Thursday, 22nd May (Richmond)

Posted on May 22, 2025 by roycross

1. Short notice of tomorrow’s (23rd May) TeachingEnglish series of three mini-webinars from 12:00 to 15:30 UK time on AI for inclusion https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/ai-inclusion-webinars Presenters from Vietnam, Greece, Spain, India and Myanmar!

Details of the TeachingEnglish programme up till the end of June here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/community/top-stories/april-june-2025-understanding-my-learners

and PDF of the calendar of training courses for teachers for 2025-26 here (and below) https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/2025-03/2025-2026_TeachingEnglish_training_course_calendar_QR.pdf

2025-2026_TeachingEnglish_training_course_calendar_QRDownload

2. The International Booker Prize winner was announced on Tuesday. This year’s winner, originally written in the South Indian language Kannada, was Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhashti https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/everything-to-know-heart-lamp-winner-international-booker-prize-2025

I backed the right horse: my copy came in the post yesterday!

3. This one from The Conversation is a bit close for personal comfort, Do people really want to know their risk of getting Alzheimer’s? by Claudia Cooper https://theconversation.com/do-people-really-want-to-know-their-risk-of-getting-alzheimers-256340

4. Death in Trieste is a series of five fifteen-minute programmes for Radio 3 by Seán Williams about the real life murder in Trieste in 1768 of Johann Winckelmann, the most famous art critic of his day https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5QPk5QsmCFvJX88CndNH51c/death-in-trieste

One Wednesday between nine and ten in the morning, there lay a German gentleman in his 50s in a pool of blood, dying. What seemed like half of Trieste huddled around the poor man. He struggled to breathe for over six hours before he passed away. His thirty-something “friend” also gasped for breath, but he was now on the run: having stabbed and strangled his fellow guest in the neighbouring room, in what was said to be attempted robbery. And what was later found to have been premeditated murder.

5. And, finally, Eric Cantona at his glorious best https://youtu.be/INiT1cA_Eqk

On the evidence of this concert, though, he should probably stick to football https://youtu.be/1rPhOD57zbA

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuesday, 20th May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by roycross

1. Aqueduto, the Association for Quality Education & Training Online, “is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to researching, supporting and showcasing quality in online language teacher education programmes” https://aqueduto.com/

Here’s a recording of a recent webinar of theirs with Joe Dale, Using AI Tools in Online Language Teaching and Teacher Education https://vimeo.com/1084896278

As some of you will already know, Joe runs a popular Facebook group, Language Teaching with AI. More info on that, including a ‘join group’ button, here https://www.facebook.com/groups/languageteachingwithai/

2. Tiffany Jenkins has just published (and had good reviews for) Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life. Here’s a post from her blog explaining why “Strangers” and why “Intimates” https://substack.com/@tiffanyjenkins/p-163487163

Today, the separation between the two spheres has dissolved. We treat strangers like intimates and intimates like strangers. Intimacy infuses the public sphere. The awkwardness of social kissing has replaced the handshake, and politicians ask us to call them ‘Tony’ or the equivalent moniker. Politics is intensely personal. Biographies of great men and women are dominated by their private lives, which are usually portrayed as toxic, and the private antics of the artist determines our position on their inclusion in the canon.

3. The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity, NPLD for short, is “a European-wide platform bringing together 41 member organisations from 13 countries, including regional governments, universities, and NGOs. The network represents 21 regional and minority languages, working collectively to ensure their recognition, protection, and integration into public life”. They have just published a ‘position paper’ presenting “concrete policy recommendations for European, national, and regional authorities”. You can find more info on the position paper and a download here (and attached below) https://npld.eu/npld-adopts-new-position-paper-setting-strategic-priorities/

More on the NPLD and its support for Occitan, Sorbian, Frisian, Sardinian, Corsican, Basque and fifteen other languages here https://npld.eu/

NPLD-Position-Paper-2025Download

4. Although not of interest to everyone, this UCL webinar with Janice Hinckfuss & Mustafa Coban from Coventry University at 16:00 UK time this Thursday, 22nd May, may be of considerable interest to some, Adapting a Writing Enriched Curriculum model to a UK university context More info and registration here https://ucl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZXiNLYkDTViw_7rWx21GUg?dm_i=6T0T,16U2F,4XPH8E,5KHDK,1#/registration

5. And, finally, if you’re a migraine sufferer, you need to read this piece for The Conversation by Amanda Ellison, Professor of Neuroscience at Durham University, Why your migraine might be making you crave a large Coke and fries https://theconversation.com/why-your-migraine-might-be-making-you-crave-a-large-coke-and-fries-256309

Amanda’s piece includes a short video by Dr Jessica Lowe, whose Instagram tag is <doctorbrainbarbie> https://www.instagram.com/doctorbrainbarbie/

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thursday, 15th May (Richmond)

Posted on May 15, 2025 by roycross

1. My NILE colleague Rose Aylett was Anne Fox’s guest on the 306th edition of the Absolutely Intercultural podcast recently, Power in language, Critical pedagogy, Spectactors (sic), Taboo topics https://www.absolutely-intercultural.com/?p=5378

We’ll be talking about how you can use language to project (or not) power. We’ll also hear about how art forms, such as theatre, can be used to help people recognise the many ways that a conversation could go. Rose talks about Augusto Boal and his “theatre of the oppressed”. And then we’ll ask the question about whether there are any topics that we should not discuss in the classroom.

2. No fewer than 15 free five-week (or less) courses on climate issues from the various climate teams at Edinburgh University https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/courses?subject=Environment+and+Sustainability

I think I’ll start with the basics, Climate Change: Carbon Capture and Storage https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/course/climate-change-carbon-capture-and-storage

3. Katja Hoyer’s latest post on her Zeitgeist blog, What’s left of World War II? Is as interesting as ever https://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/whats-left-of-world-war-ii

‘This cake is delicious,’ I shouted at the old lady behind the counter. ‘What’s that, darling?’ she shouted back. I held up my paper plate, which contained a generous slice of Victoria Sponge. Whoever had made it had gone to great lengths. The icing on top was carefully crafted in the red, white and blue of the Union Jack that had covered the whole thing. There was just the right proportion of jam and cream between the fluffy sponge. ‘Goood!’ I shouted as I pointed at the cake with my fork. ‘Excellent,’ the lady bellowed back, ‘I’ll pass that on to June!’

4. From The Democracy Collaborative, Enabling Conditions for Community Wealth Building https://www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/enabling-conditions

We’re facing a systemic crisis. Climate danger. Inequality. Racial injustice. Collapsing faith in democracy. It all adds up to a crisis of our system. And systemic problems require systemic solutions. The Democracy Collaborative is an action-oriented think-do tank seeking to build a democratic economy through political-economic system change from the bottom up.

PDF here https://roycross.blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dcfa8-enablingconditionsfinalpdf.pdf

and below, and more about The Democracy Collaborative here https://www.democracycollaborative.org/

Enabling+Conditions+Final+PDFDownload

[file x 1]

5. And, finally, A brief history of the numeric keypad for the DOC website by Francesco Bertelli & Manoel do Amaral https://www.doc.cc/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-numeric-keypad

DOC describes itself as “an editorial platform that explores meaning in the world of design and invites digital product designers to expand their references beyond the UX bubble. We publish stories worth publishing and we keep ideas worth keeping. Everything else is noise. We pause. We breathe. We assimilate. We seek meaning. We document the world of design through the lens of curiosity and awe”.

Thanks due, as so often, to Stephen Downes, the indefatigable producer of OLDaily for that one!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuesday, 13th May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 13, 2025 by roycross

1. Two recommendations from Gary Motteram to start with today: thanks, Gary!

A MOOC from FutureLearn, AI in Education, which explores “how AI is reshaping education and reflect(s) on how you could respond critically or reimagine educational practices”.  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ai-in-education Free to join unless you want a certificate.

Plus, a podcast series on AI and Education from Manchester University, Generative Dialogues: Generative AI in Higher Education, hosted by Helen Beetham and Mark Carrigan. A recent episode looked at AI in Education: Critical Perspectives and Future Challenges https://open.spotify.com/episode/05mw2mUmikyK9i6qNC9QrD

The conversation centers on how AI has disrupted the traditional “contract” between educators and students, with participants debating whether we’re educating for the future society students will inhabit, or for idealized past standards. Felix poses the crucial question: “Are we educating people to become productive members of the society of the future? Or are we educating people to live in a society that we believe should be?”

2. The Reform Party here in the UK have completely spooked (defined by Merriam Webster as to make frightened or frantic) the Labour government into radical (and very un-Labour-like) reform of the immigration system. Here’s the key points https://www.gov.uk/government/news/immigration-white-paper-to-reduce-migration-and-strengthen-border and here’s the white paper, Restoring Control over the Immigration System https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf PDF below as well. I shall feel a bit ashamed when I visit my mother’s nursing home tomorrow.

restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paperDownload

3. This piece for The Conversation by Elliot Doornbos and Angus Nurse makes it clear that the smugglers of tiny ants make good money: Insect trafficking poses a risk to wildlife and human health https://theconversation.com/insect-trafficking-poses-a-risk-to-wildlife-and-human-health-255273

Four men were recently arrested and fined for attempting to smuggle more than 5,000 ants out of Kenya. Aiming to sell them as part of the exotic pet trade, these ants were being stored in individual test tubes and syringes with small amounts of cotton wool for transportation.

Who do they sell the ants to?

4. It’s the virtually here that intrigues me in the title of this Bill Gates blog post, My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/20-years-to-give-away-virtually-all-my-wealth Virtually = all but the odd billion.

One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today. In the essay’s most famous line, Carnegie argues that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” I have spent a lot of time thinking about that quote lately. People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that “he died rich” will not be one of them.

5. And, finally, a gift article from The New York Times, The Best Books of the Year (So Far): the nonfiction and novels we can’t stop thinking about https://tinyurl.com/dvn46ty5

I’ve so far read (and enjoyed) only one, Flesh by David Szalay, and have just ordered We Do Not Part by Han Kang. I’m now wondering, though, how Istvan, the hero of Flesh, can be, according to the NYT review, simultaneously coarse and boorish and surprisingly sensitive.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thursday, 8th May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 8, 2025 by roycross

1. This one’s a bit nerdy. Pupil absence in Autumn and Spring 2024/25 from the FFT Education Datalab, which, by its own account that I have no reason to doubt, “produces independent, cutting-edge research on education policy and practice” https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2025/04/pupil-absence-in-autumn-and-spring-2024-25/

What should we make of the big increase in persistent absence between the first and second years of secondary school, I wonder? Too simplistic to say that ‘big school’ is a huge, alienating disappointment to many young people?

2. Warren Buffett has just retired. Bloomberg try to explain his astonishing track record as an investor in this piece https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-05/warren-buffett-s-astonishing-track-record-in-five-charts

By one long-term measure, from 1965 to 2024, Buffett’s return was 5,490,338 % while the best of the opposition over the same period could only manage 526,557 %. A friend of mine suggests that “some of what impresses is just the magic of compound interest”. Powerful magic!

3. Two more echoes of The Heart of Darkness:

i) The Gang of Four song, We Live as We Dream, Alone https://youtu.be/p_vpBsQdzNs

ii) A PDF of a poem by John Drew, Heart of Darkness, which begins

 She was sitting up top on a bus out of Hackney,

The young woman with spiky hair

and glitter all over her face.

She was reading a book, putting it down

every few minutes

To primp the spikes in her hair.

‘Heart of Darkness’ by John DrewDownload

4. A recommendation from Paul Lay, the Senior Editor of Engelsberg Ideas: Despite his ludicrously patrician tones, the art historian Brian Sewell’s Grand Tour, made for Channel 4 TV and now on YouTube, is a compelling valedictory journey into the heart of the Italian Renaissance https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5JqSuIvtmAOG0ijDJJskYk8j9efOQRFE

See what you think of Mr Sewell’s vowels: strangulated is the word that comes to mind, but don’t let them put you off!

In the interests of balance, here’s Mr Sewell himself discussing his accent https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/the-perils-of-talking-posh-6353161.html

Is my speech really so odd that strangers in trains feel compelled to telephone their wives about it, that the Daily Mail and The Mirror invariably describe it as “plummy”, that in a new biography (not of me) the author says of it “every vowel definitively strangled”? In my head it sounds a little light and perhaps a little slow (friends mock me for saying “ears” for “yes”), but this is because I do not litter it with such filler phrases as “you know what I mean” or “and stuff” or “atcherly”.

5. And, finally and papally, a great story from The Public Domain Review about a previous papal conclave that overran slightly, A Popeless Situation https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/05/now-and-then-2/

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuesday, 6th May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 6, 2025 by roycross

1. This year’s 41st NATESOL conference has as its theme Learners and Learning and is free to attend online. Full details of the programme in the flyer below and booking here https://www.natesol.org/event-details/natesol-annual-conference-2025

Abstracts of all the presentations, including Niall Curry’s plenary, Aligning corpus linguistics and language education: a learner-centred approach, and Khawla Badwan’s talk, Unthinking language through its users: a child-wor(l)d language education here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bea4HZ948AH7ogLADtXzWsdhaBXwocsqY4b2aUnQxHw/edit?tab=t.0

Programme_NATESOL annual conference 2025Download

2. ReCALL is the journal of the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning. It’s just published an open access special issue on Migrants’ and refugees’ digital literacies in life and language learning https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/recall/latest-issue

Here’s the editorial from Linda Bradley, Nicolas Guichon & Agnes Kukulska-Hulme https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/recall/article/migrants-and-refugees-digital-literacies-in-life-and-language-learning/F373D75688968D971D032038D635D5D2

PDF of the editorial below as well.

migrants-and-refugees-digital-literacies-in-life-and-language-learningDownload

3. Jessica Mackay’s latest very comprehensive list of CPD opportunities for language teachers includes – yikes! – several events today and tomorrow (and a lot more besides) https://eim-ub.blogspot.com/2025/03/upcoming-cpd-opportunities-spring-2025.html

4. I mentioned the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon last week, for many of us summed up in the famous photo of people queuing on the roof of the embassy to escape by helicopter. Here’s a piece by Phil Tinline for Engelsberg Ideas, The helicopter, symbol of American hubris. It seems that photo wasn’t the embassy, though: it was the nearby CIA office! https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-helicopter-symbol-of-american-hubris/

Tinline also mentions the famous ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ helicopter attack in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which I remember being played at deafening volume in the Arts Cinema in Cambridge when I first saw it in 1979. Here’s that clip https://youtu.be/VE03Lqm3nbI I’d always assumed that Coppola meant the film, at least in part, as an anti-war film, but he’d have us believe not in this piece when interviewed by Kevin Perry about his ‘Final Cut’ version for The Guardian in 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/09/francis-ford-coppola-apocalypse-now-is-not-an-anti-war-film

Peter Bradshaw’s review of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut has no doubts, however, and I’m with Bradshaw https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/07/apocalypse-now-final-cut-review-francis-ford-coppola-dennis-hopper  From Marlon Brando’s extraordinary cameo to Dennis Hopper’s crazed photojournalist, Coppola’s epic ‘definitive’ cut of his brilliant 1979 war film is triumphant in restating the inhumanity of empire.

Anti-war or not, I love this quote from Coppola: “You have to realise, when I was making this I didn’t carry a script around,” he says. “I carried a green Penguin paperback copy of ‘Heart of Darkness’ with all my underlining in it. I made the movie from that.”

5. Why are productions of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape like London buses? You wait for ages and then two come along at the same time! There are two playing in the UK at present: with Gary Oldman at The Theatre Royal in York and with Stephen Rea at The Barbican in London. I went to see the latter on Friday with a friend and much enjoyed it.

Neither production is on YouTube just yet, but here’s the original 1958 Royal Court production (with Patrick Magee) https://youtu.be/otpEwEVFKLc

And here’s the other half of what has often been a double bill, Endgame, in a 1991 BBC production (with Max Wall & Charlie Drake) https://youtu.be/dWY3wuYiTM8

Thanks to Michael for those two videos!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Thursday, 1st May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 1, 2025 by roycross

1. What surprises me about this piece from BOLD, How to support highly sensitive children in class, is the very high percentage of children who are affected by a condition I’ve never heard of! https://boldscience.org/how-to-support-highly-sensitive-children-in-class/

Imagine if every sound, sight, or emotion felt a little bigger, brighter, or more intense. That’s how life can be for the 30% of children who are highly sensitive to their environment. Being highly sensitive is a natural, genetically based temperament trait—not a disorder or clinical condition. Highly sensitive children process thoughts and feelings more deeply and often react more strongly to stimuli like noise, light, or sound. This can make school a challenging environment.

2. The British Council has tweaked its Continuing Professional Development (CPD) framework for teachers. Here’s the details https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers

and here’s the new framework itself https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/2025-04/CPD%20Framework%20for%20teachers%202025%20-%20Guidance%20Booklet.pdf PDF below as well.

CPD Framework for teachers 2025 – Guidance BookletDownload

3. DuoLingo is growing hugely with the help of AI, this recent press release of theirs tells us: Duolingo Launches 148 New Language Courses https://investors.duolingo.com/news-releases/news-release-details/duolingo-launches-148-new-language-courses

Duolingo, the world’s leading mobile learning platform, today announced the launch of 148 new language courses, more than doubling its current offering and marking the largest expansion of content in the company’s history. This launch makes Duolingo’s seven most popular non-English languages – Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin – available to all 28 supported user interface (UI) languages, dramatically expanding learning options for over a billion potential learners worldwide. “Developing our first 100 courses took about 12 years, and now, in about a year, we’re able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses. This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners,” said Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. “This launch reflects the incredible impact of our AI and automation investments, which have allowed us to scale at unprecedented speed and quality.”

4. Ethan Mollick’s latest post on his blog, One Useful Thing, Personality and Persuasion: learning from sycophants, reports more than a little worryingly on how easy it is to tweak the personality of Large Learning Models https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/personality-and-persuasion

Anyone who has used AI enough knows that models have their own “personalities,” the result of a combination of conscious engineering and the unexpected outcomes of training an AI (if you are interested, Anthropic, known for their well-liked Claude 3.5 model, has a full blog post on personality engineering). Having a “good personality” makes a model easier to work with. Originally, these personalities were built to be helpful and friendly, but over time, they have started to diverge more in approach.

5. And, finally, yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Here’s a free piece from History Today https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/fall-saigon and here’s one of many iconic photos of that day from Wikipedia

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuesday, 29th April (Richmond)

Posted on April 29, 2025 by roycross

1. AI AIn’t going away, however much it might be misbehaving. Here’s a great set of resources from TeachingEnglish, Pathways: AI in language teaching https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/professional-development-pathways/pathways-ai-language-teaching

2. Here’s an important report for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Ambition Institute by Loic Menzies and Marie Hamer on CPD (Continuing Professional Development), A System that Empowers: the Future of Professional Development https://ippr-org.files.svdcdn.com/production/Downloads/A_system_that_empowers_April25.pdf PDF below, and here’s the press release https://www.ippr.org/media-office/train-the-teacher-close-the-gap-report-urges-new-training-entitlement-to-raise-school-standards

A_system_that_empowers_April25Download

3. A piece for Psyche by Katie Barclay on the history of the family, The history of family offers a liberating view of custom and love https://psyche.co/ideas/the-history-of-family-offers-a-liberating-view-of-custom-and-love

AITAH for not giving my step-sister my half of her mother’s life insurance,’ reads the headline on a post in the ‘Am I the Asshole’ subreddit – an online community where individuals bring their personal conflicts and problems and ask for judgment. Reddit’s users, largely American males aged 18 to 30, were asked to arbitrate a family conflict. Thirty years earlier, the poster’s father had died and left him the family home in his will, on the condition that his stepmother could remain in it for her lifetime. After his father’s death, the stepmother had thrown out the poster; he wasn’t yet 18. Subsequently they had little contact. When the stepmother died, the poster had finally gained access to his house.

4. I binge read all of Annie Ernaux’s translated work two years ago when she won the Nobel Prize. Here’s a New York Times gift article on her and her work by Rachel Cusk, Annie Ernaux Has Broken Every Taboo of What Women Are Allowed to Write: the novelist Rachel Cusk on what makes the Nobel laureate’s fiction so shocking https://tinyurl.com/bdeep58a

Plus a short video of Annie explaining why ‘she’s nobody when she writes’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLkpEHhBHe4

5. And, finally, for those of you like me who can never remember which word is which letter in the NATO phonetic alphabet [file] Don’t think I’ve infringed any copyright!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thursday, 24th April (Cambridge)

Posted on April 24, 2025 by roycross

1. An interesting piece from Chatham House on the relationship between China and India, which they suggest will be of ‘greater long-term significance’ than the relationship between the US and China https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025-04-23-how-china-india-relations-will-shape-asia-global-order-bajpaee-jie.pdf

The China–US relationship is widely regarded as the key defining geopolitical relationship of the 21st century. But relations between China and India arguably hold greater long-term significance. These two Asian nations are the world’s most populous countries (together accounting for almost 40 per cent of the global population), and its second largest and soon-to-be third largest economies, respectively. Both are competing for influence and leadership amid the emerging multipolar global order. Yet, despite its importance, the China–India relationship is poorly understood outside of those two countries. This research paper traces the trajectory of, and key factors behind, that relationship and challenges several misconceptions.

2. The next NATESOL event, at 16:00 UK time next Wednesday, 30th April, is Teaching English in a Multilingual World: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges with Mai Nguyen. More info and registration here https://www.natesol.org/event-details/teaching-english-in-a-multilingual-world-navigating-opportunities-and-challenges

Here’s the abstract for Mai Nguyen’s talk: As English continues to function as an international language, multilingualism has become the norm in language classrooms worldwide. This talk explores the dynamic relationship between English language teaching and multilingual contexts, with an aim to discuss both opportunities and challenges for language teachers and researchers. Drawing on my recent research on World Englishes in Vietnam and Indonesia, I will present cases where English teachers in these contexts have made efforts to teach English as a language that exists in multiple varieties to school learners. I will also highlight practical strategies for promoting inclusive, responsive practices, such as integrating localised English samples and encouraging students’ home languages and cultures in English lessons. At the same time, challenges, such as the strong influence of native-speaker ideals on local teaching materials and on what teachers and students believe makes a good English learner and speaker, will be critically examined. By connecting research and practice, this session hopes to offer insights and strategies while also promoting discussion on how to make English language teaching and learning more equitable, effective, and relevant in today’s multilingual world.

3. Two-minute readings by professional actors from each of the six books shortlisted for the International Booker Prize https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/watch-the-international-booker-prize-2025-shortlist-films

Try Ambika Mod’s reading from ‘Heart Lamp’ by Banu Mushtaq? https://youtu.be/C2XZ8R2U_k4

4. Two potentially related stories?

One from Literary Hub, On the Real-Life Story of Deep-Cover Russian Spies Living As American Families https://lithub.com/on-the-real-life-story-of-deep-cover-russian-spies-living-as-american-families/

and the other from Timothy Snyder on The Next Terrorist Attack – And What Comes After https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-terrorist-attack

5. And, finally, to my surprise and pleasure, free to watch on the Mosfilm YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@Mosfilm_eng/videos, along with lots of other classics of Russian cinema, the whole of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, The Mirror https://youtu.be/NrMINC5xjMs

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuesday, 22nd April (Richmond)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by roycross

1. It’s United Nations International Mother Earth Day today https://www.un.org/en/observances/earth-day

Mother Earth is clearly urging a call to action. Nature is suffering. Oceans filling with plastic and turning more acidic. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods, have affected millions of people. Climate change, man-made changes to nature as well as crimes that disrupt biodiversity, such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture and livestock production or the growing illegal wildlife trade, can accelerate the speed of destruction of the planet. That is why we need to recover our ecosystems.

Lots of stories https://www.un.org/en/observances/earth-day/stories

and resources https://www.un.org/en/international-mother-earth-day/page/international-mother-earth-day-resources

2. Keith Kelly on CLIL (Content & Language Integrated Learning): What Austria Gets Right https://youtu.be/VZ7R99yjNIo

Keith highlights the strengths of Austria’s approach to CLIL in a global context. Drawing on real classroom examples and an Austrian study on communication in the curriculum, he discusses what makes the model successful and how it can grow further.

Slightly dodgy AI-generated subtitles in English that probably aren’t necessary!

3. Here’s The Daily Telegraph obituary of Pope Francis https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/80a4ce285163a940

When on March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was asked formally if he accepted his election as bishop of Rome he replied in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Three days later he explained his reason for choosing the name Francis, after Francis of Assisi. “For me, he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation,” he said. “How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor.”

4. In 1940, Captain Robin ‘Tin Eye’ Stephens (named after his ever-present monocle) interrogated the German spy Wulf Schmidt and turned him into a double agent. The latest podcast from the National Archives tells some of the curious stories behind their new exhibition, MI5: Official Secrets http://tnaontherecord.libsyn.com/mi5-official-secrets

PDF of podcast transcript here and below https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/mi5-official-secrets-show-notes.pdf

mi5-official-secrets-show-notesDownload

5. And, finally, man and cormorant in perfect harmony https://youtu.be/l5WBlVXRU0A

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment