Thursday, 17th April (Cambridge)

Posted on April 17, 2025 by roycross

1. Economic concepts in pictures from Visual Capitalist https://www.visualcapitalist.com/

These are their most popular graphics https://www.voronoiapp.com/posts/most-popular

and here’s the global economy in 2025 https://www.voronoiapp.com/economy/-How-the-World-Economy-Will-Look-in-2025-3358

and in 2050 (but before the Trump assault on it began, I think) https://www.voronoiapp.com/economy/Visualizing-the-Future-Global-Economy-by-GDP-in-2050-127

2. A podcast interview from The Conversation with Rob Brooks, Professor of Evolution at the University of New South Wales, How AI could influence the evolution of humanity  https://theconversation.com/how-ai-could-influence-the-evolution-of-humanity-podcast-254163

Some of the leading brains behind generative AI have warned about the risk of artificial superintelligence wiping out humanity, if left unchecked. But what if the influence of AI on humans is much more mundane, influencing our evolution over thousands of years through natural selection?

3. Advice from the University of California, Berkeley on how to Protect yourself from “Doxxing” https://oercs.berkeley.edu/privacy/privacy-resources/protect-yourself-doxxing Yes, I admit I found this because I needed to look up exactly what doxxing meant!

4. The Banksy Story, from BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001nwhs

The story of Banksy’s rise, the stunts, the culture and the story of how the work became so valuable. And why it’s not always a blessing to have a Banksy painted on the wall of your house!

Here’s a CNN piece on some of his recent work in Ukraine https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/banksy-ukraine-murals/index.html

5. I meet the author of this article occasionally when I’m out walking. Let me know what you think? https://www.tesolunion.org/journal/details/info/0MzA09LmRi/TESOL-Teacher-Education-in-2034:-Some-Predictions PDF below.

TESOL Teacher Education in 2034 – Some PredictionsDownload

[file x 1]

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Tuesday, 15th April (Richmond)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by roycross

1. Trump vs Harvard, two NYT gift articles from the front line of the battle for academic freedom in the USA:

The Trump Administration’s Letter to Harvard https://tinyurl.com/mrucmzf7

Harvard’s Response to the Trump Administration https://tinyurl.com/3rzmv455

2. A persuasive piece for Lit Hub by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Most American Literature is the Literature of Empire https://lithub.com/viet-thanh-nguyen-most-american-literature-is-the-literature-of-empire/

The problem for imperial literature under Trump is that he sees no need for soft power, only hard power. The Trump innovation during Trump II, the Sequel—and Americans love sequels—is to dispense of any sense of imperfection, which is what imperial literature explores, as well as the notion of rules, domestic or international.

3. Recordings of all the plenaries from last week’s IATEFL conference in Edinburgh https://www.iateflconference.org/about-the-conference/plenary-recordings

The conference started with IATEFL’s first woman president (in 1993), Catherine Walter, looking back on a long and illustrious career that began in 1972, 50 years on: what has changed?, https://youtu.be/b-3WN0lN-uU

and ended with a daughter and father double act from eleven-year-old Alicia Waters Galán & Harry Waters, Five burning questions to education from a young changemaker https://youtu.be/mzMLyUfaNMM

4. Michael Feldstein’s latest post on his E-literate blog, AI Mindscape Prompting https://eliterate.us/ai-mindscape-prompting/ The title gets explained in the post!

Michael: Today’s post is going to get both a little geeky and a little trippy. But I promise it will come back to education. I’m trying to get at some little-discussed aspects of how AI works and the implications for how we work with it. Today I’ll be chatting with Gemini Advanced 2.5 Pro (experimental). Gemini, welcome to the show.

Gemini: Thank you for having me, Michael. It’s a pleasure to be “on the show” and part of this conversation for e-Literate.

5. And, finally, without further commentary, First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller https://hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/

PDF below as well – please share!

First They CameDownload

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Thursday, 10th April (Richmond)

Posted on April 10, 2025 by roycross

1. First up tonight, a good news, bad news piece from The Guardian, Energy demands from AI datacentres to quadruple by 2030, says report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/10/energy-demands-from-ai-datacentres-to-quadruple-by-2030-says-report

The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

2. An interesting, related report from Teacher Tapp on teacher use of AI in the UK, AI Spy: Tracking the AI Tools Teachers Use , https://teachertapp.com/app/uploads/2025/01/AI-Spy-Tracking-the-AI-Tools-Teachers-Use.pdf

Key Findings:

1. Most AI brands are still in their infancy and teachers’ use, recognition and likelihood of

recommending them is relatively low, although there are outlier brands that are doing very

well. But this is a fast moving space and teachers’ adoption of AI is growing.

2. Many AI brands offer multiple tools and functions. Given the recent growth in brands

offering these functions, along with many having low recognition and usage amongst

teachers, it seems likely that the market will not support all of them in the longer term.

3. Teachers who use generic AI tools, such as Chat GPT, are more likely to also use

education-specific AI brands and products. Brands offering AI education solutions may

find it useful to promote the benefits of their tools, such as enhanced privacy settings or

training on specific curricular models, to regular AI users in order to grow usage.

4. Teachers use AI tools to generate a wide range of resources, including lesson plans,

worksheets, model answers, comprehension questions, and assessments. Many teachers also

use AI tools to differentiate learning materials for students.

TeacherTapp AI-Spy-Tracking-the-AI-Tools-Teachers-UseDownload

3. A piece from BOLD that confirms what many of us may have suspected, Children’s awareness of stereotypes about school pathways https://boldscience.org/childrens-awareness-of-stereotypes-about-school-pathways/

And here’s the npj Science of Learning article by Lisa Bardach and her colleagues discussed in the piece Does students’ awareness of school-track-related stereotypes exacerbate inequalities in education? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-023-00203-9 PDF below as well.

Does students’ awareness of school-track-related stereotypes exacerbate inequalities in educationDownload

4. A ‘benefit of the doubt’ piece for Chatham House by Heather Hurlburt, Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs are likely just the beginning of a longer-term vision https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/04/trumps-liberation-day-tariffs-are-likely-just-beginning-longer-term-vision

Amid strident rhetoric and shifting targets, many observers have written off Trump’s tariff agenda either as a thoughtless time bomb that may wreck the global economy or as a negotiating tactic. But they are missing the bigger picture.

Did someone mention Humpty Dumpty? https://youtu.be/iyIDg6m4gA0

5. And, finally, not free but at a serious discount from the good people in Norwich with whom I now work part-time, in celebration of NILE’s thirtieth birthday, 30% off ALL their courses AND the matching accommodation https://www.nile-elt.com/

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Tuesday, 8th April (Cambridge)

Posted on April 8, 2025 by roycross

1. The latest issue of the European Language Gazette has just been published. Here’s all the issues, including the latest one (you can also sign up for the newsletter yourself) https://www.ecml.at/Resources/Newsletter/tabid/1385/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

Here’s a page I’d not noticed earlier, a comprehensive Multilingual glossary of key terms in language education https://www.ecml.at/Resources/ECMLglossaries/tabid/5484/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

2. A piece from Tribune by Owen Hatherley, Socialism at the Milk Bar https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/02/socialism-at-the-milk-bar/

The authoritarian socialist regimes of the twentieth century tried to rescue people from ‘kitchen slavery’ through communal eateries. In Poland, they survive and thrive.

A note on the history of Tribune, another of those magazines I’ve lost sight of over the years: Tribune was established in 1937 as a socialist magazine that would give voice to the popular front campaigns against the rising tide of fascism in Europe. For eighty years it has been at the heart of left-wing politics in Britain, counting giants of the labour movement like Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot among its former editors.

3. As reported in Publishing Perspectives, recent statements from the UK Publishers Association and Cambridge University Press condemning Meta’s use of copyrighted content to train its AI model, UK Publishers and Cambridge University Press call out Meta and piracy in Generative AI training https://publishingperspectives.com/2025/03/uk-publishers-and-cambridge-call-out-meta-and-piracy-in-generative-ai-training/

When employees at Meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be trained on a huge amount of high-quality writing to be competitive with products such as ChatGPT, and acquiring all of that text legally could take time. Should they just pirate it instead? Guess what they did?

4. The Last Climbing Boy film tells the tragic story of George Brewster https://vimeo.com/1067652561?share=copy

Exactly 150 years after George’s death, a blue plaque has been unveiled in his honour at Fulbourn, just outside Cambridge. He was the last ‘climbing boy’ to die in England, and his death triggered a much greater transformation of British industrial society. On 11th February 1875, George was forced by his master to climb and clean a chimney at what was then the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Fulbourn. Fifteen minutes after entering the chimney, he became stuck. In an attempt to rescue him, an entire wall was pulled down. He was eventually pulled from the chimney but died shortly after.

5. And, finally, a good listen for your next bus, train or plane ride, the most recent episode of ‘The Writer’s Voice’ series in The New Yorker: David Bezmozgis Reads “From, To”, his story from the April 14 2025 issue https://tinyurl.com/53cykftx Lots more writers reading their own stories here https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice

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Thursday, 3rd April (Richmond)

Posted on April 3, 2025 by roycross

1. The Healthy Linguistic Diet team, Thomas Bak and Dina Mehmedbegovic-Smith, relaunched their website on the International Day of Multilingualism last week. Here it is! https://healthylinguisticdiet.com/bali-hld-model-launching-on-the-international-day-of-multilingualism-27-3-2025/

2. I hope this one from The New Yorker is accessible, Are We Taking A.I. Seriously Enough? by Joshua Rothman, as what he has to say seems to me to be really important https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough

There’s no longer any scenario in which A.I. fades into irrelevance. We urgently need voices from outside the industry to help shape its future.

3. This could be one of your two free New Statesman articles each month: What is school for? https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2025/04/what-is-school-for

The struggle for control of the national curriculum is a fight for the soul of English education, says the author, Pippa Bailey – nothing less!

4. Must Europe always take every opportunity to miss an opportunity? is the plaintive title of this good piece for Engelsberg Ideas by Brendan Simms & Lukas Schmelter https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/must-europe-always-take-every-opportunity-to-miss-an-opportunity/

The Trump administration may finally force European leaders to achieve the elusive goal of political union. The tragedy may be that they have left it too late to deter Russian aggression.

5. And, finally, a gift article from The New York Times about the impact of the Trump tariffs, Trump’s Trade War Risks Forfeiting America’s Economic Primacy https://tinyurl.com/ym64aejc

The United States has steered an economic order for 80 years based on trade and trust, making the country the world’s financial superpower. That vision is now blurred.

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Tuesday, 1st April (Cambridge)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by roycross

1. Here’s an open-access special issue of The Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning on Local Perspectives on Language Teacher Motivation and Engagement edited by Sarah Mercer and David Smid https://www.jpll.org/index.php/journal/issue/view/language_teacher_motivation_and_engagement

Some intriguing titles: how about Unveiling the Motivational Tapestry: A Duoethnographic Journey Into two ESP Teachers’ Motivation in Higher Education by Irati Diert-Boté & Balbina Moncada-Comas https://www.jpll.org/index.php/journal/article/view/diert-bote_moncada-comas or Triggers and Supports of International Visiting EFL Teachers’ Directed Motivational Currents by Kadidja Koné https://www.jpll.org/index.php/journal/article/view/kone?

Here’s Sarah and David’s introduction to the issue https://www.jpll.org/index.php/journal/article/view/smid_mercer/smid_mercer

PDF of that below in case that’s easier.

JPLL introDownload

2. Trump: 6 ways he is already changing the world is a pleasingly non-slick vlog by Carne Ross, who also writes the Diplomatic Anarchist blog https://youtu.be/Rk-8uX7mO14

3. This one’s essential reading if you’re a gum chewer, Chewing gum: another way for microplastics to enter your body? https://theconversation.com/chewing-gum-another-way-for-microplastics-to-enter-your-body-252842

4. Some Stress Is Good for You, Actually – did you know that? Here’s a piece from Time, a magazine I’d been wrongly assuming was no longer with us https://time.com/7271109/some-stress-is-good-essay/

as indeed I had Life https://www.life.com/ Some great photos there!

5. And, finally and restfully – for the viewer, at least! – a video from Fen Farm Dairy about the making of a new cheese, Rædwald https://vimeo.com/1062806478 You may need to sign up for a (free) account.

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Thursday, 27th March (Cambridge)

Posted on March 27, 2025 by roycross

1. TeachingEnglish has just had a two-month focus on Planning lessons and courses. I’ve picked out three items from the riches available:

A. The recordings of the three sessions in the online Creating lessons that work mini-event last week: “three practical sessions all about how to create lessons that work for all your learners”.

How to write great learning outcomes with Cath McLellan & Robert Martinez (not the manager of the Portugal football team) https://www.youtube.com/live/4i9V43YVheo

The secrets to writing classroom materials with Joanna Gore, Kath Bilsborough & John Hughes https://www.youtube.com/live/GN2XmP_kVgE

How to create lessons that work with Melissa Thomson, Sadiku Basiru & Jessica Gallagher https://www.youtube.com/live/-Vc518CMYt4

B. Episode 6 of the Education in focus podcast on Educational planning with Martin Wedell & Rukmini Banerjee, reviewing the importance of planning in education systems https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/podcasts/education-focus/education-focus-6-educational-planning

C. A self-study workbook on the theme, Teacher pathways: Planning lessons and courses https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/2024-12/Workbook_for_Planning_lessons_and_courses.pdf

PDF below as well, just in case that’s easier

Workbook_for_Planning_lessons_and_coursesDownload

2. I’m not sure how worried we should be by this video from Tim Mousel, Agentic AI: A Wake-Up Call to Educators https://youtu.be/PX7vbCwd84o If I’ve understood him correctly, AI is now capable of taking a complete online course on behalf of a student, with the course tutor none the wiser.

3. Also on the AI theme, a piece for The Guardian by Jeanette Winterson, OpenAI’s metafictional short story about grief is beautiful and moving https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/12/jeanette-winterson-ai-alternative-intelligence-its-capacity-to-be-other-is-just-what-the-human-race-needs

I think of AI as alternative intelligence, says Winterson, and its capacity to be ‘other’ is just what the human race needs.

And here’s the ChatGPT story that she’s writing about, ‘A machine-shaped hand’ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/12/a-machine-shaped-hand-read-a-story-from-openais-new-creative-writing-model Quite something!

4. I’ve just discovered Elif Batuman’s blog, The Elif Life Here’s a recent post on the novel in Japan (and much more in passing), The “Debate over Pure Literature” https://eliflife.substack.com/p/the-debate-over-pure-literature

5. And, finally and belatedly (sorry!), this year’s Five Films for Freedom from the British Film Institute and the British Council: free to watch for only three days more, till 30th March https://arts.britishcouncil.org/five-films

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Tuesday, 25th March (Richmond)

Posted on March 25, 2025 by roycross

1. Here’s the recording of a recent Future of English conversation with David Crystal https://youtu.be/64HRT797Lsc One of the easiest (and most engaging) people I ever interviewed: you just light the blue touchpaper and sit back!

And when you next have a week to spare, you can spend it exploring David’s website https://www.davidcrystal.com/GBR/Books-and-Articles

2.  Denisa Kostovicova’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Global Politics at the LSE – War crimes talk: does it help or hinder peace? – is tomorrow, Wednesday 26th March, at 18:30 UK time. More info and a registration link here https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/03/202503261830/War-crimes

In her inaugural lecture, Denisa Kostovicova discusses how former opponents engage with the legacy of mass atrocity. War crimes need to be addressed, if peace is to be built. But, in divided societies polarised by violence, war crimes talk can deepen the divisions. Kostovicova draws on her study of post-conflict Balkans and presents lessons for contemporary conflicts. She locates the possibilities for peace in political communication across conflict lines, assesses the risks and considers alternatives, such as arts-based approaches.

3. First of two sent me by Maja Mandekić – Thank you, Maja!

Part 1 of Scam Factories: the inside story of Southeast Asia’s fraud compounds by Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li & The Conversation Digital Storytelling Team https://scam-factories-life-inside.netlify.app/

Ben Yeo is trapped in a scam centre in Cambodia, desperately trying to escape. It’s early 2024 and he’s been here for 30 days. Thirty days since Ben and his wife Moira realised their well-paid new casino jobs were just an elaborate ruse. Now they have to choose: pay their captors a US$20,000 ransom or get to work in the scam compound.

You can read (or listen to) all three parts of the series here https://theconversation.com/scam-factories-the-inside-story-of-southeast-asias-brutal-fraud-compounds-250448

4. And Maja’s second, a piece from The Guardian by James Bailey, What is the meaning of life? 15 possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor, a jail inmate and more https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/22/what-is-the-meaning-of-life-15-possible-answers-from-a-palliative-care-doctor-a-holocaust-survivor-a-jail-inmate-and-more

In September 2015, I was unemployed, heartbroken and living alone in my dead grandad’s caravan, wondering what the meaning of life was. Where was I going to find happiness, or purpose, or meaning? What was the point to all of this?

5. And, finally, a joke from Barry Cryer that has some personal resonance:

A famous comedian visits an old folks’ home to tell them a few jokes. He chats away to them, tells some very good jokes and then his ego gets the better of him. He asks one old lady, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”  She says, “Don’t worry, dear. Matron will tell you.”

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Thursday, 20th March (Cambridge)

Posted on March 20, 2025 by roycross

1. I hadn’t realised that today was World Happiness Day until I saw that Gallup’s annual World Happiness Report was published today https://www.gallup.com/analytics/349487/world-happiness-report.aspx Finland is the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row! PDF of full report below and here’s a short (and corporate) introductory video from the CEO of Gallup https://youtu.be/I32TsgpxntA

world-happiness-report-2025Download

BUT here’s a dissenting view from Yascha Mounk https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-world-happiness-report-is-a-sham

What I found was worse than I’d imagined. To put it politely, the World Happiness Report is beset with methodological problems. To put it bluntly, it is a sham. (…) it turns out that the World Happiness Report is not based on any major research effort; far from measuring how happy people are with some sophisticated mix of indicators, it simply compiles answers to a single question asked to comparatively small samples of people in each country: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. Suppose we say that the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. If the top step is 10 and the bottom step is 0, on which step of the ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time?“

2. I’ve always been puzzled as to how Finland’s very high suicide rate could be reconciled with their being the happiest nation in the world. It turns out I’m thirty years off the pace. Finland launched a highly effective national campaign in the 1990s in response to a suicide rate that at that time was indeed three times the European average. Here’s a piece from The Conversation by a team from Leiden and Tampere universities describing that success, Finland managed to halve its suicide rate – here’s how it happened https://theconversation.com/finland-managed-to-halve-its-suicide-rate-heres-how-it-happened-224708

3. Life mimicking fiction in this piece from The Spectator by Damian Thompson, which could almost be a review of the film Conclave, about the current manoeuvring for succession in the Vatican https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-china-have-vatican-city-in-its-sights/ (You’ll need to sign up for a free account if you haven’t already done so.)

4. Here’s a piece from Tim Klapdor’s blog, Heart Soul Machine, on our collective addiction to ‘devices’, Being Broken https://heartsoulmachine.com/blog/2025/03-09-being-broken/

In the depths of COVID we turned to technology to connect us and express ourselves. Then to entertain us through the lockdowns. Then to distract us from our disrupted lives. Then we succumbed to the addiction. I think the addiction broke us and turned us into … (looks around) … this.

Thanks to OLDaily for that one.

5. And, finally, from The Library of Congress, the ‘earliest surviving American animated film’, made in 1906 https://youtu.be/wGh6maN4l2I

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Tuesday, 18th March (Richmond)

Posted on March 18, 2025 by roycross

1. Two free from this month’s Literary Review:

Sea of Troubles, a review by Owen Matthews of a ‘brilliantly written, convincingly argued and compelling book’, Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody https://literaryreview.co.uk/sea-of-troubles

Death from the Clouds, a review by Philip Snow of a ‘short but quietly devastating book’, Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy https://literaryreview.co.uk/death-from-the-clouds

2. Maybe Bill Gates is one of the good guys after all? Here’s two recent blog posts of his:

What it will really take to feed the world https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/how-to-feed-the-world PDF of free chapter from Vaclav Smil’s book below.

How to Feed the World excerptDownload

I’m heading back to India https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/i-am-heading-back-to-india

A good guy compared to his slightly younger ‘tech bros’, that is, as captured (if only) in this marvellous Getty Images photo for The Daily Telegraph

3. A interesting blog post from BOLD, Inflated praise can reinforce stereotypes https://boldscience.org/inflated-praise-can-reinforce-stereotypes/

In our first experiment, involving 106 primary school teachers, we found that teachers tend to attribute the success of children from a low-SES background more to hard work, and to deliver more inflated praise such as “You did incredibly well!” Our second experiment involved 64 primary school children aged 10-13. Children learned that a classmate had received inflated praise while a child who had performed just as well had received modest praise or none at all. We found that children perceived the child who was praised more lavishly to be more hardworking but less smart.

4. An excellent feature from The Booker Prize people, interviews with all the International Booker Prize longlisted authors and their translators https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/interviews-with-the-international-booker-prize-2025-longlistees

5. And, finally, two short stories from The New Yorker to read and/or listen to read by the author

Five Bridges by Colm Tóibín https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/10/five-bridges-fiction-colm-toibin

Keuka Lake by Joseph O’Neill https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/03/keuka-lake-fiction-joseph-oneill

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