Roy Cross's Blog

1. The OECD have just published Teachers Getting the Best out of Their Students, based on data from this year’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) report and described as taking “a view of teachers and school principals across all levels of compulsory education and the similarities and differences in the issues they face”. You can read it online here https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/5bc5cd4e-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/5bc5cd4e-en# and I’ve presumed to make a PDF of the (short) executive summary, below.

2. Three pieces gleaned from the latest Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) newsletter:

one blog post by Sarah Green on Shining a spotlight on reading fluency https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/eef-blog-shining-a-spotlight-on-reading-fluency

a second by Julie Kettlewell on Structured support for independent learning https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/eef-blog-structured-support-for-independent-learning

and a podcast hosted by Alex Quigley on Effective Professional Development https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/new-episode-of-evidence-into-action-effective-professional-development

3. Google know lots of things about us, many more than most of us can imagine. Here’s a piece by Dorie Clark about something else Google knows, Google’s ’20% rule’ shows exactly how much time you should spend learning new skills—and why it works https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/16/google-20-percent-rule-shows-exactly-how-much-time-you-should-spend-learning-new-skills.html

4. Here’s seven months’ notice of next year’s Trinity-Regent Future of English Language Teaching (FOELT) conference, so you have no excuse whatsoever for missing the 31^st March deadline for submissions https://learn.trinitycollege.co.uk/foelt/events/2022

plus, on the same page, recordings of all the sessions from this year’s FOELT. How about ‘A tale never loses in the telling’: Challenging hegemonic worldviews and decolonizing the EFL classroom with Erika de Freitas Coachman and Izabelle da Silva Fernandes from Argentina? https://resources.trinitycollege.com/teachers/english_language/webinars/a-tale-never-loses-in-the-telling-challenging-hegemonic-worldviews-and-decolonizing-the-efl-classroom-erika-de-freitas-coachma-1625139275175?__hstc=140353068.32e4c39214a3f2ddd0a15bcc9f879020.1639685435308.1639685435308.1639762963482.2&__hssc=140353068.1.1639762963482&__hsfp=1456151666 That’s a long link but I’ve decided not to give it the Bitly https://bitly.com/ treatment!

5. And, finally, Forty Names by the Afghan poet Parwana Fayyaz:

text here https://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/forward-prizes-for-poetry-2/parwana-fayyaz/parwana-fayyaz-forty-names/

and video with Parwana here https://youtu.be/wYTYwADxVrE

Not clever, to have used up most of my ‘multilingual’ material yesterday!

1. This looks likely to be both fun and complicated to organise, an online school debate festival organised by the QLS language school in Greece, supported by Eaquals https://www.eaquals.org/2020/01/06/call-for-participation-4th-qls-online-school-debate-festival/

Open to learners of English as a foreign language aged 11-17 from around the world, with three CEFR levels and three debate topics:  B1 – This House believes all people should become vegetarians; B2 – This House believes mass tourism should be banned; C1/C2 – This House believes nuclear power should be banned.

The festival is in late March; you need to enter your students before the end of January. I’m not quite sure how they’ll stop C1 level learners entering for a lower level. PDF of mini-poster below.

2. The LSE has a rich programme of online events for the Lent Term https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/Events-Assets/PDF/2022/LT2022/21-0395-Events-lent-2021-v4-online.pdf

Your choice includes Anger on 17^th January, Punishment on 31^st January, 30 years of EU migration and asylum policies: success or failure? on 14^th February (quite a lot of anger and punishment in that last one, too), and lots more besides. PDF below.

 3. Here’s a three hundred and thirty-two word long work of ‘microfiction’ by Álvaro Baquero-Pecin from this month’s issue of the Words without Borders magazine, Our Nueva York: Writing the City in Spanish https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/december-2021-spanish-new-york-statistics-baquero-pecino-pollack

4. And, finally, thanks to Rose Aylett, something I’ve found fascinating and depressing in equal measure, given the apparent correlation between poverty and high data costs https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/

1. Three good, inter-related project mini-sites from the ECML which I was reminded about while attending one of their events today:

one on Plurilingual and Intercultural Education https://www.ecml.at/Thematicareas/Plurilingualandinterculturaleducation/tabid/4145/language/en-GB/Default.aspx,

one on Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2020-2023/Resourcesforassessingthehomelanguagecompetencesofmigrantpupils/tabid/4297/language/en-GB/Default.aspx,

and a third on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) https://www.ecml.at/Thematicareas/ContentandLanguageIntegratedLearning/tabid/1625/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

Lots to explore!

2. If you’re not an astrophysicist – and you don’t suffer from this week’s phobia, astrophobia – challenge yourself by listening to this podcast from The Conversation on The James Webb Space Telescope: what astronomers hope it will reveal about the beginning of the universe https://theconversation.com/james-webb-space-telescope-what-astronomers-hope-it-will-reveal-about-the-beginning-of-the-universe-podcast-173436

And if you are an astrophysicist, I’d like to think you’ll still find it interesting!

3. Here’s a blog post from Philip Kerr on the relationship between TESOL/TEFL researchers and English language teachers and the way in which the former typically frame the latter as being less expert than themselves, ’We need to talk’ https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/2021/12/13/we-need-to-talk/ There’s a good set of references at the end, too.

Link here to an article, The Dysfunctions of the Theory/Practice Discourse, by Mark A. Clarke (with whom I worked on a summer school in Yugoslavia many years ago, I now realise) that Philip suggests first raised this issue https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264606374_The_Dysfunctions_of_the_TheoryPractice_Discourse and PDF below.

4. And, finally, here’s a piece on a survey of views of the UK that Ipsos MORI conducted for the British Council of one thousand ‘educated adults’ aged 18-34 in each of the (other) nineteen G20 countries in autumn 2021 https://www.britishcouncil.org/brand-britain-wins

I’ve checked and ‘educated’ means ‘with a minimum of secondary education’. PDF of a readable summary version of the report here https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/global_perceptions_survey_2021.pdf and below. I admit to being slightly surprised by the results!

1. A mesmerising speech by Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, at the opening of COP 26 that a friend in Thailand has just brought to my attention: https://youtu.be/PN6THYZ4ngM

2. Here’s a piece from the BBC website on the naming of storms https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/34581210 which is a much more recent practice than I’d realised: the first was Abigail, just over six years ago, on 10^th November 2015.

3. The Brookings Initiative on Climate Research and Action (BICRA), in its own words, “brings together experts who are shaping workable solutions for local, national, and global leaders to meet the climate challenge and seize opportunities for climate-resilient growth around the world”.

Here’s their website https://www.brookings.edu/initiative/brookings-initiative-on-climate-research-and-action/

and here’s a blog post from the BICRA site by Homi Kharas, ‘Missing from COP26: Lifestyle choices of middle-class and rich consumers’ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/11/23/missing-from-cop26-lifestyle-choices-of-middle-class-and-rich-consumers/

‘Avoid, Shift, Improve!’ is Homi’s mantra.

 4. And, finally, here’s another three-word mantra, ‘Think, Pair, Share!’, from Kate Jones and Dylan Wiliam: https://www.ascd.org/blogs/getting-the-think-pair-share-technique-right

1. Try to find a little time tomorrow between 08:30 and 16:15 UK time to pop in to the live stream of the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) annual colloquium on The future of language education in the light of Covid – lessons learned and ways forward: https://vimeo.com/event/1634631

Programme here https://www.ecml.at/Portals/1/6MTP/future-of-language-education/ECML-Colloquium-programme-2021-EN.pdf

and more background info here https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2020-2023/Thefutureoflanguageeducation/tabid/5491/Default.aspx

Maybe try the ‘Expert Panel’ at 15:05 UK time on ‘Where to from here?’, where all the panellists in my experience talk good sense in their different ways!

Also below, PDFs of the ECML publication A Guide to Language Education in Pandemic situations – and beyond and the colloquium programme below.

2. Lynda Taylor is giving the next UCL online seminar on Wednesday, 15^th December at 12:00 UK time on Reframing the discourse and rhetoric of testing and assessment for the public square. Testing and assessment became very hot political potatoes in the UK (and many other countries) during the pandemic. PDF of Lynda’s abstract below and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8syJjiCoQHGJ5iTAcFN-BOUTnRXUcOMOfOAfMfzqTD3SB4w/viewform

3. See what your older students – and you! – make of this speech at Chatham House in London by Liz Truss, the UK Foreign Secretary (Minister) last Wednesday on the UK’s foreign policy priorities https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/members-event/foreign-secretary-liz-truss-and-uks-foreign-policy-priorities

Transcript here https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-liz-truss-building-the-network-of-liberty

(Does anyone else find the earrings distracting?)

4. And, finally, listen to this https://youtu.be/KRyLw1aK5oA while looking at this https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5531

And if you get really interested, try this https://youtu.be/VLPDeUiZ_Rk

1. Today is/was United Nations Human Rights Day, something I could usefully have reminded you of earlier in the week, to give you time to prepare a lesson. Here’s a useful page on What are human rights? https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx and here’s a page with a lovely photo and a wide range of resources https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day/resources#campaignmaterials

2. Below is a PDF copy of a wonderful spoof from Michael Swan at the expense of ‘predatory journals’ (Michael’s spot-on term), as reported on the BAAL list today.

3. My colleague, Steve Copeland, sent me this message today in response to my comment yesterday about the likely size of audience for books that cost £85.50: “Those not wanting to spend £85.50 could always look at the original ELTRA report https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/settveo-evidence-based-reflection-teacher-development and the webinar Steve Walsh did for us last year: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/evidence-based-reflection-teacher-development PDF of ELTRA report below.

4. And, finally, a piece on why mobile phones and driving do NOT belong together. I speak as an occasional driver who’s just completed a four-and-a half-hour drive home from Yorkshire, keenly aware that I am no longer – if I ever was – “above average at driving”! https://theconversation.com/drivers-and-hand-held-mobile-phones-extending-the-ban-wont-solve-the-problem-heres-why-172327

No ‘multilingual’ today as my multilingual larder is bare …

1. This webinar on Friday 17^th December, Exploring teacher agency and identity through the Tree of Life approach, from the perspective of ten early career English teachers from Armenia, Brazil, Morocco, Nigeria and Palestine looks really interesting. More info and registration here  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/exploring-teacher-agency-identity-through-tree-life-approach-0

and here’s a short video to whet your appetite https://youtu.be/QKEDgHbjsb8

PDF of report below.

2. This one’s a bit of a shaggy dog story. Years ago, a university vice-chancellor in Iraq asked me if the Chinese take-away restaurant near the Faculty of Chemical Engineering in Manchester was still there. I said I was sorry, but I didn’t know. He said he hoped it was, as it used to serve the best chop suey in Manchester, to which I replied in which case I’d better try it next time I’m in Manchester – to which he replied it won’t be as good now, as I used to be the cook!

Here’s the history of the rise and fall (due to the offal it contains, which most of us just don’t eat any more) of chop suey globally https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chop-suey-history with a recipe at the end of the article.

3. Next Thursday, 15^th December, the VEO team at Newcastle University are launching their new book, Video Enhanced Observation for Language Teaching: Reflection and Professional Development More info here and registration here https://veo.co.uk/register-your-place-for-the-video-enhanced-observation-veo-research-event/ Welcome drinks and canapés only for those attending in person, alas!

Here’s Bloomsbury’s page on the book where you can read a decent length extract for free https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/video-enhanced-observation-for-language-teaching-9781350085039/ I don’t suppose very many of us will be buying it at £85.50, though.

4. And, finally, an interesting new kind of company, to which a British Council colleague has just moved https://founderspledge.com/ I don’t pretend to understand how it works yet but I’m going to explore.

1. Two videos from different parts of the Cambridge University Press and Assessment website: one with lots of bad jokes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-5oT15dxc81MI-pUui3Ww and another with the recordings of this year’s Cambridge Academic English Conference https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-oYKB0D9-E1h_pS8HguC3aVLWyzYHahn

2. Out this week, the second episode of the TeachingEnglish podcast from Chris Sowton and Kris Dyer, How can I make my teaching gender fair? https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/british-council-teachingenglish-episode-2-how-can-i-make-my-teaching-gender-fair

PDFs of transcript and episode notes below, plus – experimentally, as I’m not sure how well it will travel – the audio file of the podcast itself.

3. Here’s the recording of Susan Dawson and Gary Motteram’s webinar last year on Teacher professional development through WhatsApp-based communities of practice in challenging contexts https://africa.teachingenglish.org.uk/skills/webinars/professional-development-whatsapp-challenging-contexts PDF of slides below. One of the big learning points from the PRELIM 1 project was just how much you can do with WhatsApp compared to other delivery options such as Zoom.

4. Thanks to colleagues in South Asia for this one from the Brookings Institution, Using classroom simulators to transform teacher preparation https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/11/17/using-classroom-simulators-to-transform-teacher-preparation/

“One of the few clear implications from existing teacher education research is that new teachers need chances to practice key skills; they also need feedback on how to improve.” This article describes how the University of Virginia has developed a range of digital simulations that provide new teachers with that extra practice and feedback.

5. And, finally, this week’s phobia: athazagoraphobia. I nearly forgot!

1. Here’s a conundrum from The Conversation, If we all choose the fastest mode of travel in a city, the whole city gets slower – and more congested https://theconversation.com/if-we-all-choose-the-fastest-mode-of-travel-in-a-city-the-whole-city-gets-slower-and-more-congested-170740

The authors ask, “What if Google Maps told you not only where congestion is in real-time and what would be the quickest transport mode to choose for you as an individual, but which transport mode would offer the best results for your neighbourhood, your family, your colleagues, or your city?” What if, indeed …

2. Measuring and auditing your school’s environmental impact is the topic of ELT Footprint UK’s next event, at 14:00 UK time this Friday, 10^th December. More info and registration here https://eltfootprint.uk/events/ As I’ve said before, I don’t think the UK focus of these events overly diminishes their value for non-UK participants.

3. Here’s Eco in the ELT classroom from Oxford University Press, described as “everything you need to teach environmental topics in your classroom” https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/eco-in-the-classroom/?cc=us&selLanguage=en

Here’s a short introductory video to the site https://youtu.be/IWAyAKtEO0g

and here’s a longer recording of How to teach eco in the ELT classroom with Zarina Subhan and Patrick Jackson https://youtu.be/n8blgsaEzx4

4. And, finally and non-climatically and a bit short notice, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? is the question that Dr Beverley Daniel Tatum asks and answers tomorrow, Wednesday 8th December, at 14:00 UK time, in discussion with Minouche Shafik, the Director of the London School of Economics. More info and registration here https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2021/12/202112081400/tatum

And why has her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, been a best-seller for over twenty years in the States but has only just been published in the UK?

1. Now, here’s a title! Assessment Through the Lens of the Action-oriented Approach of the CEFR: Answering the Wh- Questions is the title of Randi Harlev’s ‘practical and theoretical’ workshop – you’ll have to do some discussion work, I think – for NATESOL at 10:00 UK time next Saturday, 11^th December.

More info and registration here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdzeSBGq5cFxNpLWnvcRTTZ2oPdagHWHx06oa65rYnDydj8eg/viewform PDF of abstract below.

NB! You need to register by 17:00 UK time on Friday.

2. Here’s a chance to win £250 or the equivalent in your currency (unless you live in Italy or Russia: something to do with local legislation) by answering a short Cambridge University Press survey on what you expect of academic publishers https://wh1.snapsurveys.com/s.asp?k=163759377680&id.name=1&utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=+survey&utm_campaign=BJR_AcademicBrandeSurvey_1121&WT.mc_id=BJR_AcademicBrandeSurvey_1121

3. This Wednesday, 8^th December, at 12:00 UK time, Bernadette O’Rourke will be giving the next Leiden University Centre for Linguistics talk, on New speakers and language policy: New geographies of language in minority language sociolinguistics More info in the PDF below and registration here https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Atf-CrrDIpHtTalMQ7CV6Kbm9DRFJtOmPh

I suspect that this might be one of those talks where we should NOT be put off by the density of the blurb …

4. Here’s the latest Pearson English Podcast, on The Importance of Professional Development https://www.english.com/blog/professional-development-pearson-english-podcast/

The presenters claim that “There are two types of teacher with 20 years of teaching experience: the first are those with 20 years of experience and the second are those with one year’s experience repeated 20 times” – I reckon that might be a bit black and white!

5. And, finally, this Asia Scotland Institute event at 12:00 UK time this Thursday, 9^th December, looks likely to be interesting: Asia: Through the Lens of John Thomsonhttps://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asia-through-the-lens-of-john-thomson-tickets-190296179997