facing up to your imperial past: the belgians

A lot of countries have had (and still have?) empires. 

How many are looking back on the not-so glorious times? 

If we look at what the British did to India and elsewhere in the British empire things still have to be looked at a little more - and that is happening, whether it's as adventures in art at the British Museum, or considering the British empire past and present, or teaching empire in British schools.

There is much more thought being put into the idea of "decolonizing" - whether it's Britain... Israel... Russia... Canada... Australia... India....

All of these countries are 'big' or have had 'big empires' - but what about the 'smaller' countries?

The Dutch are facing up to their imperial past - although things are rather mixed up in the country: What Is New about Dutch Populism? Dutch Colonialism, Hierarchical Citizenship and Contemporary Populism.

What about their neighbours in Belgium?

The Belgian empire in Africa was particularly brutal:

How extraordinary it was to discover, then, that one of this small state’s kings was also one of history’s greatest mass murderers. Leopold II (1835-1909) wanted his country to join the league of European empires, but the Belgian state refused to finance its part in western Europe’s expensive scramble for Africa. So they outsourced the task to Leopold, who used personal diplomacy to convince the European powers to grant him control of a large portion of the Congo basin. He promised to bring civilisation to the so-called dark continent.

Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today

This even has a separate entry in Wikipedia:

Atrocities in the Congo Free State - Wikipedia

Belgians are facing up to this imperial past:

Confronting Belgium's Colonial Legacy in Congo

Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past - BBC News

An extraordinary documentary looks at how the Americans took over from the Belgians in 1960 - as the Brussels Times points out:

The murder of Congo’s first post-independence leader Patrice Lumumba took place as famed jazzman Louis Armstrong was touring the country. The two events were not a coincidence, as the acclaimed documentary, ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’, reveals.

How jazz played out over Congo’s chaotic coup

With more from Wikipedia:

To retain control over the riches of what used to be Belgian Congo, King Baudouin of Belgium finds an ally in the Eisenhower administration, which fears losing access to one of the world’s biggest supplies of Uranium, a mineral vital for the creation of atomic bombs. Congo takes center stage to both the Cold War and the scheme for control of the UN. The US State Department swings into action: Jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong is dispatched to win the hearts and minds of Africa. Unwittingly, Armstrong becomes a smokescreen to divert attention from Africa’s first post-colonial coup, leading to the assassination of Congo’s first democratically elected leader.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat - Wikipedia

The filmmaker is Belgian:

Johan Grimonprez (born 1962) is a Belgian multimedia artist, filmmaker, and curator. He is most known for his films Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997), Double Take (2009) and Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (2016), based on the book by Andrew Feinstein. Grimonprez wrote and directed the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat about the promise of decolonisation, the hope of the non-aligned movement and the dream of self-determination.

Johan Grimonprez - Wikipedia

And another couple of reviews:

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat review – superb study of how jazz got caught between the cold war and the CIA | Music documentary | The Guardian

Coups, colonialism and all that jazz: the film that unravels extraordinary cold war truths | Film | The Guardian

Here's the trailer:

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat – Official Trailer - YouTube

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ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tr

English is a Germanic language:

Why English Is a Germanic Language | Grammarly Blog

This matters because for centuries the powers that be have effectively willed English to be a Romance language, for reasons predominantly of prestige. Grammatical assessments, for example, almost always included reference to the “future” (and often also to concepts such as the “subjunctive”), which are useful for describing Latin but misleading when used for Germanic languages.

English is a profoundly Germanic language | Ian James Parsley

Here's a nice little video - very helpful for both learners and teachers of English:

Is English Really a Germanic Language? - YouTube

Apparently, the European Union has decided to switch to English as the official language of the union. This will make communication easier for all Europeans and will free up a lot of vowel space.

EU Progress: Official Language Change to "Euro-English

And by 'Euro English', they mean something... as bit more Germanic:

Here's what it'd look like (taken from Reddit): "The European Commission has jus... | Hacker News

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'the english language doesn't exist'

A recent news story about the English language which excited the British press was reported differently, depending on the politics and sense of humour of each newspaper:

Do you think the English language exists? You do, don’t you? That’s quite odd because, according to Bernard Cerquiglini, it doesn’t, and his credentials are probably more impressive than yours.

The English language doesn’t exist, it’s mispronounced French - The New European

A French linguist has controversially claimed that the English language 'doesn't exist' and is just 'badly pronounced French'. Bernard Cerquiglini, a linguistics professor from Lyon, points out that the English language uses thousands of words taken from French about 1,000 years ago.

Ironically, many of these have since reentered the French language but in a bastardised English form – such as 'stew', 'people' and 'shopping'. Professor Cerquiglini, an adviser to President Macron, has already slammed the continued use of English words in French culture as 'distressing'.

English 'doesn't exist' and is just badly pronounced French, linguist claims | Daily Mail Online

Few would deny that English has conquered the world. But the French have always refused to take this linguistic victory lying down.

For centuries, the “immortal” guardians of the French language at the Académie Française, France’s linguistic authority since 1634, have arguably been fighting a losing battle to contain the invasion of anglais. Theirs is a Sisyphean task as they toil in coming up with French alternatives to English words such as “gazoduc” instead of pipeline, or the more recent “icône de la mode” instead of “it girl”, in the hope they will catch on.

'English is not a language – it's just badly spoken French'

There's been a lot of interesting commentary:

L’anglaise n’existe pas : r/DuolingoFrench

France: English does not exist as a language, says Macron adviser - ProtoThema English

English Just 'Badly Pronounced French', Paris Academic Says | Barron's

This is the main point of the book:

The title of the book translates as “The English language doesn’t exist – it’s just French that’s badly pronounced” , which is a quip First World War French President Georges Clemenceau used to make. The author admits from the outset that he’s writing somewhat tongue in cheek. But he’s a distinguished linguist – and he pulls no punches as he sets out his case.

The English language doesn’t exist – it’s just French that’s badly pronounced

Here's a book review - in bad French:

Parlez vous? 
The English language’s debt to French
By Judith Flanders

Bernard Cerquiglini is a former director of the Institut national de la langue française, and the first part of his catchy title quotes the former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, who was married (unhappily) to an American. The author then backtracks: of course, English is spoken as a first or acquired language by more than a billion people worldwide. But the textbook definition of English – a language descended from a Germanic source – masks “la vérité”, which is that it owes its influence and power to the amount of French it contains.

Cerquiglini begins with a brief outline of the imposition of Norman French on England and the English from 1066 onwards, and the long admiration for France and French among the upper classes. He uses Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, set in 1194, to illustrate the bifurcation of English: in Scott’s romance there is a French-derived vocabulary for the upper and educated classes, and Anglo-Saxon derivations for the working classes. Anglo-Saxon peasants raise “old Alderman Ox”, which becomes “beef” when the prosperous eat it.

The shift in vocabulary has not always been class-based. The Old Frisian-derived “mouth” describes the facial orifice, but its adjective is the French-sourced “oral”; the Old Saxon “town” is the noun, the French “urban” the adjective. And English’s enormous vocabulary, one of the largest of any language, is in good part based on exactly this kind of doubling of Germanic and French words: ask/demand, buy/purchase, build/construct.

“La langue anglaise …” is interesting, too, on how English today can clarify the pronunciation of vanished Norman dialects. Norman French replaces the “ch” sound with a “q”, which in English becomes a hard “c”. Thus, “car” from char (chariot), “carpenter” from charpentier, “escape” from échapper. Most fascinating of all is the journey from “w” to “g”. Norman French used a “w” for the sound that other French dialects pronounced with a hard “g”, and so it is that our “wardrobe” comes from guarde-robe and “wicket” from guichet. This also solves the mystery of why we have warranties and guarantees, guardians and wardens in English. These words travelled twice from France: once with a “w” during the Norman Conquest, then again centuries later with a “g” in now-standard Parisian French.

Cerquiglini has statistics to hand: 29 per cent of English vocabulary comes from French sources; another 29 per cent from Latin; and only 26 per cent from Germanic sources.…

‘La langue anglaise n’existe pas’ by Bernard Cerquiglini | Book review

"La langue anglaise n'existe pas": C'est du français mal prononcé: Amazon.co.uk: Cerquiglini, Bernard: 9782073056610: Books

Finally, a video discussion:

Is English just badly pronounced French? - YouTube

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the impact of continuing professional development

There are quite a few resources available online for ESOL/TEFL teachers wanting to up their own teaching skills:

Jay Doubleyou: training courses for clil teachers, for overseas teachers, for english teachers

Jay Doubleyou: free esol/tefl teaching webinars

Jay Doubleyou: etprofessional - the magazine for english teacher development

Here's a good guide for those of us just starting up:

Jay Doubleyou: continuing professional development: after the celta

Here's a piece in the EL Gazette looking at a specific MA in Professional Development for Language Education - with some good discussions on the state today of CPD:

Mastering the art of professional development - E L Gazette

And here's a critical look at the whole idea of CPD from ten years ago:

Jay Doubleyou: continuing professional development - a critique

There are a lot of more recent academic studies:

Continuing professional development as lifelong learning and education

Here's one paper from 2020 which gives a good overview

Key findings

The impact of professional development on pupils

• High-quality CPD for teachers has a significant effect on pupils’ learning outcomes. CPD programmes have the potential to close the gap between beginner and more experienced teachers: the impact of CPD on pupil outcomes (effect size 0.09) compares to the impact of having a teacher with ten years’ experience rather than a new graduate (0.11). CPD also has similar attainment effects to those generated by large, structural reforms to the school system (0.1).   
• Evidence suggests that quality CPD has a greater effect on pupil attainment than other interventions schools may consider, such as implementing performance-related pay for teachers or lengthening the school day.
• Teacher CPD may be a cost-effective intervention for improving pupil outcomes: while there are other interventions with a larger impact on pupil attainment, such as one-to-one tutoring (0.28), these programmes are typically far more expensive.
• CPD programmes generally produce positive responses from teachers, in contrast to other interventions. Large, structural changes to the school system, while as effective at improving pupil outcomes, incur substantial costs in terms of staff turnover and dissatisfaction.

The impact of professional development on teacher retention

• Increasing the availability of high-quality CPD has been shown to improve retention problems, particularly for early-career teachers. While factors other than access to CPD tend to be behind teachers’ decisions to quit the profession, there is evidence supporting targeted CPD programmes for teachers in the early stages of their careers.
• Induction training and mentoring programmes are particularly effective for improving retention rates early on. Quality CPD has the potential to alleviate acute retention problems for early-career teachers.

Evidence review: The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students - Education Policy Institute

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kolb and experiential learning

Here's a very good start for learning and teaching|:

Constructivism

Main article: Constructivism (learning theory)

Founded by Jean Piaget, constructivism emphasizes the importance of the active involvement of learners in constructing knowledge for themselves. Students are thought to use background knowledge and concepts to assist them in their acquisition of novel information. On approaching such new information, the learner faces a loss of equilibrium with their previous understanding, and this demands a change in cognitive structure. This change effectively combines previous and novel information to form an improved cognitive schema. Constructivism can be both subjectively and contextually based. Under the theory of radical constructivism, coined by Ernst von Glasersfeld, understanding relies on one's subjective interpretation of experience as opposed to objective "reality". Similarly, William Cobern's idea of contextual constructivism encompasses the effects of culture and society on experience.[34]

Constructivism asks why students do not learn deeply by listening to a teacher, or reading from a textbook. To design effective teaching environments, it believes one needs a good understanding of what children already know when they come into the classroom. The curriculum should be designed in a way that builds on the pupil's background knowledge and is allowed to develop with them.[35] Begin with complex problems and teach basic skills while solving these problems.[36] The learning theories of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and David A. Kolb serve as the foundation of the application of constructivist learning theory in the classroom.[37] Constructivism has many varieties such as active learning, discovery learning, and knowledge building, but all versions promote a student's free exploration within a given framework or structure.[38] The teacher acts as a facilitator who encourages students to discover principles for themselves and to construct knowledge by working answering open-ended questions and solving real-world problems. To do this, a teacher should encourage curiosity and discussion among his/her students as well as promoting their autonomy. In scientific areas in the classroom, constructivist teachers provide raw data and physical materials for the students to work with and analyze.[39]

Learning theory (education) - Wikipedia

Jay Doubleyou: learning theory: a short guide

Which takes us to this: 

It will soon be twenty years old, but the Theory of Experiential Learning has had little presence in ESL. "Experiential" learning is not just "fieldwork" or "praxis" (the connecting of learning to real life situations) although it is the basis for these approaches, it is a theory that defines the cognitive processes of learning. In particular, it asserts the importance of critical reflection in learning. As we shall see, David Kolb was one of the key contributors.

Kelly - David Kolb, The Theory of Experiential Learning and ESL (TESL/TEFL)

Jay Doubleyou: kolb's learning cycle

Or we can see it like this:

With a video:

In Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (1984), Kolb defined learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (p. 38). This learning experience consists of four stages:Concrete Experience (CE): feeling

Reflective Observation (RO): watching
Abstract Conceptualization (AC): thinking
Active Experimentation (AE): doing
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These four stages, or steps, of learning typically move through a cycle that begins with a student having a concrete experience and ends with them actively experimenting with the knowledge they gained.

Kolb's Four Stages of Learning - Center for Instructional Technology and Training - University of Florida

And a helpful diagram:

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory & Learning Styles - Educational Technology

With another excellent introductory video:

Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle: A Complete Guide - Growth Engineering

Which takes us to this:

Kolb's Learning Styles & Experiential Learning Cycle

David A. Kolb - Institute for Experiential Learning

This is in a way a challenge to the rather lazy 'learning styles' approach:

As with any methodology or tool, use VAK and other learning styles concepts with care. The concepts are an aid, not a dogma to be followed and applied rigidly. See the notes for using Learning Styles with young people on the Kolb Learning Styles page.

Howard Gardner: Multiple Intelligences Theory – BusinessBalls.com

Jay Doubleyou: visual, auditory, kinesthetic learning styles

Finally, here's Kolb on Wikipedia:

David A. Kolb - Wikipedia

Kolb's experiential learning - Wikipedia

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evidence-based teaching

There are some very interesting teaching methods out there - some with more 'evidence' behind them than others.

This has a little:

Jay Doubleyou: dogme and emergent language pt 1

This also has some:

Jay Doubleyou: learning theory: constructivism

John Hattie provides definitive evidence of what works and what doesn't - for example, in one particular area:

Jay Doubleyou: students want feedback part 2

Stephen Krashen is not convinced about one very popular approach to teaching English writing and pronunciation:

Jay Doubleyou: a critique of phonics

It is quite difficult - backing up different theories with evidence:

Jay Doubleyou: learning theory: a short guide

So, over the last couple of decades, a more solid approach to approaches to teaching has developed:

Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, with randomised trials as the gold standard of evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences.[1] Evidence-based education is related to evidence-based teaching,[2][3][4] evidence-based learning,[5] and school effectiveness research.[6][7]

The evidence-based education movement has its roots in the larger movement towards evidence-based practices, and has been the subject of considerable debate since the late 1990s.[8] However, research published in 2020 showed that there is still widespread belief amongst educators in ineffective teaching techniques such as learning styles[9] and the cone of learning.[10]

...

External links[edit]The Evidence Based Teachers Network (EBTN)
Institute for Effective Education (IEE)
researchED.org.uk
Evidence based interventions, McGill University, Canada
Evidence based practice, The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), A.S.A Archived 2020-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
Evidence based education, UK

Evidence-based education - Wikipedia

Trinity College has some very good resources:

English language support resources | Trinity College London

Evidence-based teaching poster_English_A3.indd

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trouble at the british council

The British Council certainly has a reputation.

It is an online place to go for excellent resources:

Jay Doubleyou: class journals from the british council

Jay Doubleyou: as others see us - british council

Jay Doubleyou: music lessons from the british council

Jay Doubleyou: monthly lesson plans from the british council

And it is an institution to go to for accreditation:

Jay Doubleyou: private language schools: accreditation and protecting clients

Jay Doubleyou: what's the point of british council accreditation?

However, it is also part of the bigger circuit of language schools - which are all finding it an issue to recruit staff:

Jay Doubleyou: "there is now a massive shortage of tefl teachers across the world"

And if there is a shortage of employees, then the employees can start to get a bit difficult:

English Teaching Jobs in Thailand: High Demand and Competitive Salaries

Our new survey finds schools in England struggle to recruit language teachers | British Council

Here's a very critical piece on the state and status of the British Council today - as Educator and journalist William Grice shares his experience with teacher recruitment through the British Council:

This past summer, the Gazette covered how teachers at British Council Taiwan were considering a historic strike due to stagnant pay rates spanning 20 years. In response to the strike action, the British Council have said they believe their teacher package is ‘very competitive in the market and is reflected in our high teacher retention rates and new full-time applicant recruitment rates’. Despite this, one teacher in Taiwan claimed they could ‘make more as a teaching assistant at the local international school’.

Additionally, 100 teachers were left behind in Afghanistan to make their own way out following the Taliban takeover in 2021. Thankfully, nearly all of them have since left safely. These issues, however, are just the tip of the iceberg. My own experience with teacher recruitment and subsequent investigations revealed further challenges within the organisation...

British Council’s shared services in India: smart cost-cutting or cultural misstep? - E L Gazette

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talking about your passions

One way to get into a good conversation is to ask your opposite number about their passions, their interests, what really drives them.

That might be the type of music they listen to:

Jay Doubleyou: what's your playlist?

Or the food they enjoy:

Jay Doubleyou: slow food: "pleasure, hedonism, enjoyment, tranquility, conviviality, richness"

But 'passion' involves deep feelings, not just a 'hobby' or 'pastime' activity:

Jay Doubleyou: emotions

Jay Doubleyou: emotional intelligence

Ultimately, if we are to have good conversations which really engage, then we need to ask the right questions and listen in the right way:

Jay Doubleyou: how to be open to other people's opinions

Of course, this is also a typical if rather to-be-expected question at an interview - so we need to be careful how we answer!

What are you passionate about? Crafting an ideal interview answer | Indeed.com UK

How to Answer “What Are You Passionate About?” (Samples) | The Muse

Interview Question: "What Are You Passionate About?"

How To Thoughtfully Answer "What Are You Passionate About?" | Indeed.com

But maybe it's a question we shouldn't be asking!

Remember back when you were a kid? You would just do things. You never thought to yourself, “What are the relative merits of learning baseball versus football?” You just ran around the playground and played baseball and football. You built sand castles and played tag and asked silly questions and looked for bugs and dug up grass and pretended you were a sewer monster.

Nobody told you to do it, you just did it. You were led merely by your curiosity1 and excitement.2

And the beautiful thing was, if you hated baseball, you just stopped playing it. There was no guilt involved. There was no arguing or debate. You either liked it or you didn’t.

And if you loved looking for bugs, you just did that. There was no second-level analysis of, “Well, is looking for bugs really what I should be doing with my time as a child? Nobody else wants to look for bugs, does that mean there’s something wrong with me? How will looking for bugs affect my future prospects?”3

There was no bullshit. If you liked something, you just did it.

“How Do I Find My Passion?”

Today, I received approximately the 11,504th email this year from a person telling me that they don’t know what to do with their life. And like all of the others, this person asked me if I had any ideas of what they could do, where they could start, where to “find their passion.”

And of course, I didn’t respond. Why? Because I have no clue. If you don’t have any idea what to do with yourself, what makes you think some jackass with a website would? I’m a writer, not a fortune teller.4

But more importantly, what I want to say to these people is this: that’s the whole point—”not knowing” is the whole point. Life is all about not knowing, and then doing something anyway. All of life is like this. All of it. And it’s not going to get any easier just because you found out you love your job cleaning septic tanks, or you scored a dream gig writing indie movies.

The common complaint among a lot of these people is that they need to “find their passion.”

Screw Finding Your Passion

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passionate about the countryside

Firstly, what do we mean by 'the countryside'?

land outside towns and cities, with fields, woods, etc.

• The surrounding countryside is windswept and rocky.
• magnificent views over open countryside
• the beautiful countryside of Wales
• Everyone should enjoy the right of access to the countryside.
• in the countryside the quieter pace of life in the countryside

countryside noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

How do you feel about 'the countryside'?

Feeling at home in the countryside - Ramblers

‘A visit to the countryside is always accompanied by a feeling of unease; dread.’ - Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives

A lot of us wanted to move to the countryside during the pandemic:

COVID-19: Americans want to swap city for rural areas | World Economic Forum

Is it better to Live in the Countryside vs City Life -

Although moving to the countryside has an impact:

Jay Doubleyou: building on the greenbelt

But how open is the countryside?

The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes review – a trespasser's radical manifesto | Travel writing | The Guardian

Nick Hayes on Trespassing: In Conversation with Dartington Trust - YouTube

Here we are looking at the history of the countryside:

Jay Doubleyou: the making of the british landscape...

Jay Doubleyou: stone circles in the west country

In other words we have had quite an impact on the countryside:

Jay Doubleyou: anthropocene

And we are only just understanding what that impact is:

Jay Doubleyou: climate literacy around the world

Jay Doubleyou: climate change in the english language classroom

But how much of this understanding is reliable, balanced and truthful?

Jay Doubleyou: green propaganda

Jay Doubleyou: green nationalism

Jay Doubleyou: how green are electric cars?

Jay Doubleyou: the spread of zoonotic diseases

Finally, perhaps we need to celebrate, to appreciate the countryside a little more:

Jay Doubleyou: earth day 2024

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great online resources to improve your english

Students and teachers will have lots of apps and extensions, links and sites to share.

Here are a few!

LINGQ

Learn languages online: English, German, Russian, Japanese... - LingQ

Thoughts on LingQ is it effective? : r/languagelearning

LingQ: Pro Tips for Language Learners - YouTube

LingQ Review - Learn Languages By Reading (And With No Grammar!) | AutoLingual – Learn A Foreign Language By Yourself

ENGLISH-E-READER

English e-Reader

English e-reader: reading (and listening) for free – Victoria's Secret English blog for EOI students

E-Books (english-e-reader) - LingQ Language Library

Stream english-e-reader.net music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud

BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

BBC Learning English - Learn English with BBC Learning English - Homepage

BBC Learning English - YouTube

BBC Learning English Review: An Excellent, if Disorganized, Collection of Resources | FluentU Language Learning

BBC Learning English - Wikipedia

BRITISH COUNCIL:

Learn English Online | British Council

British Council English Online Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of englishonline.britishcouncil.org

British Council English Online Review - Learnopoly

British Council Mini-Review: Lots Of Free Content

EASY ENGLISH READERS:

Learn English Through Story | Level 1 | Easy English Reading for Beginners with Simple Vocabulary. - YouTube

How to Speak English Easily | Graded Reader for Beginners | Improve English Skills | Learn English - YouTube

Easy Stories in English | Learn English the natural way

English Reading: English Texts for Beginners

freegradedreaders.com/wordpress/

CULIPS:

English for everyday use | Get awesome at English

Culips English Live Class! - YouTube

Culips English Podcast - YouTube

Reviews of Culips Everyday English Podcast - Chartable

ENGLISH HARMONY:

EnglishHarmony - YouTube

English Harmony System - English Fluency Course

How to speak English fluently with Robby Kukurs

English Harmony Podcast

ITALKI:

italki - Best language learning app with certificated tutors

Is iTalki worth it? : r/languagelearning

italki Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of www.italki.com

Italki Review - The Good, The Bad, & The Just Alright

LUKE'S ENGLISH PODCAST:

Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast | Learn British English with Luke Thompson

Reviews of Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Chartable

Reviews For The Podcast "Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson" Curated From iTunes

Listener Numbers, Contacts, Similar Podcasts - Luke's ENGLISH Podcast

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'language learning protects against dementia'

Perhaps there is too much attention paid to young people's problems:

Jay Doubleyou: are young people failing to 'grow up'?

But older people also have problems - especially when it comes to learning languages:

Why is it harder to learn a new language when older? - Rosetta Stone

However, it's something we should be doing the older we get!

Why learning a language in retirement is a great idea - How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins

Gill Ragsdale writes for the E L Gazette:

Never too old to start

Language learning protects against dementia.

Language learning improves cognitive function, especially cognitive flexibility, in the over 65s, according to a Dutch study by Jelle Brouer and colleagues at the University of Groningen.

The proportion of the population over 65 in most countries is increasing as life expectancy increases and birth rates decline. Unfortunately, this phase of life is often accompanied by chronic ill health, one of these challenges being cognitive decline and dementia.

Life experiences which can reduce the risk or delay the onset of dementia include having more education and/or a challenging and stimulating job. Basically, the more cognitive stimulation a person has throughout life, the lower the risk.

One of the ways this might work is by increasing ‘cognitive reserve’. This is like having more money in the bank so that when the bills start coming in it takes longer to go bankrupt. What is less clear, is whether cognitive stimulation later in life can still be effective.

Learning a language is cognitively taxing and people who speak more than one language have been reported to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by several years. Jelle’s study sought to establish whether language learning in later life could still improve cognitive function and consequently enlarge cognitive reserves...

The debate over the influence of age on language learning continues, but whether older people genuinely find language learning more challenging or not, the results of this study show that it is still very worthwhile to try.

Never too old to start - E L Gazette

And teaching a language when you are older is also challenging!

Jay Doubleyou: "the perils of teaching a foreign language"

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'first language literacy skills enhance second language learning'

We know how important, how useful and how helpful reading is:

Jay Doubleyou: reading really is the best way to improve (your own and a second) language

And if it's fun, then all the better:

Jay Doubleyou: "children who read for pleasure are better at english"

There is theoretical support for this:

Jay Doubleyou: krashen and second language learning

As well as a lot of practice:

Jay Doubleyou: to acquire a language you need lots of comprehensible input

Here's a piece in the latest E L Gazette by Gill Ragsdale looking at why it's so important:

Teach your children well

First language literacy skills enhance second language learning.

Early enhancement of reading skills in Spanish translates to improved English literacy, according to a study by Raul Gutiérrez Fresneda and colleagues at the Universities of Alicante and Málaga in Spain...

It appears that increasing reading skills in the first language (Spanish) improved literacy skills in the second language (English). Although these languages may seem relatively similar, Spanish is a much more transparent language—meaning words can be more easily decoded letter by letter—than English, with its infamous inconsistencies and exceptions.

This makes the transfer of literacy skills especially interesting and not something that could be assumed. The authors suggest that, in general, exposure to more than one language may expand literacy skills more generally.

Another implication from this study is that second language proficiency can be strongly influenced by the quality of education in the learners’ first language, independent of individual differences in otherwise innate abilities.

Setting up young children with strong foundations in their first language can have a long lasting impact on their success in other languages. Where such foundations have been lacking, perhaps further interventions for second language learners could close the gap.

Teach your children well - E L Gazette

One point then is that we need to be teaching immigrants their own language:

Jay Doubleyou: bilingualism and school

Jay Doubleyou: global britain: seeing the languages of immigrants as an asset to be nurtured

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adventures in art at the british museum

The BBC radio series in conjunction with the British Museum threw up all sorts of exciting objects, each with their own fascinating back story:

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects - Downloads

Let's look at some of their possibilities:

Throne of Weapons

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsThe World of Our Making (1914 - 2010 AD)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, The World of Our Making (1914 - 2010 AD), Throne of Weapons

Which is a reminder of this artist:

Jay Doubleyou: shonibare - gorgeously recognisable artist

Becoming an Artist: Yinka Shonibare | Tate Kids - YouTube

Yinka Shonibare MBE: FABRIC--ATION - YouTube

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Hokusai's The Great Wave

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsMass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD), Hokusai's The Great Wave

Which takes us to:

John Berger / Ways of Seeing , Episode 1 (1972) - YouTube

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Early Victorian tea set

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsMass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD), Early Victorian tea set

Which is a reminder of this again:

Jay Doubleyou: teaching empire in british schools

And what museums are doing with their imperial treasures:

Returning the Benin Bronzes - YouTube

Including the British Museum:

Benin plaque - the Oba with Europeans

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsThe First Global Economy (1450 - 1600 AD)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, The First Global Economy (1450 - 1600 AD), Benin plaque - the Oba with Europeans

With another example from west Africa here:

Ife head

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsStatus Symbols (1200 - 1400 AD)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, Status Symbols (1200 - 1400 AD), Ife head

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Finally, looking through the list, where would these objects take you?

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects - Downloads

Perhaps this?

Minoan Bull Leaper

A History of the World in 100 ObjectsThe Beginning of Science and Literature (1500 - 700 BC)

BBC Radio 4 - A History of the World in 100 Objects, The Beginning of Science and Literature (1500 - 700 BC), Minoan Bull Leaper

Which might finish here:

Picasso and the Minotaur: Why Was He So Obsessed?

Exposición - Picasso Minotauro - Picasso, Pablo (Pablo Ruiz Picasso)

exploring picasso by eyesight and muscle memory | ballpoint,… | Flickr

And here:

PICASSO DRAWING OF BULL - YouTube

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climate literacy around the world

How much do we know about climate change?

There have been lots of surveys/questionnaires/guides put together lately:

Introduction to the 2024 Climate Literacy Guide | NOAA Climate.gov

Allianz | Allianz Climate Literacy Survey 2023

The challenge of climate literacy – The Earthbound Report

Global Climate Literacy Competitions

What sort of quizzes and such like could we put together?!

Anna Turns, senior environment editor, writes in the latest Imagine newsletter from The Conversation - on what's being done to improve climate literacy around the world:

Understanding complex climate science can be tricky enough, even in your own language. So what happens when none of the mainstream climate information is published in your native tongue?

Most people are excluded from conversations and decisions about how to tackle the biggest threat to humanity because they can't easily access accurate reporting. Almost 90% of scientific publications are in English, explains Marco Saraceni, a professor of linguistics at the University of Portsmouth. "This is a staggering dominance of just one language. But English, often called a global language, is only spoken by a minority of the world’s population." Between 1 and 2 billion people speak English – so, as Saraceni highlights: "At least three-quarters of the world’s population do not speak the language in which the science about climate change is disseminated globally. At the same time, languages other than English are marginalised and struggle to find space in the global communication of science."

Languages are a significant barrier to the global transfer of scientific knowledge, according to a 2016 study. Out of the 100 most prestigious scientific journals, 91 are published in the UK and US. Yet, the biggest effects of the climate crisis are being felt in the developing world. This widespread language bias leads to inequalities, argues Saraceni. One way to break the barrier of English monolingualism involves using AI to promote multilingualism, he explains.

A noteworthy example is the work of Climate Cardinals, a US-based youth enterprise with a mission to “make the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English”. Its network of thousands of young volunteers is translating climate information into more than 100 languages. Now, specialist Google tools are also being used to accelerate the translation of these resources.

Climate science is getting lost in translation

And here's the full report from Mario Saraceni Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Plymouth:

How language barriers influence global climate literacy | University of Portsmouth

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oak ai uk - "providing every teacher with a personalised AI lesson-planning assistant"

Earlier in the year, the previous UK government promised AI resources to help teachers in and out of the classroom:

UK pledges £2m grant to bring AI into every classroom - Verdict

PM plans investment in AI classroom tools to reduce teacher workloads | The Independent

Here's the official announcement at the time:

Every teacher in England is set to benefit from new resources powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), supporting them to plan lessons and build classroom quizzes, and helping to reduce workloads.

The Government is investing up to £2 million in Oak National Academy, which was established to support teachers with high-quality curriculum resources online, to create new teaching tools using AI – marking the first step towards providing every teacher with a personalised AI lesson-planning assistant.

This follows a pilot of an AI-powered quiz builder and lesson planner. Thousands of teachers have already signed up to use these tools, helping them to create individualised content that is tailored to teaching their pupils and based on Oak’s high-quality curriculum content. This new cash boost will help Oak to improve these tools further before making them available to teachers across England for free.

New support for teachers powered by Artificial Intelligence - GOV.UK

Today, the 'national academy' has indeed got quite a few [free!] AI resources available for teachers:

Oak National Academy

It started when students and pupils suddenly had to work online:

Created in April 2020 as a rapid response to the coronavirus outbreak, we brought together a group of partners committed to supporting schools’ efforts to keep children learning.

Who We Are | Oak National Academy | Oak National Academy

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controlling ai - part four: "integrating it into teaching, learning, and assessment will require careful consideration"

We need to be aware of the 'dangers' of AI, whether its comes to its impact on democracy:

Jay Doubleyou: controlling ai - part one: the dangers of chatgpt

Or its impact specifically on American democracy:

Jay Doubleyou: controlling ai - part two: the dangers of deep fake imagery

Or its impact from China:

Jay Doubleyou: controlling ai - part three: china controlling ai

Beyond politics and into the classroom, chatgpt and 'fake texts' are having a deep impact - as reported by the BBC this week:

"Generative AI has great potential to transform the Higher Education sector and provides exciting opportunities for growth. However, integrating it into teaching, learning, and assessment will require careful consideration. Universities must determine how to harness the benefits and mitigate the risks to prepare students for the jobs of the future."

'I used AI to cheat at uni and regret it' - BBC News

There are lots of resources to support teachers:

AI in teaching and assessment | Academic Support

Three categories of GenAI use in assessment | Teaching & Learning - UCL – University College London

Here's a webinar from 2021 looking at how AI can provide 24/7 support to teachers and multiple learners at the same time:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the fastest-growing technology in various fields. The adoption of AI spans the global learning landscape and has been used in experiential learning, tutoring, language learning, and knowledge testing. In higher education, some educators have identified the affordances of AI and utilized this technology in making teaching and learning more effective.

Artificial Intelligence for Teaching, Learning and Assessment - YouTube

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foreign-educated graduates reduce extreme poverty

There's quite a big story from this month about the effects of a 'foreign education' in helping to reduce poverty at home:

Int'l student mobility reduces global poverty, new study finds

Study shows how international student mobility can reduce poverty in low and middle-income countries | University of Oxford

Here is that study :

International student mobility and poverty reduction: A cross-national analysis of low- and middle-income countries - ScienceDirect

And here is the coverage from the EL Gazette:

International student mobility shown to reduce poverty

A new study published in the International Journal of Educational Research has found that foreign-educated graduates reduce extreme poverty in low- and middle-income countries. Researchers from the University of Oxford examined how international higher.

International student mobility shown to reduce poverty - E L Gazette

The EL Gazette give a particular example of this:

News in numbers: young Turkish students abroad drive growth

Türkiye’s junior ELT market is showing significant signs of growth, with 88% of young people expressing interest in studying abroad, according to Engin Cosar, owner of Academix Study Abroad Services. Recent research from BONARD has taken...

News in numbers: young Turkish students abroad drive growth - E L Gazette

Generally though, education, whether 'foreign' or not, is good at reducing poverty:

How does education affect poverty? It can help end it.

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is there a consensus on the political issues of our time?

How do people in your country view the 'issues'? Is there a 'middle ground' or general agreement on things - a consensus on how we can all get along?

In the lead-up to the US presidential election, two [liberal] English-language newspapers look at this.

Click on the links for access to the full articles.

First, the New York Times starts by asking why Kamala Harris isn't doing any better. Here's an excerpt:

Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?

Oct. 17, 2024 Opinion David Brooks

Why has politics been 50-50 for over a decade? We’ve had big shifts in the electorate, college-educated voters going left and non-college-educated voters going right. But still, the two parties are almost exactly evenly matched.

This is not historically normal. Usually we have one majority party that has a big vision for the country, and then we have a minority party that tries to poke holes in that vision. (In the 1930s the Democrats dominated with the New Deal, and the Republicans complained. In the 1980s the Reagan revolution dominated, and the Democrats tried to adjust.)

But today neither party has been able to expand its support to create that kind of majority coalition. As the American Enterprise Institute scholars Ruy Teixeira and Yuval Levin note in a new study, “Politics Without Winners,” we have two parties playing the role of minority party: “Each party runs campaigns focused almost entirely on the faults of the other, with no serious strategy for significantly broadening its electoral reach.”

Teixeira and Levin observe that both parties are content to live with deadlock. The parties, they write, “have prioritized the wishes of their most intensely devoted voters — who would never vote for the other party — over the priorities of winnable voters who could go either way.” Both parties “treat narrow victories like landslides and wave away narrow defeats, somehow seeing both as confirmation of their existing strategies.”

Trump has spent the past nine years not even trying to expand his base but just playing to the same MAGA grievances over and over again. Kamala Harris refuses to break with Biden on any significant issue and is running as a paint-by-numbers orthodox Democrat. Neither party tolerates much ideological diversity. Neither party has a plausible strategy to build a durable majority coalition. Why?

I think the reason for all this is that political parties no longer serve the function they used to. In days gone by, parties were political organizations designed to win elections and gain power. Party leaders would expand their coalitions toward that end. Today, on the other hand, in an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership and moral sanctification. If that’s your purpose, of course you have to stick to the existing gospel. You have to focus your attention on affirming the creed of the current true believers. You get so buried within the walls of your own catechism, you can’t even imagine what it would be like to think outside it.

When parties were primarily political organizations, they were led by elected officials and party bosses. Now that parties are more like quasi-religions, power lies with priesthood — the dispersed array of media figures, podcast hosts and activists who run the conversation, define party orthodoxy and determine the boundaries of acceptable belief.

Let’s look at the Democratic Party. The Democrats have huge advantages in America today. Unlike their opponents, they are not a threat to democracy. Voters trust them on issues like health care and are swinging their way on issues like abortion. They have a great base from which to potentially expand their coalition and build their majority. All they have to do is address their weaknesses, the places where they are out of step with most Americans.

The problem is that where you find their weaknesses, there you find the priesthood. The public conversation on the Democratic side of things is dominated by highly educated urban progressives who work in academia, the media, the activist groups and so on. These folks have a highly developed and self-confident worldview — a comprehensive critique of American society. The only problem is that this worldview is rejected by most Americans, who don’t share the critique. The more the Democrats embrace the priesthood’s orthodoxy, the more it loses working-class voters, including Hispanic and Black working-class voters.

For example, the progressive priesthood, quite admirably, is committed to fighting racial oppression. Its members believe that the way to do that is to be hyperaware of racial categories — in the diversity, equity and inclusion way — in order to rearrange preferences to support historically oppressed groups.

Most Americans also seek to fight racism, but they seek to do it in a different way. Their goal is to reduce the salience of racial categories so that people’s talents and initiative determine their life outcomes. According to a 2022 University of Southern California survey of Americans, 92 percent of respondents agreed with this statement: “Our goal as a society should be to treat all people the same without regard to the color of their skin.” Which is why only a third of Americans in a recent Pew Research Center survey said they supported using race as a factor in college admissions.

Or take energy. Most members of the Democratic clerisy are properly alarmed by climate change and believe we should rapidly shift from fossil fuels. Liberal white college graduates favor eliminating fossil fuels by two to one. It’s no skin off their teeth; they work on laptops. But if you live in Oklahoma or work in an industry that runs on oil, coal or natural gas, this idea seems like an assault on your way of life, which, of course, it is. An overwhelming 72 percent of Americans favor an all-of-the-above approach, relying on both renewables and traditional energy sources.

Or take immigration. Highly educated white progressives tend to see the immigration and asylum issue through the lens of oppressor and oppressed: The people coming across our border are fleeing horror in their home countries. But most Americans see immigration through a law-and-order lens: We need to control our boundaries, preserve social order and take care of our own. In a June CBS survey 62 percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Hispanics, said they supported a program to deport undocumented immigrants — the most extreme version of this approach.

On these, as on so many other issues, the position that is held by a vast majority of Americans is unsayable in highly educated progressive circles. The priesthood has established official doctrine, and woe to anyone who contradicts it.

The Republicans have exactly the same dynamic, except their priesthood is dominated by shock jocks, tech bros and Christian nationalists, some of whom are literally members of the priesthood...

Opinion | Why Isn’t Kamala Harris Running Away With the Election? - The New York Times

Secondly, the Guardian looks at why people think the way they do, and so vote the way they do - with something recent and something from two presidential elections ago:

I visited a small, struggling, climate-ravaged town in Louisiana. Why is Donald Trump certain to win here?

Fri 18 Oct 2024 10.00 Oliver Laughland 

It has been called ‘the great paradox’ – when communities who most need government support vote for a Republican party hell-bent on dismantling it...

I visited a small, struggling, climate-ravaged town in Louisiana. Why is Donald Trump certain to win here? | Oliver Laughland | The Guardian

And: 

How the ‘Great Paradox’ of American politics holds the secret to Trump’s success

In the heartland of the American right, people harmed by polluting industries have instead come to hate the government whose environmental regulations protect them. Now they’re voting for Donald Trump

By Arlie Hochschild Wed 7 Sep 2016 06.00 BST

I had begun my five-year journey to the heart of the American right carrying with me, as if it were a backpack, a great paradox. Back in 2004, there was a paradox underlying the right–left split. Since then the split has become a gulf.

Across the country, conservative “red states” are poorer and have more teenage mothers, more divorce, worse health, more obesity, more trauma-related deaths, more low-birth-weight babies, and lower school enrolment. On average, people in red states die five years earlier than people in liberal “blue states”. Indeed, the gap in life expectancy between Louisiana (75.7) and Connecticut (80.8) is the same as that between Nicaragua and the United States. Red states suffer more in another important but little-known way, one that speaks to the very biological self-interest in health and life: industrial pollution.

The right now calls for cuts in entire segments of the federal government – the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Interior, for example. In January 2015, 58 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, which is responsible for the collection of taxes. Some Republican congressional candidates call for abolishing all state schools. In March 2015, the Republican-dominated Senate voted 51 to 49 in support of an amendment to a budget resolution to sell or give away all non-military federal lands other than national monuments and national parks. This would include forests, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. Joined by 95 Republican congressmen, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, one of the most polluted states in the union, has called for the end of the EPA.

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Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you! You are following the rules. They are not. As they cut in, it feels like you are being moved back. How can they just do that? Who are they? Some are black. Through affirmative action plans, pushed by the federal government, they are being given preference for places in colleges and universities, apprenticeships, jobs, welfare payments, and free lunches. Women, immigrants, refugees, public-sector workers – where will it end? Your money is running through a liberal sympathy sieve you do not control or agree with. These are opportunities you would have loved to have had in your day – and either you should have had them when you were young or the young shouldn’t be getting them now. It’s not fair.

Then you become suspicious. If people are cutting in line ahead of you, someone must be helping them. Who? A man is monitoring the line, walking up and down it, ensuring that the line is orderly and that access to the dream is fair. His name is President Barack Hussein Obama. But – hey – you see him waving to the line cutters. He feels extra sympathy for them that he does not feel for you. He’s on their side.

You can certainly be proud of being American. And anyone who criticises America – well, they are criticising you. If you can no longer feel pride in the United States through its president, you’ll have to feel American in some new way – by banding with others who feel as you do – strangers in their own land.

I return to my new Louisiana friends and acquaintances to find out whether the deep story resonates with them. When I relate it to Lee Sherman, he tells me, “You’ve read my mind.”

Feeling betrayed by the federal government and turning wholeheartedly to the free market, the right finds it hard to see the realities that confront them. Giant companies have grown vastly larger, more automated, more global, and more powerful. For them, productivity is increasingly based on cheap labour in plants abroad, cheap imported labour at home, and automation, and less on American labour. The more powerful they have become, the less resistance they have encountered from unions and government. Thus, they have felt more free to allocate more profits to top executives and stockholders, and less to workers.

But it is very hard to criticise an ally, and the right sees the free market as its ally against the powerful alliance of the federal government and the takers. Even Sherman, who had greatly suffered at the hands of Pittsburg Plate Glass, owned stock in it and exclaimed proudly to me, when I asked him how he felt about getting fired, “I was pissed and stunned but, hey, I didn’t lose everything. I had $5,000 in stocks!”

In the undeclared class war, expressed through the weary and ultimately enraging wait for the American dream, those I came to know developed a visceral hate for the ally of the “enemy” cutters in line – the federal government. They hated other people for needing it. They rejected their own need of it – even to help clean up the pollution in their backyard.

How the ‘Great Paradox’ of American politics holds the secret to Trump’s success | US politics | The Guardian

Finally, see:

Jay Doubleyou: america and class [29 August 2020]

Jay Doubleyou: education levels and voting trump [19 November 2016]

Jay Doubleyou: us elections: who's gonna win in the deep south? [7 November 2016]

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