umami taste

The subject of 'tastes' can make for a good lesson or two - at all levels:

80 Taste English ESL worksheets pdf & doc

ESL Food and Taste Activity Sheet [Teens, A2-B1] - Twinkl

Amazing world of food: Lesson 4: Our sense of taste | Lesson | Onestopenglish

Tastes | Learning English | Cambridge English

There are more than the tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter:

Umami has been variously translated from Japanese as yummy, deliciousness or a pleasant savoury taste, and was coined in 1908 by a chemist at Tokyo University called Kikunae Ikeda. He had noticed this particular taste in asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat, but it was strongest in dashi – that rich stock made from kombu (kelp) which is widely used as a flavour base in Japanese cooking. So he homed in on kombu, eventually pinpointing glutamate, an amino acid, as the source of savoury wonder. He then learned how to produce it in industrial quantities and patented the notorious flavour enhancer MSG.

Umami: why the fifth taste is so important | Food | The Guardian

What is Umami? | Everything about umami | Umami | The Ajinomoto Group Global Website - Eat Well, Live Well.

And apparently there is another taste!

8 Things To Know About Kokumi, The 'Sixth Taste'

.

.

.

pop videos for learning english

There are lots of great places to go on YouTube:

Learn English with Music - YouTube

10 Great Songs For English Fluency & How to Learn with Music - YouTube

Planet Pop by ELT Songs - YouTube

Learn English with Michael Jackson: 10 Pop Songs (to improve your fluency) - YouTube

Here are some suggested guides on how to do it:

A step-by-step guide to learning English with songs

• Choose a song that's in English. It can be any song at all. ...
• Listen to the song. Do you understand all of the lyrics? ...
• Read the lyrics. Find the lyrics online. ...
• Notice pronunciation. You may notice some strange-looking words! ...
• Listen again and join in. ...
• Sing along.

The power of music: How to learn English with songs | LearnEnglish

8 Tips for Learning English with Song Lyrics | FluentU

Here are some lessons:

Learn English With Songs - Online Lessons and Exercises

ESLSongs.com | The best pop song lyrics to teach ESL English

And more from Google's AI search:

Learning English through pop songs can be a fun and effective way to improve your listening skills, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation. Here's how:

1. Choose your songs wisely:
Start with songs you enjoy and that have clear, easy-to-understand lyrics. Songs by artists like The Beatles or Ed Sheeran are often recommended for their simple and relatable language.

2. Listen actively:
Don't just passively listen; actively engage with the lyrics. Try to pick out new words and phrases, pay attention to the rhythm and flow of the music, and try to understand the meaning of the song.

3. Read the lyrics:
Find the lyrics online and read them while listening to the song. This will help you connect the written words with the spoken words and improve your understanding.

4. Sing along:
Singing along is a great way to practice pronunciation and rhythm. Try to mimic the singer's pronunciation and sing along to the beat of the music.

5. Look up new words:
If you encounter new words or phrases, look them up in a dictionary or online translator. Understanding the meaning of new words will help you understand the song better and expand your vocabulary.

6. Use music videos:
Watch music videos to see how the lyrics are interpreted visually. This can also help you understand the context of the song and its meaning.

7. Focus on repetition:
Pop songs often repeat phrases and lines, which can be helpful for memorizing new words and phrases.

8. Create playlists:
Compile a playlist of songs that you enjoy and that are suitable for learning English. This will help you stay motivated and keep your learning process engaging.

9. Find resources:
There are many websites and apps that offer lyrics, translations, and other resources for learning English through music, such as LyricsTraining.

10. Don't be afraid to make mistakes:
Learning a new language is a process, and it's okay to make mistakes. Embrace the mistakes and keep practicing.

how to learn english through pop songs - Google Search

...

what is 'politeness' and how can we teach it?

In language, there is something called 'pragmatics' - which looks at how we put across the right message:

Jay Doubleyou: pragmatics: it ain't what you say it's the way that you say it

And there is something called 'register' - which provides the tools of putting across the right message:

Jay Doubleyou: writing with register: a lesson in using different levels of 'politeness'

Here's a good set of divisions: 

Pragmatics as the study of how language is used in social contexts and how people understand meaning through language.

Five language registers from most to least formal: frozen/static, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate. Each register is defined by its appropriate audience, topic, location, and purpose.

Pragmatics and Language Registers | PDF | Semiotics | Grammar

Becci Knowles of Trinity College looks at 'politeness' - as covered in the EL Gazette:

What’s the point of polite-isms?

Trinity College London reveals the gap between recognising the importance of politeness strategies and implementing them in classroom settings.

A new survey has uncovered significant challenges in teaching politeness strategies to English language learners, with 52% of teachers reporting that students find these crucial communication skills “difficult to use in real-time conversation”.

Recently, Trinity College London released new research exploring the role of ‘polite-isms’ in British English – those indirect expressions used to soften requests, avoid conflict, and navigate social interactions. The story was widely covered by British media including The Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail.

To follow up this study, in March Trinity carried out complementary research of 400 EFL teachers, which highlights an implementation gap between recognising the importance of politeness strategies and successfully teaching them in classroom settings...

What’s the point of polite-isms? - E L Gazette

Click on the links for more:

Trinity College London

.

.

.

etymology can be fun!

Sometimes English doesn't make much sense!

Jay Doubleyou: why is english so different from other languages? part one: vocab

To help, though, it's good to have some idea about where words come from and how they are made up:

What teachers should know about English vocabulary

In other words, what's a word's etymology?

Etymology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online Etymology Dictionary

But be careful:

Etymology is a study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time and Philology is a study of language in written historical sources

Etymology vs. Philology - What's the difference? | Ask Difference

We could take any word and play with it:

Jay Doubleyou: a history of the the word 'orange'

There's lots of interesting things around words - where they come from and where they are going:

Jay Doubleyou: how languages emerge, change, convey meaning and influence how we think

Here's a great place to go:

Online Etymology Dictionary

For example:

A Word or Two

Wicked Words | Columns

And it's quite good:

The Online Etymology Dictionary has been referenced by Oxford University's "Arts and Humanities Community Resource" catalog as "an excellent tool for those seeking the origins of words"[6] and cited in the Chicago Tribune as one of the "best resources for finding just the right word".[7] It is cited in academic work as a useful, though not definitive, reference for etymology.[8][9][10] In addition, it has been used as a data source for quantitative scholarly research.[11][12]

Etymonline - Wikipedia

.

.

.

iatefl 2025

The IATEFL International Conference 2025 has just finished in Edinburgh:

The IATEFL Conference is a 4 day celebration of the English language teaching profession with over 500 academic sessions, an exhibition of all that's new in the world of English language teaching, and a busy social programme of fun evening events and opportunities to network and be part of the global community of ELT professionals. The academic programme includes headline plenaries, presentations, workshops, panel discussions, lightening talks and poster presentations.

There are lots of videos of the IATEFL 2025 on YouTube, including:

Plenary: Teachers and classroom research by Daniel Xerri - YouTube

Teachers and classroom researh: ownership, relevance, and conceptualisations by Daniel Xeri - YouTube

Hugh Dellar's IATEFL 2025 talk: TEACHING THROUGH THE TEARS - PEDAGOGY IN A TIME OF WAR - YouTube

The E L Gazette looks Inside IATEFL: What you missed:

Attended by several thousand people from over 100 countries including teachers, trainers, managers, freelancers, lecturers, materials writers, publishers, examiners, trainees, researchers, ministries of education, universities, teacher training colleges, national teaching associations and many more, the event was once again a resounding success.

Much can be caught up with online, then - but here's the full thing:

IATEFL International Conference 2025 - Conference Programme

.

.

.

new york, city of endangered languages

Last year, American author Ross Perlin won the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding for his book "Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues"

Ross Perlin wins the £25k British Academy Prize for his book on endangered languages

It's now the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4: 

Linguist Ross Perlin is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history - contemporary New York.

BBC Sounds - Language City by Ross Perlin - Available Episodes

Prof Perlin set up the ELA in NY:

Founded in 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) is a non-profit dedicated to documenting Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages, supporting linguistic diversity in New York City and beyond.

Home - Endangered Language Alliance

Here's the project:

New York has long been a city of immigrants, but linguists now consider it a laboratory for studying and preserving languages in rapid decline elsewhere in the world.

N.Y./Region: City of Endangered Languages | The New York Times - YouTube

And there are indeed some very interesting projects coming out of this:

Revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages that have little or no digital presence is challenging with artificial intelligence—but not impossible.

Some endangered language speakers get creative with AI preservation efforts — WHYY

On any given Sunday in New York City, an evangelical church of Guatemalan immigrants in Brooklyn worships in the indigenous Mayan language K’iche’; a South Indian Orthodox church in Queens chants liturgies in Syriac, the first-century descendant of Aramaic; and a Mennonite church in the Bronx conducts services in Garifuna, a rare language developed from the marriages of West African slaves and Indigenous Caribbean people.

How NYC Churches Guard Endangered Languages - Christianity Today

The linguist’s celebration of the polyglot city inspires a series of shows at Manhattan’s Little Island.

Ross Perlin writes a love letter to New York — in Yiddish and 699 other languages - New York Jewish Week

.

.

.

black mirror: a cautionary tale

There's something about the TV series Black Mirror:

Black Mirror is a British anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. The series explores various genres, with most episodes set in near-future dystopias containing sci-fi technology—a type of speculative fiction.

Black Mirror - Wikipedia

``Black Mirror,'' created by Charlie Brooker, serves as a cautionary anthology series that explores the dark side of technology and its impact on society. Each episode presents a standalone narrative, often set in a near-future world where technological advancements lead to unsettling, dystopian outcomes.

What is Black Mirror warning us about? - Quora

Black Mirror is very much about political satire:

Jay Doubleyou: political satire on film

For example:

Jay Doubleyou: checking in at the airport

That particular episode is heavily satirising one aspect of modern Chinese life:

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

Here's an interview from a couple of years ago, when the sixth series was launched:

The sci-fi anthology is a social satire playing with society's deepest fears about our increasingly digital lives. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant caught up with show creator Charlie Brooker in London to discuss why he thinks this work has gripped audiences.

‘Black Mirror’ creator on why the techno-dystopian show has gripped audiences | PBS News

The next series has just started:

Black Mirror Season 7 Review — 'Wildly unpredictable'

Black Mirror season seven review – Charlie Brooker’s thrilling satire gets its warmest, most human season ever | Television | The Guardian

The point is that it tells us a lot about now:

After years of creating dark, disturbing, thought-provoking TV, Charlie Brooker is changing it up. The creator and star-studded cast of Black Mirror talk about why this season is the most moving and vulnerable yet

‘If you want dystopia, look out your window!’ Black Mirror is back – and going beyond tech hell | Black Mirror | The Guardian

But some aren't happy about it:

Black Mirror is more than science fiction – its stories about modernity have become akin to science folklore, shaping our collective view of technology and the future.

Each new innovation gets an allegory: smartphones as tools for a new age caste system, robot dogs as overzealous human hunters, drones as a murderous swarm, artificial intelligence as new age necromancy, virtual reality and brain chips as seizure-inducing nightmares, to name a few. Episodes most often channel our collective anxieties about the future – or foment new ones through masterly writing, directing, casting and acting. It is a must-watch, but must we take it so seriously?

Black Mirror fails to consistently explore the duality of technology and our reactions to it. It is a critical deficit. The show mimics the folly of Icarus and Daedalus – the original tech bros – and the hubris of Jurassic Park’s Dr Hammond. Missing are the lessons of the Prometheus myth, which shows fire as a boon for humanity, not doom, though its democratization angered benevolent gods. Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings. While Black Mirror explores how humans react to technology, it too often does so in service of a dystopian narrative, ignoring Isaac Asimov’s observation: that humans are prone to irrationally fear or resist technology.

Black Mirror is more pessimism porn than Plato’s parable, imparting to its audience a tacit lesson: fear the future more than the past. Fear too much technological change, not too little. It is an inherently populist narrative, one that appeals to nostalgia: intellectually, we understand the present is better than the past in large part due to scientific and technological change, yet emotionally and instinctually we can’t help but feel this time in history is different, that the future can only get worse...

We must move away from binary tales of catastrophe, not towards naive utopianism that ignores problems and risks that comes with change, but hopeful solutionism that reminds us we can solve and mitigate them – stories that don’t make us forget that brain chips can liberate paraplegics, robot dogs can protect us from landmines, AI can prevent super bugs and VR can connect us rather than cut us off from reality – even if their vibes are “a bit Black Mirror”.

Black Mirror’s pessimism porn won’t lead us to a better future | Louis Anslow | The Guardian

.

.

.

memory and language learning

Being able to remember things is key to learning a language:

Jay Doubleyou: making it memorable

There are very specific techniques:

Jay Doubleyou: rhyme rhythm repeat: the cumulative song or tale: "this is the house that jack built"

Jay Doubleyou: a walk through the forest: memory activities for language learning

Jay Doubleyou: rote learning

Here's a look at a specific way to 'train the brain':

This innovative brain health workbook has sold over 2.5 million copies globally! Dr. Kawashima, a prominent neurologist in Japan, developed this program of daily simple math calculations that can help boost brain power, improve memory and stave off the mental effects of ageing. The exercises in this book have even been shown to help those suffering from Alzheimer's.

Train Your Brain by Ryuta Kawashima | Waterstones

There's also a Nitendo game:

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! - Wikipedia

There's a lot of material out there to help you remember things:

How To Master Your Memory - From Sieve To CIA Agent PDF | PDF | Memory | Foods

Here's one other technique:

Memory strategies for language learners | Learning Village

Finally, memory is very important for learning a language!

How memory helps language learning - UK Language Project

The Connection Between Foreign Language Learning and Memory

Yes, it's good for the brain!

Jay Doubleyou: learning a language is good for your brain

.

.

.

how to get more fluent: keep it short and simple

The key to getting your English more fluent-sounding is to get the sounds right:

Jay Doubleyou: it ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it: intonation and functional language

And a great way to get your English sounding more natural is to mimic what you hear:

Jay Doubleyou: how to get the shadowing technique right

Robbie of English Harmony in Ireland has got some great tips on how to sound more fluent:

Jay Doubleyou: english harmony

And he says we need to keep things short and simple - as does the latest research from Japan, as covered by the E L Gazette:

Fluency sounds smoother with simple language, study shows - E L Gazette

.

.

.

ai and the future of education

Where are we going with artificial intelligence in the English classroom?

Jay Doubleyou: the future of ai and english language teaching

How much should we (as teachers and students) be worried about AI?

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

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

And how much should we be seeing it as a resource?

Jay Doubleyou: chat gpt in teaching/learning/working with english - the research

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

The UK government is keen:

AI in schools: What you need to know – The Education Hub

Salman Khan has written a book called "Brave New Words" on the issues. 

Here are some views from educators:

Opinions on Sal Khan’s book “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education and Why That’s a Good Thing”? : r/education

Here's a review:

Teacher’s friend or enemy?
AI could revolutionize the classroom
By Robert Adès
Contemporary philosophy|

Book Review

Brave New Words by Salman Khan, the founder of the American non-profit online education company Khan Academy, is an advert for its new AI teaching and learning assistant Khanmigo, recently released in the UK. It is a generative AI powered by GPT-4 and prepared specifically for the classroom. If you believe the examples in this book, Khanmigo matches the already mind- boggling power of GPT-4 and may yet foretell a dystopian future. As a teacher, I can’t wait to use it in September.

The last thing this AI will do is write students’ essays for them. It is more likely to render plagiarism irrelevant. If the pupil tries to plagiarize, the bot will realize, probe the pupil’s motivations, then report to the teacher. If that sounds authoritarian, it is: just as a school is meant to be. The AI will then encourage the pupil to work independently, feeding back to the teacher and parents. For the teacher, the AI can make lesson plans, grade pupil work and provide personalized assessments. It can keep parents up to date and suggest tasks to do at home. And, like GPT-4, it has the capacity to mimic creatively: to invent conversations between historical figures, co-author creative writing, reword mathematical theories in terms of each pupil’s hobby. The possibilities are almost limitless.

Khan acknowledges some of AI’s dangers, such as “hallucinations”: factually false outputs. But he does not address the risk of losing the human experience of a student having a meaningful relationship with a good teacher. Part of the acquisition of knowledge derives from the charisma and authority of a teacher standing up and talking with passion. Many teachers leave lasting personal impressions on their charges. In a interview with Bill Gates in 2023, Khan recalled a list of his own inspiring school teachers. My worry is not that the students will cheat more or learn less, but that their opportunities for personal relationships, such as those Khan benefited from, will be reduced.

This loss would be a shame, not a dystopia. But there are dystopias on the horizon. Khan describes our current model of education as a “factory” – a conveyor belt in which a kid who falls behind his cohort stays behind. The AI teaching assistant may solve this problem while turning factories of education into self-checkouts of education. Perhaps a child with a knowledge gap won’t be left behind, but…

Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education – review | Impact of Social Sciences

.

.

.

.

.

.