Roy Cross's Blog

1. Podcasts, webinars and blog posts from Pearson under the banner of Experiences: ‘a fresh look at important questions’ that aims ‘to come up with new answers’: https://www.pearson.com/english/professional-development/experiences.html  The four topics addressed are critical thinking, STEAM (not the kind that comes out of your kettle), mindfulness and career skills.

Also from Pearson, Warm Up: https://www.pearson.com/english/catalogue/assessment/warm-up.html  No need to take PTE, but Pearson don’t mind if you do!

2. One for your science-inclined students to explore: https://www.britishscienceweek.org/  I suggest they start with the Smashing Stereotypes page: https://www.britishscienceweek.org/plan-your-activities/smashing-stereotypes/

3. From the Royal Opera House here in London starting on Monday 8th March, a week-long celebration of International Women’s day: https://www.roh.org.uk/international-womens-day-2021 Maybe start with this one on Monday? https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/kind-regards-details

4. A wonderfully eclectic Eastern and Central Europe one-hundred-book-long reading list from The Calvert Journal, starting with The Life Written by Himself, written by the Archpriest Avvakum in prison in Siberia in 1660, through to F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry, edited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse in 2020: https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/12441/100-books-eastern-europe-central-asia

The only favourite of mine who appears – to my surprise – to be missing from the list is the Austrian writer Joseph Roth. Here’s a piece about Roth by his long-time UK champion, Michael Hofmann: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview20 Tell me if I missed Roth in the list, please!

5. And, finally, 8 professions that are hiring more people in 2021, according to LinkedIn: https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/1575649839490737/  I’m investing in #7!

1. I hope this next OECD webinar is not too depressing: How do gender stereotypes affect five-year-olds’ ideas about the future? Monday 8^th March at 13:00 UK time https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sZSxLQdcS_qandQpIEc2IQ

2. A free book in the Cambridge University Press Elements in Applied Linguistics series, edited by Rodney Jones, Viral Discourse, about the language we’ve been using to talk about the pandemic https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/viral-discourse/21AB09E9D27AC77408ACEDC3E0F6BEC9

plus an invite to a webinar discussing the book at 12:00 UK time on 11^th March https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4016125218460/WN_HGB0c_8LRXa1tJzT2pYqCg 

To download and skim-read – or indeed read! – the book before the webinar might be the best way to go about it? Let me know if you have difficulty with the book download and I can send you a PDF.

3. Against Disappearance: A discussion about trade and culture at 14:00 UK time next Tuesday, 9^th March, is the next event in the Against Disappearance series of discussions about cultural heritage and contemporary culture organised by the British Council and the Shubbak Festival of contemporary Arab arts and culture https://www.shubbak.co.uk/ Marina Warner, Hammour Ziada and Abu Amirah will be having a lively discussion. More info here https://uk.live.solas.britishcouncil.digital/arts/culture-development/against-disappearance and registration here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/against-disappearance-a-discussion-about-trade-and-culture-registration-141694394749

4. I was having an online discussion with colleagues today about happiness – as one does! – and how cortisol, the ‘fight-or-flight’ hormone, is sadly more powerful than ‘happy’ hormones – that’s shorthand that will annoy endocrinologists – like serotonin and dopamine. (The catch would seem to be that cortisol also plays a role in the production of the other two.) Anyway, two recommendations from that discussion:

the first, a great TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight. Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: she had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions – motion, speech, self-awareness – shut down one by one – and understood in detail what was happening to her. She lived to tell the tale! You may want to look away when the human brain teaching aid appears. https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight?language=en

and the second, an equally positive talk from last year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival by Rutger Bregman about his ‘hopeful history,’ Humankind: https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/rutger-bregman-there-is-hope-for-the-human-race

5. And, finally, a shameless plug for ‘God’s Own Country’: https://youtu.be/WohhLX_YLlE You can take the boy out of Yorkshire but you can’t take the Yorkshire out of the boy ….

1. The Culture for Sustainable and Inclusive Peace Network Plus (CUSP) will launch itself (!) next Monday at 14:00 UK time: https://www.cuspnetwork.org/home/events/ In their own words, CUSP aims to “strengthen artistic and cultural institutions in low- and middle-income countries so that they can become a reference point for the identification and transformation of social conflict whilst ensuring equal participation of women and girls in this process”. Pop in next Monday to find out more!

2. Tomorrow, Thursday 4^th March, at 14:00 UK time you can join a webinar led by the Hoopla-Macmillan Education Brazil Garden Project team, Local Innovation Award winners at last year’s ELTons: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/garden-project-bringing-learning-life-sustainable-elt-practices Nothing to do with plastic detectives – I think! Link to Hoopla here https://www.hooplaeducation.com/ and to Macmillan Education Brazil here http://www.macmillan.com.br/

3. A quick reminder of the Gender in Language Education courses that start next Monday: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/gender-language-education-gender-representation-teaching-materials  PDF of course flyer attached below – please share widely!

4. The British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) has just published issue 118 of its newsletter. The ‘B’ in BAAL is a bit of a misnomer: this issue has a piece  on ‘Tracing the causes of the rise of English as an international language’ by Anna Kristina Hultgren from the Open University here in the UK, a report from Brazil on ‘Why and how the Rio Exploratory Practice Group is surviving in the pandemic’, and a review of Jim McKinley and Heath Rose’s Doing Research in Applied Linguistics (DRAL) series for Routledge: https://www.baal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/118_BAAL-News-FV.pdf PDF copy of newsletter below.

5. There’ll be a word for this week’s phobia, hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. That word is not onomatopoeic but something similar, to describe words that embody their own meanings. And, no, hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was not in the MS Word dictionary – so I hope I’ve spelt it right!

1. The LearnEnglish sites have some good stuff for next Monday – or indeed any other day!

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/video-zone/international-womens-day-we-are-generationequality

https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/study-break/video-zone/how-can-more-women-get-into-politics

https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/video-zone/kamala-harris-why-her-new-job-so-important

2. TIRF is The International Research Foundation for English Language Education, and they’ve just published a new paper on ESP in their Language Education in Review series: https://www.tirfonline.org/2021/02/tirf-language-education-in-review-series-english-for-specific-purposes/ You’ll find previous papers in the series here, including one on the Common European Framework of Reference and one on English as a Medium of Instruction: https://www.tirfonline.org/publications/

Plus, TIRF’s announcement of this year’s Doctoral Dissertation Grants, which may be well timed for some of you: https://www.tirfonline.org/grants-prizes/doctoral-dissertation-grants/

3. The March book of the month at the Hay Festival is What We Owe Each Other by Minouche Shafik. Her book seeks to answer the salient question of our time, “At a time when government seems broken, where can we find a framework for social, economic, and political renewal?” https://www.hayfestival.com/p-17441-minouche-shafik-talks-to-matina-stevis-gridneff.aspx

There’s a Q&A with Baroness Shafik on Tuesday, 9^th March at 19:00 UK time. You may need to explore the page for the registration link: on my computer, it was small and in the centre at the top of the screen! If you have a moment, read her CV – the very definition of stellar, as in the phrase ‘stellar CV’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minouche_Shafik,_Baroness_Shafik

4. And, finally, a good piece in the latest issue of The New Yorker, Last Exit from Afghanistan, from Dexter Filkins, who wrote the excellent The Forever War about the ill-fated (ill-conceived, ill-planned, ill-conducted, just plain ill) USA interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/last-exit-from-afghanistan He’s clearly pretty brave himself but not as brave as some of the people he describes, such as Fawzia Koofi.

1. In the lead up to International Women’s Day, the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) are launching a new core resource package for gender in education in emergencies: the ‘EiE-GenKit’. Register here to join the launch event on Wednesday 3 March at 12:00 UK time https://unicef.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PugoM3glSyCgK2EZbVZm9w

More info on UNGEI here https://www.ungei.org/what-we-do/gender-education-emergencies

on INEE here https://inee.org/

and on ECW – who I think I’ve mentioned before – here https://www.educationcannotwait.org/

2. Two pieces from just down the road here in Cambridge: scroll down the page a little for a time lapse video of the Cambridge University Botanical Garden’s Moonflower eventually opening: https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/the-suspense-is-over/

and click here for the programme for Cambridge University’s free festival starting 26^th March https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/ Early notice so you can book early – a number of the events have limited capacity.

3. A great set of animated films from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage,  Animating the Mother Tongue: An Indigenous Language Playlist https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/mother-tongue-indigenous-language-animation Try the Mapudungun one!

4. More – yet more! – on accents, from the British Library: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects For a blast from the past, try this collection https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects

The one in the Yorkshire section from Askrigg https://goo.gl/maps/koe6AuCgcq2KpEny9 comes from just up the dale from my family hometown, Richmond – give it a go! https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0006XX-0500V1

5. And, finally, another – yet another! – podcast: https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/ 362 weekly episodes on strange facts and counting …

1. More on accents, including Glaswegian, courtesy of my colleague Christine, Sadie Ryan’s wonderful podcast all about accents and perceptions of accents and language and identity, Accentricity  https://www.accentricity-podcast.com/

2. More sounds to explore over the weekend, the latest New York Times list of recommended podcasts https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/arts/podcast-recommendations.html All human life is there!

‘All human life is there’ used to be the claim made by the News of the World – the newspaper, not the film: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jul/10/news-of-the-world-history)

3. Something more sombre, the Annual International Migration and Forced Displacement Trends and Policies Report for the G20, which notes the impact of the pandemic on migration and displacement. The numbers may look better but they aren’t really. Link here  http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/FINAL-2020-OECD-ILO-UNHCR-IOM-G20-report.pdf and I’ve attached a copy of both the whole document AND the executive summary only below.

4. From the ever-surprising World Economic Forum website, https://www.weforum.org/focus Black historical figures who shook the world, from a warrior queen to a Mexican president https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/black-historical-figures-musa-mbande-medici-samurai/

5. And, finally, a great piece of writing by the Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/07/13/dream-pictures

He’s led an interesting and principled life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenzabur%C5%8D_%C5%8Ce

1. Two ELTons opportunities to start with.

One, an invitation to be a judge next time round – details here and please note that “there are no fixed qualifications needed to be a judge (…) judges typically have a wide range of experience in the EFL world”: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/become-eltons-judge-0

The second, an invitation to submit your project or product for an award if you’ve produced an innovative English language teaching or learning product, publication or service in the last two years – which must be pretty nearly all of you, mustn’t it? Details here, and please note that entries for the Local Innovation category need not be in partnership with Cambridge Assessment – they’re the sponsors (thank you!) of the award: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/eltons-innovation-awards-2021-applications

2. Here’s the latest update from a previous winner of an ELTons award, Digital Learning Associates (DLA): a new article by Philip Kerr, Extraordinary Disabilities, about the representation of people with disabilities in ELT materials: https://digitallearningassociates.com/whats-new/2021/2/24/extraordinary-disabilities-philip-kerr-writes-about-the-representation-of-disability-in-elt  Philip says that “better representation of people with disabilities would be a relatively small step in the direction of a more inclusive approach to education”.

To accompany Philip’s article, DLA have curated a selection of existing Ready to Run authentic videos that tell stories of people dealing with a variety of life challenges, including physical disability, from around the world: https://vimeo.com/showcase/lifechallenges Check out Paralympic champion Ade Adepitan’s story!

3. Reimagining Education Through Technology is the title of a wide-ranging report from Central Square Foundation https://www.centralsquarefoundation.org/ who work to transform the school education system in India to improve the learning outcomes of all children, especially from low-income communities. Report here https://centralsquarefoundation.org/re-imagining-education/ and PDF attached.

4. And, finally, at 18:30 UK time tomorrow, Friday 26^th February, Monique Roffey will be live in conversation at the Bradford Literature Festival talking about her new book, The Mermaid of Black Conch: https://www.facebook.com/events/342168247062760

Monique’s book is shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio prize this year: https://www.rathbonesfolioprize.com/the-2021-shortlist-2-3-2-2/

1. Young people don’t feel they can make a difference is the sad message from this article by Andreas Schleicher of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on what schools can do to support the climate: https://oecdedutoday.com/green-at-fifteen-schools-support-climate/ However, he suggests, schools can help students develop a stronger sense of agency.

2. Bags of good stuff on the new UK National Poetry Day website  https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/ including free posters and lesson plans to download https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/education/free-education-resource-downloads/  and some BBC counting songs https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-counting-songs/zn67kmn You might find you have to right click on some of the resources and select ‘open in new tab’ – on the other hand, you might not! I’ve attached a John Hegley poem example below.

3. I was once (perceived to be; I wasn’t really) the first Sassenach to lead the British Council Scotland team. Early in my time in Scotland, I made the journey by train across from Edinburgh to Glasgow, to visit Glasgow University. On arrival in Glasgow I took a taxi whose driver confirmed my suspicion that a certain kind of Scot was not prepared to make any linguistic allowances at all for visiting Sassenachs. The Glaswegian rapper Loki’s accent in this short video, however, is clarity itself in comparison! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jd7kHjsYNU&feature=youtu.be

Once you’ve tuned in, try this interview of Loki’s with Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy https://youtu.be/9sxENe4cvGU

4. This week’s phobia is trypanophobia, from which I’m glad to say I did not suffer yesterday when I joined the very privileged minority of the world’s population to have been vaccinated against Covid.

5. And, finally, and available only until Sunday, a tribute to the World War One jazzman James Reese Europe and his band, The Harlem Hellfighters: https://youtu.be/5UCwuV2tFNk

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on the 369th Infantry Regiment, which was one of the first African American regiments to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, and their extraordinary regimental band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)#369th_Regiment_Military_Band

1. On International Women’s Day on March 8^th, as part of its commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), the British Council is offering a set of three free online courses for teachers on Gender in Language Education. Here’s a link to a page with more information on the three modules and how to sign up: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/gender-language-education-gender-representation-teaching-materials and I’ve attached a PDF of the flyer below.

There are three introductory FB events next week, one on each module:

March 1^st: Gender representation in teaching materials

https://www.facebook.com/events/191596546085907

March 3^rd: Gender equality in teaching practice

https://www.facebook.com/events/895750234570062

March 5^th: Gender equality in education

https://www.facebook.com/events/514245716220019

2. The London School of Economics (LSE) runs a very rich programme of online events, not all by any means about economics: http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/Search-Events

This one tomorrow on Making Your Voice Heard by Connson Locke looks good: http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2021/02/202102241400/voice

3. Two surveys next. The first is from the European Centre for Modern Languages, who’ve asked me to say that it’s NOT just for teachers from Europe! The purposes of the survey are to gather information and encourage reflection about ways language education has altered during the pandemic and to learn about respondents’ experiences, lessons learned and good practice. https://languageeducationandcovid.questionpro.com/a/TakeSurvey?tt=L/GSxVK/hYy5RCNGxsIbHA%3D%3D&lcfpn=false

4. The second survey is actually a reminder of Gary Motteram’s one that I mentioned last week, on how teachers and teacher educators use communication tools and social media for professional development. Gary’s had LOTS of responses from South Asia, for which he’s very grateful, but he’d love a few more from other parts of the world: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtiaABY4tKqFTlmpCEGVhXCPxNa7n3LmVDnQsTKEwqZN3eMQ/viewform

5. And, finally, a podcast by two self-styled renegades, two of my heroes. Here’s a short introductory video https://youtu.be/BAeIskxCnSc and here’s a link to the podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/0NtR6A0rgFiwpFZs2aZBun?si=u5OPbVs0S5CYYjmrdtsYDA&nd=1 I’m halfway through the first episode as I write and loving it!

0. Oh dearie me! My colleague Mark has ever so gently pointed out that I got in a right muddle with my days of the week and dates for the webinars I mentioned on Friday.

The Eaquals https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/event/nazan-gelbal-more-interactive-and-effective-lessons-with-less-tools-apps-how-to-coach-and-mentor-effectively-in-a-crisis/ and PIE https://www.crowdcast.io/e/the-pie-webinar–futureproofed/register events I got right – though ‘less tools’ has occasioned a little excitement among more traditional readers –

but the Bilingual English project silver jubilee event is on Friday 26^th February https://www.britishcouncil.es/en/events/25-years-mefp-british-council-bilingual-education-programme registration link here https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8252118853419621900?source=EES+UK and the National Geographic Learning webinar is on Saturday 27^th February https://cengage.zoom.us/webinar/register/8016133931986/WN_5bSDhFnZQZyLrRE2tXRh6g. Sorry!

1. Also absolutely, totally, irrevocably definitely on Saturday 27^th February, at 10:00 UK time, is the next NATESOL webinar, on Comics & the Serious Art of Learning a Language: Using Comics & Graphic Novels for Multi-Layered Learning with Jess Poole of Leeds University. More details in the flyer attached below; register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekN3wrai99R9a2yuvpv-0MJNe4Q64BdKq0Ucml5kReD3JvAg/viewform

2. Does everyone know what a ‘twofer’ is, I wonder? The term usually applies to bottles of shampoo and the like https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twofer but today it refers to Dina Mehmedbegovic-Smith and Thomas H Bak’s dual blog post on a) International Mother Tongue Day and b) the Healthy Linguistic Diet (HLD) website’s fifth birthday: http://healthylinguisticdiet.com/international-mother-tongue-day-and-hld-5th-birthday/

You’ll find the HLD website, which has a wide range of different material, here http://healthylinguisticdiet.com/

3. The Race to Fix Virtual Meetings is the title of this New York Times piece which asks the rhetorical question, “Sick of boring grids of heads?” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/magazine/video-conference.html and describes life beyond – well beyond – Zoom.

Hands up if you’ve heard of Kumospace, Pluto, Gather.town,  Hopin and Run the World? I can think of one colleague who might have done …

4. Also sent me by my colleague Mark, to soften the day-date blow to my self-esteem: Paisley Book Festival https://paisleybookfest.com/events/

I fancy this one at 10:00 UK time on Saturday – that’s Saturday! – 27^th February: https://paisleybookfest.com/events/1173606787/ and hope to persuade my granddaughter to watch ‘with’ me.

5. And, finally, a bit of light relief: https://youtu.be/sDsn-RRmDXU