj7EO4mKBTgeJLur0DDnrxbaBUOTRVTUI4SFlQNTU4RkhCUlNVNUg5UDRRTy4u

and an informative blog post here https://vivexelt.com/2021/08/16/post1/

4. And, finally, five things to be optimistic about in 2022 at least according to the World Economic Forum’s positive assessment of a recent Ipsos survey of 22,000 people in 33 countries https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/most-think-2022-will-be-better-year/

Here’s the Ipsos survey itself, which has a slightly less sanguine introduction: “Of the nine questions where we have trend data since 2020, four show significant change, indicating a more optimistic view of what 2022 will bring. Nonetheless, concerns about the environment and rising prices persist. And while most expect greater COVID vaccination rates around the world, half (47%) expect a new deadly strain of the virus to appear.” https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-predictions-2022 PDF below.

And here’s a thirty-minute Ipsos discussion of the year just ended, The year in review: Making sense of 2021 https://youtu.be/HKszqZdnEH0 PDF of the report that’s being discussed below.