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/

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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!

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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

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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!

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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

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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

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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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