Roy Cross's Blog

1. First up today, a joint announcement from NILE and Ready to Run: the two organisations are now working together, and Ready to Run’s videos are now available from this page on the NILE website https://www.nile-elt.com/products/Ready_to_Run

You’ll need to become a member of NILE’s teacher community to access the videos, and you can do that here in approximately 35 seconds https://www.nile-elt.com/catalog?pagename=NILE-Membership A case of 2 NILE + 2 R2R = 5, I reckon!

2. “Become an Animal Superhero… Save the animals, Save the World!” National Geographic Learning are offering two online lessons for your students on Wednesday, 9^th June: one at 09:30 UK time for kindergarten and grades 1 & 2 students, and a second at 11:00 UK time for grades 3 to 5. More info and registration links here https://www.ngl-emea.com/projectexploration

Early notice as you’ll need to make arrangements for your students to be able to attend; PDF copies of letters for teachers and school leaders below with details of learning resources for the lessons for each class.

3. ICT4D is UNESCO’s Chair in Information and Communication Technologies for Development – acronyms have their advantages sometimes: why use 60 characters when 5 will do? They’ve just signed up to the Kindness Matters campaign – maybe your students would like to share an act of kindness? More details on the ICTAD home page https://ict4d.org.uk/

Last year ICT4D published Education for the most marginalised post‑COVID-19: Guidance for governments on the use of digital technologies in education https://edtechhub.org/education-for-the-most-marginalised-post-covid-19/

Here’s a podcast version of the executive summary of the report https://ict4d2004.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/200921_0055.mp3 and I’ve attached a PDF of the summary below. Well worth a skim even if you’re not in government – yet!

[PDF] 4. And, finally, from the British Museum, A space to be: a musical celebration of Edmund de Waal’s ‘library of exile’ https://youtu.be/Fp63AVjj0nk

A bumper crop today as I’m on holiday next week back home in Swaledale! I’ll be back on Tuesday 1^st June.

1. Early notice of this year’s British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Language in Africa SIG conference, African languages and social change: Politics, activism, and justice, which runs over a two-week period from1st to 14^th June. More info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/african-languages-and-social-change-politics-activism-and-justice-tickets-154725729823

It’s an interesting model for a conference, with pre-recorded talks uploaded on 1st June, to give participants plenty of time to view and think about them before panel discussions with (some of) the presenters from 7^th to 14^th June.

2. Next, a set of slides from Nik Peachey on Exploiting Infographics with your students https://view.genial.ly/600953d174d7d8137d55ecfc

More free stuff on Nik’s site https://peacheypublications.com/the-teachers-classroom-app – and some stuff you have to pay for!

3. Early notice of Trinity and Regent’s free online Future of ELT conference on Saturday, 26th June, so you can make arrangements to be able to attend on a Saturday, if that’s what you’d like to do https://learn.trinitycollege.co.uk/foelt Registration link here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-6th-future-of-english-language-teaching-conference-online-tickets-154821403987

Plenaries by Silvana Richardson and Scott Thornbury (tbc) and twenty breakout sessions on English for Specific Purposes, Young Learners, Technology & Innovation, and Teacher Education.

4. Available for one month only, a BBC Radio 4 series of five short programmes on Hans Rosling, the man behind those amazing data presentations, How I Learned To Understand The World https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000w4pv

And here’s one of those amazing presentations, on Why the world population won’t exceed 11 billion https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI There’s lots on the web.

5. Beyond Survival, four essays from Graham Leicester of the International Futures Foundation, who I met earlier today for the first time in years, “exploring the resources we need to draw on if we are to bend the arc of history toward the hope of a better day” https://www.iffbeyondsurvival.com/ PDF below.

IFF main site here https://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/ and lots of interesting resources for working on change together in their ‘Practice Centre’ here https://www.iffpraxis.com/

6. Quite a treat, from 19-29 May: Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra explore Sibelius together as the crescendo of Oramo’s thirteen years with the RSPO https://www.konserthuset.se/en/programme/festivals–themes/grande-finale–sibelius-with-oramo/

7. And, finally, another kind of treat: a photo essay on the remote region of Murghab in Tajikistan from the Calvert Journal: https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/12754/murghob-pamirs-tajikistan-photography-life-at-altitude

1. Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and marks the tenth year of a campaign to raise awareness of the need to ensure digital content is accessible to disabled people and those with additional access needs https://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/ My colleague Andrew Skinner has produced a really useful set of guidelines for accessibility based around the mnemonic SCULPT:

S: Structure (heading styles): Use heading styles in your document 

C: Colour contrast: Use a strong colour contrast between any text and background colour

U: Use of images: Use alternative (alt) text on images

L: Links: hyperlinks should be embedded in text which in isolation would describe what the link was to. Avoid nondescriptive text for links, such as “click here”

P: Plain English: Use clear uncomplicated language, keeping jargon to a minimum

T: Table structure: Use simple tables without merged or split cells.

I’ve attached a copy of Andrew’s presentation below and clearly need to read it carefully myself!

2. Here’s a bit more on reflective practice from the two Steves, Walsh and Mann, this time their open-access article from ELTJ on Doing reflective practice: a data-led way forward. We all wholeheartedly agree that reflective practice is the only possible practice – but on what evidence base? PDF below. Here’s a link to their webinar last November, in case you missed it first time round https://youtu.be/M94bjcoMlNA

3. IH World – the International House World organisation – brings together all the IH schools around the world, 136 of them last time I looked https://ihworld.com/ Here’s a link to the most recent issue of their journal https://ihworld.com/ih-journal/issues/issue-48/ and there’s plenty of other issues to explore.

Here’s a piece from Issue 47 on Teaching people to tie their laces https://ihworld.com/ih-journal/issues/issue-47/teaching-people-to-tie-their-laces/

and here’s a piece on Getting Teacher Educators to Practice what we Preach from Issue 40 https://ihworld.com/ih-journal/issues/issue-40/customisation-in-teacher-training-programmes-getting-teacher-educators-to-practice-what-we-preach/

4. And, finally, a reminder that this year’s Hay Festival starts on 26^th May. All the live events are free, and nearly all events are then available for free replay for 24 hours after the start time of the event – but you need to sign up in advance for the event to be able to watch the recording free https://www.hayfestival.com/m-163-hay-festival-2021.aspx?skinid=1&currencysetting=GBP&localesetting=en-GB&resetfilters=true

Click the ‘Quick View’ radio button for a quick (obviously!) and convenient way to view the programme; hover your mouse over or tap on individual events for more detail. I’ve booked for several events, including number 75 and number 77!

1. This one, recommended by my colleague Adam, won’t be around for ever, he says: the Association for Learning Technology‘s 12th annual conference for Open Education research, practice and policy https://oer21.oerconf.org/

Adam recommends you click on whatever takes your fancy in the programme here https://oerxdomains21.org/index.html and follow your nose. If, like me, you’re a bit less of a digital native than Adam and find the home page doesn’t behave as you’re expecting it to when you click repeatedly on the picture of the TV, the menu’s in the top right-hand corner and it will take you here https://oerxdomains21.org/day1.html and here https://oerxdomains21.org/day2.html Be sure to scroll across – the programme covers more than two screens’ worth breadth-wise.

There’s probably another, simpler word for ‘breadth-wise’ that I’ve forgotten – maybe ‘across’? I’m enjoying listening to Rajiv Jhangiani’s closing plenary right now.

2. We’re now bang in the middle of the Cambridge English ‘Insights on Demand’ event which runs from 18^th to 20^th May. Here’s the very rich library of resources for the event http://view.ceros.com/cambridge/ondemandlibrary/p/1 and here’s the programme, just in case you get chance to pop in today or tomorrow http://view.ceros.com/cambridge/ondemandlistings/p/2

3. More than thirty million people worldwide have watched this short talk on ‘A Counterculture of Commitment’ by Pete Davis; I’m hoping some of you haven’t yet. This page has both video and transcript https://petedavis.substack.com/p/a-counterculture-of-commitment-speech Are you stuck in what Pete calls Infinite Browsing Mode? His claim is that the defining characteristic of our generation is keeping our options open (and avoiding commitment).

4. And, finally, look away now if you suffer from turophobia. If you don’t, you’ll enjoy these two short films https://youtu.be/UTgcNd5X0gw and https://youtu.be/Ed7wkHnaRmw

More of the same here https://www.youtube.com/user/NealsYardDairyFilms/videos

1. Very early notice of this OUP series on Top Tips for Motivation and Engagement on June 8^th, 9^th and 10^th, as they book up very early: https://elt.oup.com/events/global/top-tips-for-motivation-and-engagement?cc=gb&selLanguage=en

2. A series of four short videos on Who Needs Dictionaries?, each one just the right length for the bus or train ride home (but not for your drive home) https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Who+needs+dictionaries%3F+british+council

The results of this search seem to vary a little each time round, but at present it’s the four videos with Martin Rundell that come out on top!

3. Following on from yesterday’s BBC piece on When males are not needed, here’s a Royal Society of Arts (RSA) event at 13:00 UK time on Thursday 27^th May on How women can save the planet https://www.thersa.org/events/2021/05/how-women-can-save-the-planet

I’ll see if I can find a piece for tomorrow on Why men still matter (a little) …

4. And, finally, a surprise: something completely different, from the Tate https://youtu.be/XWPODod5Bf8

Here’s the Tate website https://www.tate.org.uk/

1. The first of two that I was prompted to include by a colleague from Japan, Gary Robert, this morning: BBC English’s 6 Minute English https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english Lead story at present? ‘When males are not needed’!

Programme archives back to 2008 here http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/

Gary and his colleagues have also produced a really good guide to using the site for teachers and students: PDF below.

3. And here’s the second of Gary’s tips: newsela. You’ll need to sign up for free here first https://newsela.com/ Once you’ve done so, there’s a wealth of extensive reading material at all levels available to you – or your students, who can sign up for themselves, which might make setting homework a lot easier? https://newsela.com/content/browse/browse-home/ckcdgr4qy00003hof00i2mwlq/#news-articles-latest

PDF of another very useful site guide from Gary and his colleagues below.

[PDF]

3. Next, three recordings of sessions at this year’s online TESOL conference by British Council colleagues from round the world: Pandemic Challenges: Accessibility, Inclusion and Engagement with John Shackleton, Gemma Bellhouse and Paul Muir https://youtu.be/RiqJc2b9FGo Pandemic Challenges: Pedagogical Skills, Technological Awareness, and Student Interaction with Graham Stanley and Ruth Horsfall https://youtu.be/YaW_0t8nIng The Pandemic Challenge: From Crisis Response to New Normality? with Richard Spiby, Hala Ahmed, Jenny Simms and Tim Phillips https://youtu.be/XKNEC7V7UVQ

4. And, finally, I mentioned Bob Dylan’s own radio show on Friday. A new five-part series about him began on BBC Radio 4 today: ‘It Ain’t Me You’re Looking For: Bob Dylan at 80’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w4ny I enjoyed the first one!

1. Chris Farrell from the Centre of English Studies is offering a month’s free trial of the online learning programme they developed as part of the PRELIM project in exchange for a little feedback. Visit their platform https://cesdirectlearning.podia.com/ and choose the course(s) that interest you most. The coupon code ‘BC’ will give you free access to all the courses for one month, until June 14th.

There are language courses from A2 to C1 and a range of teacher development courses, each made up of six half-hour lessons, including teaching the four skills, CLIL and Hybrid Learning. Chris would be delighted if you arranged to take a course together with colleagues from your school or district or teachers association.

Full details in the PDF below and link to feedback survey here https://tinyurl.com/57v89h3w (I’ll repost that survey link in three weeks’ time.)

2. Another good, free FutureLearn course has just started, on Communicating across Cultures https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/communicating-across-cultures Twelve hours, spread over three weeks – perhaps the sort of thing that your more ambitious older students might like to try? The course itself, with participants drawn from all over the globe, will be a chance to practise the theory they’re learning.

3. A friend who works in a museum, Henrietta Lidchi, has thought and written a lot over the years about the colonial past of many museum collections, and she introduced me earlier this week to this short video, First Contact, by Stephen Paul Judd about the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in the not-yet-united-or-even-invented states of America https://vimeo.com/145098773

If you have more than a passing interest in the issues of colonialism, collections and return, you might like to read the wide-ranging afterword to Henrie’s book, Dividing the Spoils: Perspectives on military collections and the British empire, that she kindly agreed I could share with you – PDFs of afterword and book flyer below. I don’t think Henrie’s expecting too many of us to buy it at £80, though!

4. And, finally, I’d always thought my colleague Michael was a bit of an Abba fan. Not true! Try this wonderful Bob Dylan series that he’s just recommended http://www.themetimeradio.com/

1. Next Monday, 17th May, at 12:00 UK time, hosted by the University of East Anglia: Social interaction in language teacher education: What a corpus can and can’t tell us by Fiona Farr from the University of Limerick. More info and a registration link here: https://bit.ly/33kKsOr From the blurb: “… it is still true to say that although language teacher education is much done, it is little studied.” The talk will look at “specific evidence-based accounts of the spoken and written discourse of experienced language teacher educators and student teachers”. Can’t quite express why, but this one intrigues me!

2. Next Tuesday, 18^th May, at 15:00 UK time is the third in the OECD ‘Ask an Expert’ series: Why play is so important for child learning and development will explore will “explore the important role play and risk-taking has in children’s lives, and how digital play is changing the game”. More info and registration here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_diBIQTTlT3SfYWrZ6-FIQg Good that risk hasn’t been banned completely!

3. If crime fiction’s your bag, you’ll easily spend an hour or three exploring the Crime Reads site https://crimereads.com/ Here’s a piece on a film that Alfred Hitchcock never made about George Blake’s escape from Wormwood Scrubs Prison in 1966 https://crimereads.com/george-blake-prison-escape-hitchcock/ and here’s an interview with one of my current favourites, Jane Harper https://crimereads.com/jane-harper-the-australian-crime-author-everyone-seems-to-be-reading/

4. And, finally, an NTS ‘In Focus’ session on Gil Scott-Heron https://www.nts.live/shows/in-focus/episodes/in-focus-gil-scott-heron-10th-december-2019 Love it! None of that grime/garage/ jungle stuff ….

1. First out of the traps today, the first episode of the new Climate Connection podcast series https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/climate-connection-episode-1-taking-temperature-0 You can stream it or download it, and there’s notes on each episode and a transcript.

Direct link to first episode here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Climate%20Connection%20Episode%201%20%281%29.mp3  You’ll recognise the voice talking at the beginning, I’m sure!

2. More climate discussion (but no hot air): Green ELT opportunities & obstacles: savings and costs is the title of the next ELT Footprint UK online meeting at 16:00 UK time next Wednesday, 19^th May. UK-focussed but travels well. More info here https://eltfootprint.uk/events/ and a registration link here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ldeqhrT4vEtzpgD4hBT_ENNVATL0kDE0V

3. Just started, the latest edition of the FutureLearn course on Teaching Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/teaching-languages-in-primary-schools-putting-research-into-practice Three hours a week for three weeks in which to explore how children learn languages and how to support their linguistic development.

4. A reminder that Reallyenglish are offering thirty days free access to their online IELTS course, which offers 180 hours of IELTS-focused English language self-study https://www.reallyenglish.com/free-trial-request-bc?hs_preview=niRJFZYy-45198326680 Six hours a day for the next thirty days – we’ll all be C2!

5. And, finally, this week’s phobia: thermophobia – something we may all have to learn to live with if we don’t get our collective climate act together soon.

1. The latest report from Oxford University Press (OUP), Education: The journey towards a digital revolution, draws on insights from OUP staff from 7 countries—the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Spain, and Turkey – as well as from hundreds of teachers globally, and extensive secondary research. One of the report’s recommendations is that ‘Governments should actively collaborate and learn from teachers and students and use their recent experiences to inform future policy and curriculum development’ – one can only hope! https://global.oup.com/news-items/homepage/reshape?cc=gb&WT.ac=reshape PDF below.

2. eLearning Africa’s ‘Primary & Secondary Education Virtual Exchange’ is free to attend if you work in education in Africa,: more info and registration here https://live.eventtia.com/en/elearning-africa-primary-secondary-education/Registerpage Plenty of notice to allow you to register.

eLearning Africa’s website is here https://www.elearning-africa.com/

3. The next TeachingEnglish ‘Education Exchange’ webinar, on Careers education in a pandemic, is tomorrow, Wednesday 12^th July, at 16:00 UK time https://www.britishcouncil.org/education/schools/education-exchange-digital-events/careers-education The panel – from a wide range of educational and cultural backgrounds – will look at the impact of the pandemic on young people’s career plans and hopes. You need to register.

4. I hope today’s message will not be an exercise in frustration for many of you, with #2 free for Africa only, and this item addressed (in part) only to A. S. Hornby Educational Trust UK (ASHET) university MA course alumni.

Over the years, since A. S. Hornby founded ASHET in 1961, over five hundred ELT professionals from around the world have benefited from an MA scholarship at a UK university. Until recently, those alumni came together in a Yahoo Group, but Yahoo groups became defunct last December, alas. ASHET is now consulting alumni on a possible successor to the Yahoo Group and invites them to complete the following short survey by 31^st May https://forms.gle/3VgXaDsBcGPHnVYo7 Alumni only, please!

However, ASHET’S Teacher Association Project Awards are open to all associations, and more info can be found here https://www.hornby-trust.org.uk/projects#Projects Copies of the information sheet and the application form below. More information on ASHET here https://www.hornby-trust.org.uk/

5. And, finally, prompted by the behaviour of the birds on our balcony since we started putting out ‘fat balls’ for them recently, here’s last summer’s National Theatre of Scotland short play about the war that develops between one man and the jackdaws in his back garden when he changes the bird food he gives them https://youtu.be/7OzSmjplkMM Switch on the subtitles if Peter Mullan’s accent is a challenge!

All the Scenes for Survival plays here https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/events/scenes-for-survival