Roy Cross's Blog

1. Lots of good stuff on the IATEFL events page, where the large majority of events are still free to non-members https://www.iatefl.org/events Coming up this week is a TEA (Testing, Evaluation & Assessment) SIG & ESP (English for Specific Purposes) SIG event: ‘Content or Language: Do you Know Which One You’re Assessing?’ I suspect the answer to that question is – or would often be, if we asked ourselves the question – ‘No, now that I stop to think about it!”

More info here https://www.iatefl.org/events/223 and registration link here https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BmujUAvrS8K-ORWGt4Q3cw

2. The UKFIET blog is well worth an occasional visit https://www.ukfiet.org/blog/ Featured on the front page at present are a piece by Emma Wagner of Save the Children on their new report, Action Towards Increased Quality Education for Internally Displaced Children – PDF below;

a piece by a UK-Ethiopia team on the widening of the education divide in Ethiopia caused by the pandemic;

and two thought-provoking pieces on diversity and the notion of ‘building back better’ by Yvette Hutchinson and Ruth Naylor, respectively.

3. What is to be Done About Fake News in Politics? is the title of an LSE event this Wednesday, 12^th May at 17:00 UK time: “fake news is widely believed to have played a major role in the election of President Donald Trump, the outcome of the Brexit Referendum, and in general threatens the healthy functioning of news media in modern democracy”, says the event blurb. What can we do about it? More info and registration link here https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2021/05/202105121700/news

4. And, finally, from the archives of Cambridge Assessment, a glimpse of exam board activity in 1938 in the months leading up to the start of the Second World War when an exam pass was literally a matter of life and death for some people https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/598087-research-matters-30-autumn-2020.pdf PDF below and link to the Research Matters home page here https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/our-research/all-published-resources/research-matters/

1. NILE’s report on ‘hybrid learning’ – will all learning be hybrid in future, I wonder? https://www.nile-elt.com/product?catalog=Hybrid-Learning-in-Language-Teaching-Organisations If you want to watch the recording of the discussion, which is good, you’ll need to register – but that’s free. PDF below.

2. Maybe not all for everyone, but something here for nearly everybody? The Queen’s University Belfast BAAL/CUP Seminar on Research Synthesis https://researchsynthesisseminar.weebly.com/programme.html

3. Some recent pieces from The Conversation:

i) Artificial Intelligence’s best chat up lines https://theconversation.com/can-i-see-your-parts-list-what-ais-attempted-chat-up-lines-tell-us-about-computer-generated-language-159660

ii) how companies are spying on home workers https://theconversation.com/remote-working-has-led-to-managers-spying-more-on-staff-here-are-three-ways-to-curb-it-159604

iii) has the human race reached peak intelligence? https://theconversation.com/iq-tests-are-humans-getting-smarter-158837

4. If I could have made the link work, I’d have included some rather good British Council Nepal radio programmes, but I couldn’t, so please forgive me a piece of self-indulgence: me – 1’28” in – and my daughter Emily – 59’15” in – talking about living between two cultures, Britain and Croatia https://youtu.be/5iL5sOAVFP8

5. And, finally, Dive into some Scottish Ballet https://youtu.be/vPhiQxNYpsc

1. Very short notice of tonight’s Edinburgh International Booker Prize event, which can also serve – that’s my excuse, at any rate – as a reminder of the series as a whole: tonight at 19:30 UK time sees translator Megan McDowell and Argentinian journalist, novelist and short story writer Mariana Enriquez discussing Marian’s new collection of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, with writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn: https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/mariana-enriquez-megan-mcdowell-with-daniel-hahn/player

More info on the rest of the series here https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/news/the-international-booker-prize-2021-shortlistee-events-announced

and a previous event with Mariana Enriquez here https://youtu.be/a8JG0uj-qQY

2. A National Geographic Learning webinar next Tuesday, 11^th May, Developing Confident Communicators for the Real World, with John Hughes https://webinars.eltngl.com/4-maydeveloping-confident-communicators-for-the-real-world/ Once at 09:00 UK time and again at 14:00 UK time.

John says “even learners with an intermediate or advanced level of English can sometimes struggle to get their message across in public – not because they don’t have the English they need, but because they lack the inward and outward confidence” – and the webinar is about helping them develop the confidence to do themselves justice.

3. Next Tuesday, 11^th May at 13:00 UK time sees the launch of Reforming Education and Challenging Inequalities in Southern Contexts at the REAL (Research for Equitable Access and Learning) Centre here in Cambridge. The book is a tribute to Maurice Colclough and offers in-depth analyses of education and social inequality in Southern contexts, using data from Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Pakistan and Uganda.

More info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-reforming-education-and-challenging-inequalities-tickets-148177989355?aff=ebdsoporgprofile and a PDF of chapter 1 below. Several other chapters are also available to download free.

4. And, finally, I’m not quite sure to expect from this one, the launch of Ilana Halperin’s There is a Volcano Behind My House exhibition at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute in Scotland at 15:30 UK time on Saturday, 8^th May https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/there-is-a-volcano-behind-my-house-launch-tickets-152480899475

I visited Mount Stuart some years ago and found it a beautiful place. I hope they capture some of that magic online https://www.mountstuart.com/ Here’s Mount Stuart on the map https://goo.gl/maps/UKaByLNjfDQcy54P7

1. Nik Peachey is showing his age, I reckon – Mario Rinvolucri and Paul Davis’s ‘Dictation’ was one of my very favourite books too, back in the day. Good blog post from Nik on dictation here https://peacheypublications.com/3-dictation-activities-for-the-remote-and-physical-classroom

2. All the recordings from the English UK Teachers Day on 22^nd April can now be found here https://www.englishuk.com/en/about-us/news-press/english-uk-news?newsId=3177 – well worth a rummage around!

The day included two very well received plenaries: the first, on The native factor and the last five years by Silvana Richardson with Chia Suan Chong, is here https://youtu.be/SuZ4mJhFYYo and the second, on Climate action in language education with Colm Downes, Christopher Graham and Dianna Torosyan, is here https://youtu.be/yGlRo8OxMlY

3. Pretty sure I’ve not included anything from Costa Rica before. Starting tomorrow at 17:00 UK time and more or less weekly thereafter is the University of Costa Rica’s seminar series on ‘Linguistic Policy, Linguistic Planning and Evaluation in Central America and the Caribbean: Realities and Needs’.

More info here https://inil.ucr.ac.cr/seminar-on-linguistic-policy-linguistic-planning-and-evaluation-in-central-america-and-the-caribbean-realities-and-needs/

and registration link here https://udecr.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErd-CppjwpG9EGfDRGh-SBbGdSS6ETGPgG?timezone_id=Europe%2FLondon

4. Here’s an interesting recent report on textbook use conducted for the UK Publishers Association by Public First http://www.publicfirst.co.uk/how-do-teachers-use-textbooks.html The report’s findings – possibly not very surprising, given who commissioned it, but nonetheless thought-provoking – include a) without textbooks, teachers would spend an additional 5.7 hours a week planning their lessons; b) without textbooks, the UK state education system would require an additional 52,250 teachers to function, which would cost nearly £3 billion a year. PDF below.

5. This week’s phobia is amychophobia, and here’s a wonderful short film that I’ve just discovered – but some of you may know already as it’s been around for a while – about a Belgian man who clearly does NOT suffer from it https://youtu.be/6F513pM5YdQ

1. NATESOL have very kindly offered four free places at their annual conference on Saturday, 15^th May. The programme includes Language change and the learner: from buzzwords to basics and Challenging change: Exploratory Practice, Mentoring and Quality of Life in Language Teaching. PDF with details below. If you’d like one of those free tickets, please send me an e-mail or a WhatsApp by 17:00 UK time on Monday 10^th May, and I’ll put your name in the virtual hat!

2. Here’s another, more musical take on ‘growth mindset’ from C. J. Luckey, courtesy of my colleague Amy who was shown it by her children’s primary school in Delhi – love it! https://youtu.be/J6CnrFvY94E

3. Another friend has drawn my attention to Carol Dweck’s work on mindset, and here’s a good Farnam Street (FS) blog post on Carol’s work https://fs.blog/2015/03/carol-dweck-mindset/ which also includes a link to her ten-minute-long TED talk on the topic https://youtu.be/_X0mgOOSpLU

FS is a new one on me – I’ll explore and report back. I’ve spotted another post called Efficiency is the Enemy which appeals ….

4. The next webinar in the Essex, Botswana, Dar es Salaam and Zambia ‘Language and Sustainable Development Series’ at 12:00 UK time on Friday, May 7^th is on Inclusive multilingual literacy: the LILIEMA model and will be presented by Friederike Lüpke, Jérémi Fahed Sagna and Miriam Weidl. “LILIEMA seeks to overcome the exclusion and minoritisation of speakers and their repertoires resulting from language-based multilingual education programmes, where some languages, lects, or written representations are always excluded.”

More info and registration link here https://essex-university.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwucOusrjMqHdaIqxK1E10wvyFHIloKrJ3G and more on the series here https://multilingual-learning.com/webinar-series/

5. And, finally, I’m reasonably confident that I know what ‘DnB’ is, but I’m less sure what ‘Jungle’ is – and I’m absolutely sure I couldn’t distinguish between the two, if put on the spot. I’m going to listen to the latest episode of The Selector with my mindset switched to ‘growth’ https://music.britishcouncil.org/selector-radio

1. First up, a chance to win a copy of a recent Multilingual Matters (MM) publication: Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts, edited by Annamaria Pinter & (Harry) Kuchah Kuchah, or Assessment for Learning in Primary Language Learning and Teaching by Maria Britton. Send me either an e-mail message or a WhatsApp message by 19:00 UK time on Wednesday, 5^th May, specifying which book you’d like and which format (PDF or paperback), and I’ll put your name in the virtual hat for Harry to make the draw before the webinar with the authors that MM have organised at 16:00 UK time on 6^th May.

Webinar link here https://zoom.us/webinar/register/6316185683047/WN_36W58D15R52CuMGggmCafA

More detail on the two publications here https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/Ethical-and-Methodological-Issues-in-Researching-Young-Language-Learners-in-School-Contexts/?k=9781800411418

and here https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/Assessment-for-Learning-in-Primary-Language-Learning-and-Teaching/?k=9781800410633

2. Three pieces from the latest World Economic Forum newsletter next.

First, what a surprise, most people don’t want to go back to the office after the pandemic https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/survey-65-of-remote-workers-do-not-want-to-return-to-the-office/ Most teachers think differently, I’d imagine.

Second, 6 African cities leading the way to a green future – care to guess which six before reading the article? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/africa-cities-renewables-ren21/

Third, a scientific paper offering a guideline to limit indoor airborne transmission of COVID-19 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118 I can’t understand very much of it, but the summary’s good and clear and bad news for gym bunnies and singers: “To minimize risk of infection, one should avoid spending extended periods in highly populated areas. One is safer in rooms with large volume and high ventilation rates. One is at greater risk in rooms where people are exerting themselves in such a way as to increase their respiration rate and pathogen output, for example, by exercising, singing, or shouting. Since the rate of inhalation of contagion depends on the volume flux of both the exhalation of the infected individual and the inhalation of the susceptible person, the risk of infection increases as Q2b. Likewise, masks worn by both infected and susceptible persons will reduce the risk of transmission by a factor p2m, a dramatic effect given that pm≤0.1 for moderately high-quality masks (74, 75).” PDF below for those of you keen to work out what Q2b is.

3. Some weekend viewing: a good recent Chatham House discussion of Joe Biden’s first 100 days. The panellists explore the implications of Biden’s first 100 days for the future of US foreign policy – and the implications of that policy for the rest of us around the world https://youtu.be/4aYRwbvK8AU

4. Earlier today, I was about to begin an e-mail to three women colleagues with ‘Hey, guys!’ and then thought better of doing so. (I need to ask Marta, Amy and Ellen what they would have thought, had I done so!) Here’s a piece on the subject from The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/08/guys-gender-neutral/568231/

5. And, finally, this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a classic. Watch Boris Johnson getting red in the face as Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party opposition, questions him about who paid for his wallpaper https://youtu.be/gzNAeFSqOyI

1. My own understanding of the notion of growth mindset is a pretty rudimentary one, largely gleaned from Lucy Crehan’s book, Cleverlands, which compared six national education systems that perform well in PISA with each other. Put simply, a ‘growth mindset’ is a major advantage to a student because it suggests that one’s intelligence can be developed and grown over time and failure is a springboard to learning,  as opposed to a fatalistic ‘fixed mindset’ that says one’s intelligence is fixed and pre-determined and failure is failure and a damning indictment of one’s dimness.

The OECD have just published Sky’s the limit: Growth mindset, students, and schools in PISA https://issuu.com/oecd.publishing/docs/sky-s-the-limit-pisa-growth-mindset PDF below if you react badly to the issuu format, as I do!

And here’s a pretty good summary of Lucy’s book that I came across by chance earlier today: https://chrishildrew.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/slt-book-club-clever-lands-by-lucy-crehan/

2. If you missed the English Australia event with Judit Kormos on Inclusive practices for learning differences the other day, which many people said was excellent, here’s the recording https://youtu.be/fINkuIeVqbU and below, courtesy of my colleague Andrew Skinner, is her presentation. Plus, from the EL Gazette archives, a feature on Judit, The woman who wants EFL to include everyone https://www.elgazette.com/thought-leader/

3. Early notice of the next book adaptation in the Hardy’s Women series on BBC Radio 4, The Woodlanders, which starts next Monday, 3^rd May https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s855 Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Hand of Ethelberta are already available.

4. And, finally, something altogether more sombre than usual: a very powerful ‘long read’ from Arundhati Roy about India’s ‘Covid catastrophe’ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe

1. Mark Twain once said, “All good things arrive unto them that wait – and don’t die in the meantime.” The selected proceedings of the 2017 Dakar Language & Development Conference have just been published and are definitely a good thing and worth waiting for https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/conference-proceedings-language-sustainable-development-goals

Philip Harding-Esch’s introduction covers a lot of ground well and also includes a thumbnail sketch of each of the papers in the volume, to help you decide which ones you might want to read. Two PDFs below: one of Philip’s introduction only, the other of the whole publication.

2. IATEFL’s Teacher Training and Education Development (TTED) SIG is holding a free online conference for both members and non-members this coming Saturday, 1^st May, starting at 09:00 UK time. More info here https://ttedsig.iatefl.org/upcoming-events/1st-may-2021-one-day-online-conference/ and registration link here https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bSqv725fRbu-r9bMf4sHhw I can’t at present find a programme, but I expect that will soon appear.

3. One for those of you that manage or have ambitions (think that through carefully, now) to do so: Eaquals have just published their Academic Management Competency Framework. It’s been designed to provide guiding principles and tools for managers which will contribute to the enhancement of quality in language teaching and learning, with descriptors spanning four development levels to represent the range of competences that might be required across an academic manager’s role, intended as a tool to support managers in the awareness raising of their own strengths and possible development paths. More info, including an explanatory video, and downloads here https://www.eaquals.org/resources/the-eaquals-academic-management-competency-framework/ PDFs of handbook and tools below, as well.

4. Not great timing for those of us in the UK but pretty good timing for everyone else at 00:30 UK time on Friday, 30^th April, is Poetry and the Creative Mind, this year’s Academy of American Poets’ annual gala – chaired by Meryl Streep, no less. Live only, no recording. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-the-creative-mind-virtual-gala-supporting-national-poetry-month-registration-138838474615 I shall be staying up!

5. And, finally, this Wednesday’s phobia, ataxophobia, is not a phobia I suffer from, says my wife. Whereas my wife …

1. Ample notice, so you can plan which sessions you want to attend, of the second annual Pearson English Spring Days event that starts a week today, on Tuesday 4^th May, and runs for three days. It’s looking at how we’ve all coped this last twelve months, and how we continue to cope. The subjects covered will include Lost Learning, Hybrid Learning and Techno Stress. (Not quite sure what that last one’s about but probably something to do with the impact of Windows updates on one’s laptop.)

Here’s three links:

i) programme https://www.pearson.com/english/professional-development/SpringDays.html

ii) registration page https://www.english.com/blog/pearson-english-spring-days-2021/

iii) blog on hybrid learning https://www.english.com/blog/exploring-hybrid-learning-at-spring-days/

Virtual worldwide coffee breaks included, which sounds fun, and all attendees get a certificate – and a goody bag!

2. Here’s another Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) ‘guidance report’, this one offering eight recommendations for improving literacy in the early years of primary school https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/literacy-ks-1/ PDF of poster with recommendations below.

3. I’m listening to episode 3 of this Nice White Parents podcast as I write. It’s a compelling account of how a well-organised group of white parents effectively staged a take-over of a (largely non-white and plurilingual) state school in New York and changed – or tried to change – it into a bilingual French school for the benefit of their (monolingual) children https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/1-the-book-of-statuses/id1524080195?i=1000486589125 Not the first time, the reporter discovers, that white parents had attempted a take-over of the school …

4. And, finally, something completely different: a taste of Ellen Elias-Bursać’s translation of a recent novel by Croatian writer Ivana Bodrožić, We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day https://sevenstories.com/blogs/212-forget-this-city-and-forget-this-city-forget-this-city-forget-this-cit

1. Just in time, I hope: English Australia have a webinar at 09:00 UK time tomorrow, Tuesday 27^th April, at which Judit Kormos from Lancaster University will be talking about Inclusive practices for learning differences https://www.englishaustralia.com.au/events/event/inclusive-practices-for-learning-differences She’ll be discussing practical strategies to use inside and outside the classroom and how teachers can adapt materials to aid inclusion. NB! You need to register.

2. 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 That adds up to six hours a day for the length of the free trial, by my reckoning!

3. Stacks of good stuff in the latest European Language Gazette https://www.ecml.at/News/Newsletter/Gazette55/tabid/4425/language/en-GB/Default.aspx including this roadmap for schools to support the language(s) of schooling https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2016-2019/Languagesofschooling/tabid/2994/Default.aspx

4. And, finally, if you think you won’t be overly annoyed by its primary focus on Europe and the USA, you might like to road test The Knowledge daily newsletter: https://www.theknowledge.com/ Lively and well-written, geographical focus notwithstanding! Here’s today’s front page https://www.theknowledge.com/today/