Roy Cross's Blog

Sorry about the hiccup on Friday! Earlier than usual today, as I’m off down to London to celebrate Vietnamese National Day.

1. There’s scope for a good class discussion based on these two very short videos from the Royal National Institute for the Blind’s ‘How I See’ campaign here in the UK: https://www.rnib.org.uk/rnibconnect/how-i-see

https://youtu.be/f2x870PM0Hs

and https://youtu.be/2IB7eqyc4-o

2. There’s also a good class discussion about group think and social media bubbles in this new RSA Short on The Power of Diverse Thinking by Matthew Syed https://youtu.be/E5UHfcwal0M

3. I wonder whether an obsession with sleep and insomnia is a luxury that most people who crawl into their beds at the end of the day dog tired around the world have no time for? Here’s a Guardian piece on the topic by Kate Mikhail https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/18/self-and-wellbeing-seven-simple-steps-to-sounder-sleep-kate-mikhail

4. I mentioned last week the launch at 15:00 UK time tomorrow, Tuesday 21^st September, of the OECD publication, Education at a Glance 2021. Just in case you’re attending (or just in case you’re not!) here’s a link to the online executive summary of findings https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b35a14e5-en/index.html?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpublication%2Fb35a14e5-en which I’ve also copied into the PDF below, if that’s easier.

Webinar registration link once more here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D1NZSBQDR4mG86GJ_4rs-g Some people said last week’s link didn’t work for them, but this one – which did work for me just now – looks identical!

5. And, finally and sadly, the poet Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze died before her time last month. Here’s a typically engaged and engaging performance, including the poem ‘Aid Travels with a Bomb’ https://youtu.be/UBT-2n05eD4

and here’s her obituary https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/11/jean-binta-breeze-obituary

1. This year’s Einar Haugen Lecture at Oslo University will be given by Aneta Pavlenko at 14:15 UK time next Friday, 24^th September. Described as “a tour in a time machine, starting out in Ptolemaic Alexandria in 323 BC and then making short stops in imperial Rome, Norman Palermo, medieval Toledo and London, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, imperial St Petersburg, colonial Philadelphia, and the capital of Habsburg Hungary, Pressburg-Poszony to answer the question: “Does multilingualism need a history?”

More info here: https://www.hf.uio.no/multiling/english/news-and-events/events/guest-lectures-seminars/einar-haugen-lecture/2021/aneta-pavlenko-does-multilingualism-need-a-history.html

2. A useful survey article from Bridge Universe, What Is CLIL? The Global Trend in Bilingual Education Explained https://bridge.edu/tefl/blog/what-is-clil/

It includes a good video from Peeter Mehisto on What Is CLIL and What Is Not? https://youtu.be/MaUmlwczKJA

Here’s a video of a longer talk Dr Mehisto gave back in 2013 on ‘The Cognitive Benefits of Bilingualism’ https://youtu.be/drhLAJ1qDzQ

3. Eaquals’ new series of webinars starts next Tuesday, 21^st September. Full details of the series here https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/type/webinars-online/ Free of charge for everyone!

4. And, finally, an article about online education during the pandemic in Japan that you’ll need to register to read, but I suggest that’s well worth the effort https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/09/15/national/schools-digitalization-lag-covid19/

Perhaps not quite the story of success you’d have expected from high tech Japan.

1. A blog post by Nick Michelioudakis for Oxford University Press, to start with, How To Turn Reading Into A Habit https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2021/09/10/reading-habit/

I’m feeling a little mischievous, so will point out that Nick’s writing about a world of dental floss, piano practice and a bedroom for each child in the family. Put that to one side and much of what he says makes good sense.

2. Three OECD events next week:

on 21^st September  at 15:00 UK time, The state of education around the world: Findings from Education at a Glance 2021 https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D1NZSBQDR4mG86GJ_4rs-g;

on  23^rd September at 11:00 UK time, What Generation Z thinks about school, the curriculum and their future https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_10PY77BjRvCLJIlLLjgTBg;

and at 11:45 UK time, also on 23^rd September, Getting a job: How schools can help students develop recruitment skills https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_agPL3F-rROqjFwiaQwsAJQ

My expectation is that a global organisation like OECD thinks globally – let’s see! I’m keen on the Generation Z one.

3. Still plenty of time to register for the definitely global-minded mEducation Alliance symposium I mentioned last week https://meducationalliance.org/2021-symposium/ and there’s now a full (provisional) programme available https://meducationalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Schedule_Symposium-2021_9.14.21.pdf  PDF below for ease of reference.

4. This week’s global phobia? Mycophobia – develops overnight after rain!

5. And, finally, courtesy of my father (and The Times letters section), a (not very global) poem by John Moore:

I lately lost a preposition,

It fell, I thought, beneath my chair.

Angrily I cried, “Perdition,

Up from out of in under there!”

Now correctness is my vade mecum,

And straggling phrases I abhor,

And yet I wondered, what should it come

Up from out of in under for?”

1. There’s still time to enter the Climate Action for Language Education (CALE) school video competition https://www.britishcouncil.org/climate-connection/get-involved/action-language-education/school-video-competition

I left out one very important partner when I first mentioned this competition last Tuesday, namely IATEFL Global Issues SIG (GISIG) https://gisig.iatefl.org/ Sorry, GSIG!

2. The next CALE Education Exchange digital event will be at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday, 22^nd September on Climate change and language learning. More info on this event and future events in the series, plus recordings of previous events here https://www.britishcouncil.org/education/schools/education-exchange-digital-events/climate-change-language-learning

3. Some sobering climate facts in this new BBC report, Climate change: World now sees twice as many days over 50⁰C https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58494641

Many years ago, lulled into a false sense of security by the efficiency of our car’s air conditioning, I once stopped in a desert lay-by on the way home from Kuwait to Baghdad and opened the car door – ouch! Must have been at least 50⁰. I also learnt that a sunroof is not a sunroof in that part of the world; it’s a moonroof!

4. Courtesy of Mark Henebury, here’s more on non-lexical language https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210818-the-hand-gestures-that-last-longer-than-spoken-languages?ocid=twfut (I hope that non-lexical is the right word to use here.)

More articles on language from the BBC Future site here https://www.bbc.com/future/tags/language

5. And, finally and not at all light-heartedly, here’s a prescient piece that Dexter Filkins wrote for the New Yorker in 2012 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/09/after-america

Should you ever get chance to read his The Forever War: Dispatches from the War on Terror, do take it.

PS ~ PRELIM 2 is coming …..

1. British Council colleagues in East Asia are running a series of webinars on Teacher Takeaways: Practical Ideas for Classroom Teaching in partnership with the China English Teacher Professional Teachers Association. More info and registration details here https://www.britishcouncil.cn/en/teach/2021webinar

Fraser Bewick opens the batting at 09:00 UK time this Thursday, 16^th September with a session on Adapting and experimenting with tasks to encourage thinking skills in classroom tasks. Full details of the whole Teacher Takeaways programme in the PDF below.

2. Thanks, as so often, to my colleague Andrew Skinner for this efficient short video introduction to ‘Assistive Technology’ from Microsoft: https://youtu.be/DBxmADjQlI4

Here’s another I found ‘all by myself’ (as my granddaughter often says with pride) where Microsoft employees describe the use they make of assistive technology in their work https://youtu.be/QJgca3Sb8iQ

Yes, at one level they’re advertisements for Microsoft, but the features they demonstrate are part of software that many of us who use it every day are unaware of.

3.  This quarter’s Poetry Book Society selection is Hannah Lowe’s ‘The Kids’, a collection of sonnets celebrating the children she taught in sixth form college in London – wonderful stuff! She’s giving a free reading at 19:00 UK time this Thursday, 16th September with Selima Hill and Stephanie Norgate https://www.eventbrite.com/e/launch-reading-by-selima-hill-hannah-lowe-and-stephanie-norgate-tickets-166293344871

4. And, finally, another resource from the ECML for the forthcoming European Day of Languages on 26^th September, “20 things you might not know about Europe’s languages” https://edl.ecml.at/

I’d no idea that there is an ancient whistling language in Spain that’s still being taught in local schools – are there lots more whistling or non-lexical languages out there round the world?

You can look at some of the statistics from the other end of the telescope: Europe is now home to only 225 or 3% of the world’s languages – presumably that was once a significantly higher percentage? How many languages is Africa home to? Copy of poster below.

1. I remain hopelessly and culpably unclear what’s free and what’s not on onestopenglish, but here goes with the latest Vocabulary Builders lesson, Internet Language: What is the difference between patois, jargon, and slang? It’s designed to help your students discover more about language variations https://www.onestopenglish.com/vocabulary-lesson-plans/vocabulary-builders-internet-language/1000284.article

Pretty sure you’ll need to register but free to access once you have. PDFs of worksheet and teacher’s notes below.

2. A swift return for Teacher Tapp, as I think this week’s three questions – on teacher fashion, teacher attitudes to the pandemic and vaccination, and teacher optimism – travel round the world pretty well! https://teachertapp.co.uk/first-week-back-and-your-attitudes-towards-vaccines/

3. Teaching pathways: How to motivate learners is a new online course from TeachingEnglish. It starts on 21^st September; more info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-pathways-how-motivate-learners

The nine-hour course is intended to help teachers start creating their own motivational learning environment, learn about what affects motivation and discover some of the different ways to energise and engage students. It includes two live events with the course tutor and language teaching experts.

4. The Slow Burn of Inner Chaos: Writing from Malaysia is the latest issue of the Words without Borders monthly magazine https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/issue/september-2021-malaysia

Try Mona Fandey’s Cassette, or Gray Feather by Malaysian Tamil writer, Navin Manogaran https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/september-2021-malaysia-mona-fandeys-cassette-or-gray-feather-m-navin-sreed

5. Perhaps not for the faint-hearted, an extended excerpt from The House of Ashes, the new book from the ‘King of Belfast Noir’, Stuart Neville https://books.sohopress.com/the-house-of-ashes_disp-emlcr-9121#Excerpt

6. And just in case you should need one, here’s an antidote to the Neville extract, a showcase of and by the young dancers of the UK Royal Ballet https://youtu.be/UHT5dnr4gVs

Multi-lingual Thursday will return next week. I’m very sorry for the disruption to normal service. The Virgin broadband engineer comes tomorrow morning ….

1. Details here of Oxford University Press’s ELT Together 2021 event, which runs on six days in the period from 27^th September to 8^th October, from 17:00 to 20:00 UK time each day https://elt.oup.com/events/global/elt-together-2021?cc=global&selLanguage=en

The topics covered include Assessment for Learning, Pronunciation, Literature and Extensive Reading, How Languages are Learned, Learner Agency and Diversity and Inclusion. This kind of event often books up (annoyingly) early, so I hope this gives you good notice!

2. Also starting on 27^th September is the mEducation Alliance’s 11^th annual symposium, this time on EdTech To Accelerate Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in Low-Resource Contexts; more info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-meducation-alliance-symposium-tickets-160966349685

Their avowed intention is to “explore untraditional formats to maximize knowledge-exchange and networking among presenters and participants”. (Thanks to Adam for this one!)

3. Another attractively eclectic selection this year in the University of Westminster’s English Language and Linguistics Research Seminar programme. I’m not sure their website has caught up yet, but there’s full details in the PDF below. I’m looking forward to Sylvia Shaw’s session on 17^th November: ‘Supine, protoplasmic invertebrate jellies’: the linguistic style of Boris Johnson.

4. For a change, there is almost certainly NOT a lesson in this one, but I hope there might be an article or two that appeal in the latest, free-to-read issue of International Affairs from the Chatham House thinktank https://academic.oup.com/ia/issue/97/5

5. And, finally and poetically, read https://poets.org/poem/henrys-bar

or listen https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS2784522517.mp3?key=f08ded324faaf0d36813a05c53dcaaac

or do both concurrently or consecutively to For Henry’s Bar by Joseph Rios.

1. The latest Climate Action in Language Education newsletter is attached below, including details of the latest podcasts and this school video competition, in partnership with Digital Learning Associates (DLA) https://www.britishcouncil.org/climate-connection/get-involved/action-language-education/school-video-competition

And just in case you’ve forgotten, you can now find all the DLA Ready to Run videos on the NILE website https://digitallearningassociates.com/ready-to-run-schools-nile

2. ‘A Planet in Crisis: Ideas for Action’ was one of the themes at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/themes/a-planet-in-crisis-ideas-for-action?page=1

Try ‘Dreaming Big on Climate’ with Mya-Rose Craig where she talks about her new book We Have a Dream, which is a conversation with thirty young environmental campaigners from around the world https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/dreaming-big-on-climate-with-mya-rose-craig

3. Dave Reay’s job title at Edinburgh University is Professor of Carbon Management & Education. Here’s two of his talks:

a clear, short introduction to how we can mitigate climate change by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions  https://youtu.be/AXC5vjV1YCc

and a longer lecture on why we need global agriculture to be ‘climate-smart’ to feed our ever-growing population https://youtu.be/s_YvrSkESe0

4. The Conversation has a rich collection of articles on the environment https://theconversation.com/uk/environment Here’s two recent ones:

one on the lingering of lead in our environment https://theconversation.com/leaded-petrol-is-gone-but-lead-pollution-may-linger-for-a-very-long-time-167214

and a second on the need to ensure that electric cars are introduced in a fair way, without disadvantaging those who can’t afford them https://theconversation.com/charging-ahead-how-to-make-sure-the-electric-vehicle-transition-is-sustainable-and-just-166685

5. And, finally and less climatically, at 12:00 UK time on 9th September you can join the first talk in NESTA’s ‘Transforming the Education Conversation’ series on Using motivational thinking to change how we nurture young minds with Sharath Jeevan, the founder of STIR Education https://www.nesta.org.uk/event/nesta-talks-to-sharath-jeevan/ Here’s the STIR Education site, too https://stireducation.org/

1. A full programme from Pearson over the next few weeks, outlined in this blog post, Back to School: What to expect in the coming weeks https://www.english.com/blog/back-to-school-2021/

Week 1 activities include a ‘back to school worksheet’ https://www.english.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Worksheet_A4-BrE.pdf to help teachers and their new classes get to know each other better. PDF below.

2. I didn’t know we had a Student Futures Commission in the UK https://upp-foundation.org/student-futures-commission/ Its Chair, Mary Curnock Cook, has just written this piece for the WONKHE blog on post-Covid 19 priorities for supporting student success https://wonkhe.com/blogs/students-need-universities-to-prioritise-inclusion-and-academic-confidence-in-the-years-ahead/

She highlights one comment by Geoff Layer, chair of the Disabled Students’ Commission https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/disabled-students-commission/ who noted that disabled students felt that the things they had been asking for over many years, but were told they couldn’t have, had been delivered in days and weeks when the pandemic hit

and another by Mhairi Underwood from The Student Room https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ who had heard students identifying as being from the “cohort with the fake grades” (as a result of the cancellation of school exams).

3. I checked with colleagues in South East Asia earlier today if this piece on Forgetting My First Language from the New Yorker could be read without a subscription, and they said yes, so here goes: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/forgetting-my-first-language PDF below, as it seems (surprisingly?) to be free access.

4. And, finally and much less light-heartedly than is often the case, here’s the Swedish PEN special issue on Hate Speech https://www.penopp.org/all-themes/hatespeech

and here’s the one on Linguistic Rights https://www.penopp.org/all-themes/linguistic-rights, both a mixture of short and long pieces and poems.

‘What is really a mother tongue?’ asks Carlos Torner in this piece https://www.penopp.org/articles/mother-tongue-babel?language_content_entity=en

1. Issue 57 of the European Language Gazette came out today: https://www.ecml.at/News/Newsletter/Gazette57/tabid/4427/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

Lara’s Language Journey across Europe booklet https://edl.ecml.at/Activities/languagejourney/tabid/3223/Default.aspx

Languages Tree https://edl.ecml.at/Portals/33/documents/language-journey/pdf/language-tree-EN.pdf

Language sounds https://edl.ecml.at/Activities/languagejourney/Sounds/tabid/3224/Default.aspx Includes numbers from 1 to 10 in 46 different languages (if I counted right).

You can’t hold it against the European Centre for Modern Languages that they’re Euro-centred, I think. Might these examples from Europe translate into similar exercises in other parts of the world?

PDFs of the booklet and the tree below.

2. Teacher Tapp this week covers the controversial topics of which kind of marker pen, the bullet tip or the chisel tip, is most popular and which timetable layout, days across the top or lessons across the top, works best https://teachertapp.co.uk/start-of-term-2021/

3. The Noirwich – there’s a pun there, it’s not my spelling – festival of crime writing starts next Thursday, 9^th September https://noirwich.co.uk/the-line-up/

Lots of free events, including David Peace talking about Murder in Tokyo at 19:00 UK time on Saturday, 11^th September.

4. And, finally, follow the links on this page through to a short story or poem or extract from each of the 11 Asian women writers listed https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/11-translated-books-by-asian-women-writers-to-read-this-witmonth

Some good stuff – try the two Korean writers, Kyung-sook Shin and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim.