Roy Cross's Blog

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.

‘Long Friday’ with some longer reads for the weekend!

1. Short notice, this one: ‘Surviving burnout’ – an IATEFL webinar presented by Carol Griffiths tomorrow, 8th January at 13:00 UK time https://www.iatefl.org/events/229

plus lots of other interesting free events (with less short notice) here https://www.iatefl.org/events

2. This one could easily take up your whole weekend on its own: Best Digital Education Tools For Teachers To Teach Online https://taughtup.com/best-digital-education-tools-for-teachers-to-teach-online/

3. A piece by Vaclav Brezina from Lancaster University on ‘Five ways the internet era has changed British English – new research’ https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-internet-era-has-changed-british-english-new-research-172432 We shall soon be bidding farewell to ‘shall’, it seems!

4. One Serb is in the news for the wrong reasons at present, down under, but here’s the December issue of the excellent as ever HLT, very largely written by his compatriots https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec21/

Try this section on 21st Century Skills : Teaching Online https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec21/21st-century-skills-teaching-online

5. And, finally, a wonderful piece from The Conversation on Victorian detective stories https://theconversation.com/beyond-sherlock-holmes-five-victorian-detective-stories-you-must-read-173082 which includes links to free online reading by all five authors mentioned: for example, Catherine Louisa Pirkis https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/pirkis/brooke/brooke.html and Arthur Morrison https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53341/53341-h/53341-h.htm

PDF facsimile below of Ghosts: Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low published in 1899 by E. and H. Heron, the noms de plume (or nom de plumes? Two sodas and lime or two soda and limes?) of mother and son team Kate O’Brien Prichard and Hesketh Prichard.

If you’ve had chance to get a break since I last wrote, I hope it was as restorative as mine was!

1. Early notice (because next Thursday may be too late) of the first NATESOL Free Webinar of 2022, Multilingualism in the Classroom: Productive strategies for supporting teaching and learning, at 10:00 UK time on Saturday 15^th January with Eowyn Crisfield from Oxford Brookes University. PDF with more detail below; register here before 17:00 UK time next Friday, 14^th January https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0IsENkrKvAFeJzZKVyfcIfcnVKNvjx-Xs0VM06wes4yJSxg/viewform

Eowyn’s abstract begins “The term ‘translanguaging’ is the new academic buzz word, and everyone is wondering what exactly it means for our classrooms …” Tune in on the 15^th to find out exactly what it does mean.

2. Emma Dafouz’s presentation on Approaching English-medium Education in Multilingual University Settings through the ROAD-MAPPING framework in the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics Research Seminar series, originally planned for December, has been rescheduled for 16:00 UK time on Tuesday, 11^th January 2022. PDF with more detail below; register here https://forms.gle/qYEGoiMznV2dUXCP7

Emma’s abstract begins “Two decades into the 21st century, the use of English as vehicular language for higher education for the sake of internationalisation is a growing reality …” Interesting use of ‘vehicular’ there, which I think I understand as Emma means me to.

3. A good blog post by Sulaiman Jenkins that I missed first time round, Is the ‘native speaker/ non-native speaker’ teacher dichotomy really necessary anymore? “The short answer”, says Sulaiman, “is no; the issue, however, is much more complex than a simple one-word response.” https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/sulaiman-jenkins/%E2%80%98native-speaker-non-native-speaker%E2%80%99-teacher-dichotomy-really-necessary PDF copy below just in case that’s easier; I hope I don’t get into trouble with Paul Braddock.

4. And, finally, From apanthropy to zwodder, Susie Dent’s A-Z of Christmas (words) https://inews.co.uk/opinion/apanthropy-zwodder-susie-dents-a-z-christmas-1367064 Was anyone wearing hufflebuffs over the holiday period, I wonder?

This is the last ‘Free Resources’ message till 6^th January. If you’re getting a break, luxuriate!

1. This has been around since 2016 but was new to me earlier this week: If The World Were 100 People https://youtu.be/QFrqTFRy-LU

2. Eating eels, electing bean kings and Roland the Farter: part of the medieval Christmas and New Year festivities in the UK https://theconversation.com/eating-eels-electing-bean-kings-and-roland-the-farter-part-of-the-medieval-christmas-and-new-year-festivities-174003 With a free Latin word at the end of the piece: bumbulum!

3. I don’t always – often! – agree with the political views expressed in The Spectator magazine https://www.spectator.co.uk/ but this list of The Spectator’s best films of 2021 includes a number I hope to watch over the Christmas break https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectator-s-best-films-of-2021 Starting with The Power of the Dog tonight, which I hope is at least half as good as Thomas Savage’s book https://youtu.be/LRDPo0CHrko

4. And, finally, a fun piece by Sarah DeVries from Mexico News Daily, Learning a language leads to something greater than the sum of its parts https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/sarah-devries/learning-language-more-than-collecting-words/

See you next year – thanks for reading!