Thursday, 12th June (Cambridge)

Posted on June 12, 2025 by roycross

1. The June issue of HLT (Humanising Language Teaching) has just come out and is as good as ever https://www.hltmag.co.uk/jun25/ but I’m ashamed to say that I missed the April issue, which was a wonderful tribute to one of the best trainers I ever worked with, Mario Rinvolucri https://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr25/ We started our relationship with an argument – Mario was demonstrating the Silent Way and refused to tell me how to say ‘thank you’ in modern Greek, the language he was teaching us, and when we next met, over breakfast in my kitchen in Zagreb, he was unrepentant (and so was I). We met many times and he was always challenging, in good ways!

The June issue has two eloquent tributes to Luke Prodromou, who also died recently, from Alam Maley and Ken Wilson.

2. Richard Smith, who pointed us in the direction of David Wilson’s splendid book, The Experience of Expatriate English Language Teaching, on Tuesday, has also kindly recently made his own ELTJ article on The History of ELTJ available without a subscription https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/75/1/4/6070219?guestAccessKey=423250c6-6c86-4fbb-8c81-07d39fdf559c&login=false You can download the PDF from that page, too.

Here’s the abstract: This article traces the 75-year history of ELT Journal, using this as a means to cast light on trends in ELT over the same period and to acknowledge various sources of thought and practice. In the first part (1946–1971), the focus is on how the journal contributed to the establishment of a methodological orthodoxy which was relatively unaffected by academic applied linguistics but which drew sustenance, rather, from a tradition of theorized experience and practical linguistics dating back to pre-war times. In the second part (1971–1996), the focus is on tensions between this orthodoxy and newer ‘communicative’ ideas—still, though, with an emphasis on practical experience as well as academic insight, while the final phase (1996–2021) is viewed as being characterized, above all, by attempts to ‘decentre’ away from mainly UK-based expertise and towards an opening-up of professional discourse to previously neglected voices. Viewing the history of the journal in this manner reveals continuities as well as shifts in perception of how English should be defined, whose voices ‘count’ in the field, and of the value or otherwise of research and theory in relation to practical concerns.

And if you’re a regular reader of ELTJ, you might like to complete their eightieth (!) anniversary reader survey here https://tinyurl.com/5fhms23r

3. LanguageCert is offering four sixty-minute webinars in June, each looking at one skill. More details and a registration link here https://www.languagecert.org/en/preparation/webinars/webinars-for-teachers The first in the series is Focus on Listening Skills at 10:00 UK (summer) time on Thursday, June 19th with Paul Bouniol:

An interactive 60-minute webinar clarifying what ‘Listening’ involves and the sub-skills that teachers can target in their lessons to address the areas where candidates sometimes underperform. The session will focus on what teachers can do throughout the year to develop their learners’ Listening skills and suggest support material they can use to prepare them in the best possible way.

4. Here’s Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, and now effectively the leader of the opposition to Trump, talking in dignified, resolute manner about recent events in his state https://youtu.be/pXQQNUeb4Sw

And here’s a piece by Natasha Lindstaedt for The Conversation reflecting on current events in the USA, Trump’s clash with California governor over LA protests has potential to influence next presidential race https://theconversation.com/trumps-clash-with-california-governor-over-la-protests-has-potential-to-influence-next-presidential-race-258713

Earlier this week, Trump gave an address at the newly re-renamed Fort Bragg at which he was cheered by the soldiers standing behind him (which is fine, as he’s commander-in-chief) and Biden was booed (not fine, as purely political and someone must have ordered the soldiers to boo), and the Fulbright Commission board resigned en masse in protest against the politicisation of the award of scholarships and grants; this Sunday, there’s a military parade in Washington to celebrate The Great Leader’s birthday …

5. And, finally, an old joke that’s worth repeating (I hope):

A sheep farmer is tending his flock when a city slicker rolls up in his BMW, hops out and asks, “Hey, if I tell you exactly how many sheep you have, can I take one?” The farmer nods, so the city slicker opens his laptop, calls up some satellite photos, runs some algorithms, and announces, “You have 1,432 sheep.” Impressed, the farmer says, “You’re right. Go ahead and take one.” So the city slicker loads one of the animals into the backseat of the car. “Now,” says the farmer, “I’ll bet all my sheep against your car that I can tell you what you do for a living.” A gaming sort, the city slicker says, “Sure.” “You’re a consultant,” says the farmer. “Wow!” says the consultant. “How’d you know?” “Well,” says the farmer, “you come from nowhere even though I never asked you to. You drive a flash car, and wear a smart suit. You told me something I already knew. And you don’t know anything about my business. Now give me back my dog.”

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Tuesday, 10th June (Richmond)

Posted on June 9, 2025 by roycross

1. I’m publishing early today, in the hope that some of you get chance to attend Geoff Mulgan’s UCL ‘Lunch Hour Lecture’, Shaping Better Public Institutions, at 13:00 UK time today, Tuesday 10th June. More info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lunch-hour-lecture-shaping-better-public-institutions-tickets-1364004055849?aff=oddtdtcreator

Our societies are shaped by public institutions – from parliaments to primary schools, regulators to ministries. But there’s a widespread perception that they have stopped evolving. While business and civil society have invented radically different organisational models- from Tiktok to Wikipedia – most public sector institutions look very similar to 30, 50 or 100 years ago. This lecture will diagnose the problem, share examples of more innovative approaches around the world tackling topics like climate change, mental health and AI, and describe how the next generation of institutions could be designed, making the most of ideas from computer science to biology as well as public administration.

2. Not quite (!) such short notice of this free NILE event with the founder of NILE, Dave Allan, and guests talking about 30 years of teacher development, at NILE and beyond at 16:00 UK time tomorrow, Wednesday 11th June. Sign up here https://nile-elt.zoom.us/meeting/register/7MXSlK31Q_etZCLy6kW3-Q#/registration

3. Thanks to Jaime Saavedra for this one from Microsoft – best read with a pinch of salt, but nonetheless persuasive – From skepticism to success: How AI is helping teachers transform classrooms in Peru by Juan Montes https://news.microsoft.com/source/latam/features/ai/world-bank-peru-teachers-copilot/?lang=en

Marco Antonio Pedraza, a sixth-grade primary school teacher who migrated as a young man from the countryside to bustling Lima, used to spend his own money to purchase specialized teaching materials for the three neurodivergent kids in his class. He had only a vague idea of what AI was and was skeptical about its potential. Then Pedraza was introduced to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, the AI companion that helps with work tasks. A group of AI experts recently trained him on how to write effective prompts to quickly generate personalized activities for the students just by typing a few traits of each. He was amazed by the results. “It was a revelation,” says Pedraza, an experienced public school teacher with a humble background. “These days, a teacher requires technology to effectively assist the kids.”

4. Cora Yang has just published a very useful guide to the use of AI in coursework on LinkedIn. Here’s the original post https://tinyurl.com/yxsh9xj9 and there’s a home-made PDF attached for those of you who don’t do LinkedIn.

I went through the International Baccalaureate’s “Evaluating 13 scenarios of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in student coursework” document and synthesized it into this “Scale of AI Use.” My goal was to create a simple, visual guide that both teachers and students could use to quickly gauge whether a use of AI is acceptable, needs caution, or is a clear case of academic misconduct. I wanted to create more than just a resource for my own students; I wanted to share it with the wider community. I’m posting it here in the hope that it can support more educators and students as we all learn to navigate this new landscape together.

Cora YangDownload

5. And, finally and expensively, The Experience of Expatriate English Language Teaching by David B. Wilson has just been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing and costs a whopping £81.99 https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-0364-4603-1 Thanks, then, to Richard Smith for pointing us in the direction of a dozen highly readable free sample pages here (PDF also attached) https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-0364-4603-1-sample.pdf#page=19

The Experience of Expatriate English Language Teaching SAMPLEDownload
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Thursday, 5th June (Cambridge)

Posted on June 5, 2025 by roycross

1. An OECD report on the growing disjunct between education and employment, The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-state-of-global-teenage-career-preparation_d5f8e3f2-en.html PDF below as well.

This report sets out key findings from PISA as they relate to teenage career development. The report shows that across OECD countries, students are now expressing very high levels of career uncertainty and confusion. Job expectations have changed little since 2000 and bear little relationship to actual patterns of labour market demand, including in working areas of high strategic importance. The education plans of students moreover are more strongly shaped by social background than by academic performance.

The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation OECDDownload

2. Here’s an interview from Engelsberg Ideas with my second favourite Yorkshirewoman, Fiona Hill, Fiona Hill on Donald Trump’s nuclear nightmares https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/in-conversation-with-fiona-hill-on-donald-trumps-nuclear-nightmares/

But in the case of Russia in Ukraine, I think we’re pretty certain that Vladimir Putin was contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in 2022, when the tide was turned against the Russian military, when they were pinned down on the ground in the Kherson region and around the Dnipro River. We’ll all recall that there was analysis and all kinds of discussions at the time about whether Putin was willing to detonate a small-yield tactical nuclear weapon in that context. He wanted to use it as a game changer on the battlefield, and he amped up the rhetoric. That is, I think, very important.

3. Here’s an interview from the DEEP YouTube channel with Carne Ross, the founder of Independent Diplomat, about the Iraq War and his reasons for resigning from the UK Foreign Office https://youtu.be/AYsVZZ_Q4s0

4. The Camtree Digital Library’s collection on Exploratory Action Research can be found here https://library.camtree.org/communities/dc5e3ea9-886b-43e0-9784-b78b4740ac6f and there’s lots more to explore here https://library.camtree.org/home

The Camtree Digital Library publishes peer-reviewed research reports produced by educators from around the world. Library content is freely available to all readers. Camtree supports educators to reflect on their practice and conduct research to improve learning in their own contexts and organisations, through its website at https://www.camtree.org. Camtree is based at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge.

5. And, finally, a piece from The New York Times that confirms what I’ve always thought (hoped?) about coffee, That Cup of Coffee May Have a Longer-Term Perk https://tinyurl.com/4c6rzdfk

The researchers found a correlation between how much caffeine the women typically drank (which was mostly from coffee) when they were between 45 and 60 years old and their likelihood of healthy aging. After adjusting for other factors that could affect aging, such as their overall diet, how much they exercised and whether they smoked, those who consumed the most caffeine (equivalent to nearly seven eight-ounce cups of coffee per day) had odds of healthy aging that were 13 percent higher than those who consumed the least caffeine (equivalent to less than one cup per day).

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Tuesday, 3rd June (Richmond)

Posted on June 3, 2025 by roycross

1. First up today, the recordings of three good talks from this year’s Cambridge Festival https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/:

Hiranya Peiris, Professor of Astrophysics at Cambridge, on Decoding the Cosmos https://youtu.be/PtYHKPGPh3U

Philippe Sands, Professor of Laws (plural!) and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, On Impunity, Pinochet and Patagonia https://youtu.be/96VlfWBAQxo

David Spiegelhalter, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge, on The Art of Uncertainty: Living with Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck https://youtu.be/d8hYzhjKiiQ

2. I could imagine (and I hope I’m wrong) that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which I’ve just discovered, is one of the many projects whose future funding is uncertain at present under the Trump administration https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work.

Here’s three random readable entries:

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/

Ludwig Wittgenstein https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

The Chinese Room Argument https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

3. I had a little surf over the weekend following in the wake of Karl Ove Knausgaard, starting with this piece from Harper’s ‘on finding mystery in the digital age’, The Reenchanted World https://harpers.org/archive/2025/06/the-reenchanted-world-karl-ove-knausgaard-digital-age/ (Harper’s allows you two free articles a month.)

The first time I saw a computer was in 1984. I was fifteen years old and living in a sparsely populated area near a river, miles away from the closest town, in a far-northern country at the very edge of the world. A sign lit up above the convenience store that closed at four o’clock every day; otherwise, the visual stimuli were limited to fields and trees, trees and fields, and to the cars driving along the roads. In autumn and spring it rained so much that the river overflowed its banks—I remember standing in front of the living-room window watching the water cover the field where we played football, the goalposts rising up from it. There was one TV channel, two radio stations, and the newspapers were printed in black and white. The news from Iran and Israel, Egypt and South Africa, England and Northern Ireland, the United States and India, Lebanon and the Soviet Union all took place far away, as if on another planet.

The Harper’s piece led me to Knausgaard’s New York Times interview with the surgeon Henry Marsh, The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery https://tinyurl.com/mry9v92m

Marsh was in Tirana to demonstrate a surgical procedure he helped pioneer, called awake craniotomy, that had never been performed in Albania. The procedure is used to remove a kind of brain tumor that looks just like the brain itself. Such tumors are most common in young people, and there is no cure for them. Without surgery, 50 percent of patients die within five years; 80 percent within 10 years. An operation prolongs their lives by 10 to 20 years, sometimes more. In order for the surgeon to be able to distinguish between tumor and healthy brain tissue, the patient is kept awake throughout the operation, and during the procedure the brain is stimulated with an electric probe, so that the surgeon can see if and how the patient reacts. The team in Albania had been preparing for six months and had selected two cases that were particularly well suited to demonstrating the method.

And that NYT piece led me to The Guardian review of Henry Marsh’s book, Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/13/admissions-by-henry-marsh-review

The book draws on more recent experiences than ‘Do No Harm’ (Marsh’s first book) – in London, Texas, Ukraine, Nepal and with ambulance-chasing London lawyers (memorably described as “rooting in a great trough of insurance premiums”). When the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard met Marsh, and wrote about him for the New York Times, he was struck most by his openness and honesty. That honesty is abundantly apparent here – a quality as rare and commendable in elite surgeons as one suspects it is in memoirists.

4. The new issue of EL Gazette came out today, full of good stories as usual https://www.elgazette.com/elg_archive/ELG2505/mobile/

5. And, finally, another gift article from The New York Times, The Cockney Accent Is Fading, but This Dish Is Here to Stay https://tinyurl.com/4uvw7wsy

Shop owners in the U.K. are fighting to win government protection for pie and mash, a working-class meal with deep roots.

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Thursday, 29th May (Cambridge)

Posted on May 29, 2025 by roycross

1. Paths to Restitution is a piece about the Africa Museum in Brussels by Jeremy Harding for the London Review of Books https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n10/jeremy-harding/paths-to-restitution

The museum’s acquisition of works by contemporary Congolese artists is a consequence of the long effort to turn it from a temple of racist kitsch into a modern, ‘decolonised’ institution. Its earliest incarnation dates from the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1897, whose ‘African’ component was staged in the Palace of the Colonies. The palace became the site of a permanent colonial display the following year. Leopold II of Belgium had been running the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom for more than a decade, issuing franchises to European companies at terrible cost to the Congolese.

I hope this works for non-subscribers; let me know if it doesn’t please, and I’ll see what I can do..

2. Writers Demand Immediate Gaza Ceasefire is the title of an open letter from nearly 400 writers here in the UK https://medium.com/@horatioclare/writers-demand-immediate-gaza-ceasefire-65ae44bd7241

We, the undersigned writers of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, ask our nations and the peoples of the world to join us in ending our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror.

3. Good notice, I hope, of the Green Action ELT event from 11:45 to 17:30 UK time next Friday, 6th June, Green Educator Conference – Teaching For A Better Future More info and registration here https://green-action-elt.uk/events/ Full programme here https://green-action-elt.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/TFABF-programme.pdf and attached below.

TFABF-programmeDownload

4. There’s an ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) webinar at 15:00 UK time next Wednesday, “Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils”. More info and registration here https://www.ecml.at/en/Resources/Webinars and more info and an introductory video on the RECOLANG project itself here https://www.ecml.at/en/ECML-Programme/Programme-2020-2023/RECOLANG

The overall aim is to support the social and institutional recognition of home languages and to enhance learners’ plurilingual repertoire. The RECOLANG project aims to rethink language assessment, particularly the assessment of those languages for which there are few (or no) assessment resources, and which are not seen as part of national education systems. Why is it relevant to assess home language competences of migrant pupils? How do you assess language competences not learned at school? How do we get started? How to encourage learners? How to get involved as a teacher, parent or pupil?

There’s a very comprehensive project bibliography here (and below) https://www.ecml.at/Portals/1/6MTP/project-audras/documents/Recolang-bibliography-EN.pdf?ver=2024-09-27-084113-073

Recolang-bibliography-ENDownload

5. And, finally, the awe-ful moment a Swiss village disappeared yesterday: watch and listen from the other side of the valley from about 3’49” in https://www.youtube.com/live/FNS7p5l1Wpc

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Tuesday, 27th May (Richmond)

Posted on May 27, 2025 by roycross

1. A measured but firm response from Harvard University President Alan Garber to the latest assault on his university by the Trump administration https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/05/Letter-from-Harvard-President-Alan-M.-Garber-to-the-Honorable-Linda-E.-McMahon.pdf PDF also below.

Harvard’s efforts to achieve (its) goals are undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law. It ignores the many meaningful steps we have taken and will continue to take to live up to our principles and improve the lives of people across the country and throughout the world. That is why we have gone to court to address the government’s unlawful attempt to control fundamental aspects of our university’s operations. Consistent with the law and with our own values, we continue to pursue needed reforms, doing so in consultation with our stakeholders and always in compliance with the law. But Harvard will not surrender its core, legally-protected principles out of fear of unfounded retaliation by the federal government.

Letter-from-Harvard-President-Alan-M.-Garber-to-the-Honorable-Linda-E.-McMahonDownload

2. Joseph (Joe) Nye, generally considered to be the inventor of the term ‘soft power’, died recently. Here’s the last piece he wrote, published posthumously in Monocle, The late Joseph S Nye on what “soft power” means in Trump’s new world https://monocle.com/affairs/joseph-nye-soft-power/

Soft power is the ability to affect others through attraction rather than coercion. Its consequences are often slow and indirect, and it is not the most important source of power for foreign policy – but to neglect it is a strategic and analytical mistake. The Roman Empire rested on its legions but also on the allure of Roman culture and citizenship. As a Norwegian analyst described it, the US presence in Western Europe after the Second World War was “an empire by invitation”. At the end of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall collapsed not under a barrage of artillery but from hammers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by Western soft power.

3. Celebration Day is “a new annual moment (here in the UK), held on the last bank holiday Monday of May, to honour and celebrate those who have shaped our lives but are no longer with us”. Here’s Toby Jones reading the poem, Portrait of a Romantic, by A S J Tessimond in memory of his father and talking about his father https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTLi2VwWA8Q

And here’s Nathaniel Parker reading Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen in memory of the film maker Derek Jarman https://youtu.be/fPQMjuUW1eo

4. Here’s a ‘long read’ for The Guardian by Shaun Walker, ‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy recruited his own son https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/apr/10/deep-cover-kgb-spy-recruited-son-peter-herrmann-illegals

Rudi Herrmann took a deep breath and asked his son Peter to sit down. “I have a story to tell you,” he said. Rudi had been preparing for this conversation for several years, running over the words in his mind. He was about to tell his 16-year-old son that everything Peter thought he knew about their family was a lie.

5. And, finally, Michael Rosen’s poem in response to Keir Starmer’s recent and already infamous ‘island of strangers’ speech, My Island of Strangers, describing how ‘strangers’ saved his life when he was desperately ill in hospital with Covid https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/17/my-island-of-strangers-poem-michael-rosen

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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

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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/

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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!

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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.

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