Roy Cross's Blog

1. However excited I got yesterday about the American English ‘ization’ variant, lots of good publications use it, including Language Magazine: https://www.languagemagazine.com/

Here’s three recent articles: the first one, which could be – but isn’t – entitled ‘From the ridiculous to the sublime’. Betsy DeVos’s successor as USA Education Secretary is Miguel Cardona. If he can’t make a decent fist of the job with the CV he has, we might as well all go home: https://www.languagemagazine.com/2020/12/22/english-learner-slated-to-lead-u-s-education/

The second is a forthrightly political piece from Deborah Short, the President of TESOL, which will land markedly better with Secretary Cardona than his predecessor: https://www.languagemagazine.com/2021/01/08/stop-overlooking-english-learners/

The third, A Voice for English Teachers in Africa, is by the founder of Africa TESOL, Okon Effiong: https://www.languagemagazine.com/2021/01/19/a-voice-for-english-teachers-in-africa/

2. The next Eaquals webinar, at 14:00 UK time on Tuesday 26^th January, will be led by a man with a big job, Dr David Bish, Director of Academic Management at EF Education First: Making your materials work for you in the online classroom. Hope this URL is NOT only a test one: https://www.eaquals.org/eaquals-events/event/test-v3/

3. After my embolism scare, I’m taking much more, more regular exercise. Here’s a piece from The Conversation with which I agree wholeheartedly: https://theconversation.com/joggers-and-cyclists-should-wear-masks-heres-why-153110 I used to get upset at having to move out of the way of an oncoming jogger, but now I’m just used to it.

4. And, finally, here’s the story of the man who threw away £230 million pounds’ worth of bitcoin seven years ago but still entertains hopes of finding it: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jan/19/is-bitcoin-a-scam Especially useful if, like me, you don’t quite get what bitcoin is!

I remembered! What I can’t now remember is how you subscribe, so you get notified of a new posting – can anyone help?

I’m discovering that even a relatively short absence completely disrupts a well-practised daily routine – give me a few days to get back up to speed, please!

If anyone can remind me how to attach files to a WordPress post, that would be very helpful – as you can see below, I’ve failed to remember on my own!

1. EMI, ICLHE and Englishization: Reflecting on the changing university is the possibly less than immediately accessible acronymic title of the Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE) association’s seventh annual conference, in Maastricht this coming autumn. The call for papers closes on 28^th February 2021; PDF copy of flyer attached, and website here https://iclhe-um.nl/ (That American English ‘z’ in ‘Englishization’ annoys me more than I can explain, even to myself.)

2. Also on the EMI front, here’s the website of the newly established UK Research and Innovation funded English as Medium of Instruction in European Higher Education project https://www.emieurope.org/ The project will adopt ‘an innovative, interdisciplinary and participatory approach’ to its subject, and I’d expect its findings to be of interest and value outwith Europe.

3. EMI is English Medium Instruction; you’ll have noticed, however, that many people are now using EME, which stands for English Medium Education. Emma Dafouz and Ute Smit wrote an influential paper back in 2016 arguing in favour of the use of EME: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Towards-a-Dynamic-Conceptual-Framework-for-in-Dafouz-Smit/49d3aac40b6ad3e8b83d46ba8833b10b55938628 PDF attached.

4. I’ve started with EMI/EME, so I’ll finish with it (as the man on the Mastermind TV quiz show says). https://www.globalenglishes-emi.education.ed.ac.uk/ is the home page of the international network on the topics of English Medium Instruction (EMI) and Global Englishes that Nicola Galloway of Glasgow University leads which “explores the linguistic and educational implications of the global spread of the English language.” The network is open to all to join.  And I may have mentioned this before; please forgive me if I have. Nicola recently edited a literature review of English in Higher Education for the British Council: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-higher-education-%E2%80%93-english-medium-part-1-literature-review PDF attached.

Neither EMI nor EME tomorrow, promise!

I’m gradually getting up to speed, reminding myself how WordPress works and exploring alternative ways in which my daily messages, which I expect to resume tomorrow, might be delivered.

One way would be to make the daily message a post on this blog and send round the link each day – as either an alternative or an addition to the e-mail and WhatsApp versions.

Leave a comment please on this post, to tell me what you’d prefer:

1. Only a link to a blog post
2. E-mail or WhatsApp as before
3. E-mail or WhatsApp as before, plus a link to the blog post