the foreign language assessment joins the controversial pisa test

There is the 'Programme for International Student Assessment':

PISA is the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment. PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges.

PISA - PISA

Some countries are doing very badly:

‘It Just Isn’t Working’: PISA Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts - The New York Times

U.S. Falling Behind: Ranking the Most and Least Educated States | WANE 15

U.S. students lag around average on international science, math and reading test - The Washington Post

But the PISA test is controversial:

In this letter to Dr Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, academics from around the world express deep concern about the impact of Pisa tests and call for a halt to the next round of testing

OECD and Pisa tests are damaging education worldwide - academics | School tables | The Guardian

As related on these pages over the years:

Jay Doubleyou: panic in the west over educational achievements in the far east

Jay Doubleyou: the purpose of education: from china to prussia to the united states

Jay Doubleyou: teaching as a subversive activity

Despite these serious reservations, a new part to the PISA suite is being added:

Foreign Language Assessment - PISA

There have been several surveys on the comparison of foreign language skills, but there is no current, reliable international data on how English is learnt and taught in school systems around the world. That’s why the PISA Foreign Language Assessment 2025 is a ground-breaking survey that will change everything

What the PISA Foreign Language Assessment means for English language education | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Leaning into PISA’s language test | E L Gazette

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short history series on bbc radio

There have been some different perspectives on world history coming from BBC radio lately:

Is 'Plato to Nato' actually true? How has the myth of the West and its exclusively European origins been built and maintained? A brilliant and rigorous interpretation of history that reflects the diversity of ideas and figures in the West. Using the lives of historical figures from ancient Greece to present day, historian Naoise Mac Sweeney interrogates the idea of the West and its claims to Greco-Roman lineage.

BBC Radio 4 - The West: A New History of an Old Idea by Naoíse Mac Sweeney

Sociologist Jonathan Kennedy explores how, from earliest history, infectious diseases have impacted human society, politics and economics

BBC Radio 4 - Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History by Jonathan Kennedy

Reflecting on some of the most difficult stories he's reported on, BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen look at the obstacles that stand between journalists and the truth.

BBC Radio 4 - Frontlines of Journalism

Twenty years ago a US-led coalition invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The UK was America's main partner. For many it remains a war based on a lie. So why did it happen? Why was Washington so fixed on regime change in Iraq? And why did the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, commit the UK to taking part? The BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera seeks to find new answers to why the war happened and what it meant.

BBC Radio 4 - Shock and War: Iraq 20 Years On

Matthew Syed traces the history of a term that's now synonymous with our era of angry debate.

BBC Radio 4 - Woke: The Journey of a Word

There have been plenty of great radio documentaries focussing on history from BBC radio:

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

A History of the World in 5 Minutes (BBC Radio 4) - YouTube

With more coming up this year:

15 Best BBC History Podcasts You Must Follow in 2023

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how well are dual-language immersion schools doing?

"Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs — which provide both native English speakers and English learners with general academic instruction in two languages from kindergarten onward — are proliferating rapidly in the United States. Although precise counts of DLI programs are not available, recent estimates place the figure between 1,000 and 2,000 nationally, with substantial recent growth in Utah, North Carolina, Delaware, and New York City."

Dual-Language Immersion Programs Raise Student Achievement in English | RAND

While roughly half the global population speaks at least two languages, only about 20% of U.S. residents can say the same.
Dual-language immersion programs, in which academic content is taught in two languages, help children become bilingual and offer a host of other benefits.
“The programs are really, I think, a silver bullet to ensure that all students achieve success in school and in life,” says Martha Hernandez, executive director of the language advocacy group Californians Together.
Dual-language immersion programs facilitate biliteracy – the ability to speak, listen, read and write proficiently in two languages – by taking advantage of young children’s propensity for language acquisition. Most programs start in kindergarten and follow children through elementary school, and some extend into middle or high school.

4 Benefits of Dual-Language Immersion Programs

"A report by The Century Foundation (TCF) has found that the number of ELs in dual-language immersion (DLI) programmes is falling compared to their English-dominant counterparts. Research conducted over a five-year period suggests more English-dominant students are being enrolled in the schools, causing ELs to miss out on key education."

US dual-language schools failing English learners | E L Gazette 

The number of English learners is shrinking at many dual-language immersion schools while the number of English-dominant and white students is increasing, according to a new analysis released by The Century Foundation and Children’s Equity Project.

Number of English learners shrinks at many dual-language immersion schools | EdSource

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why giving a welsh park a welsh name is problematic - or not

Recently, one of the national parks of Wales changed its name:

Brecon Beacons: Park to use Welsh name Bannau Brycheiniog - BBC News

And this is why:

Brecon Beacons: Bannau Brycheiniog rebrand shows why names matter - BBC News

Here's a bit of help with the pronunciation:

Bannau Brycheiniog is pronounced: ban-eye bruck-ein-iog. It’s derived form the plural of “ban”, meaning “peak”, and “Brycheiniog” referring to the old kingdom of King Brychan. Its English translation means “The Peaks of Brychan’s Kingdom”.

Brecon Beacons name change explained: How to pronounce the National Park’s new Welsh name Bannau Brycheiniog

But not everyone likes it:

Business chiefs call for Brecon Beacons' English name to be reinstated over tourism fears | Daily Mail Online

Brecon Beacons National Park: Tories criticise renaming as 'symbolic' attempt to look 'trendy' | UK News | Sky News

Why associate a rapist with Brecon Beacons? | cambrian-news.co.uk

Unfortunately, this has become part of the so-called 'culture wars':

The new name, which took effect yesterday, has been imposed without consulting any of the thousands of local residents (or 4 million annual visitors) who so enjoy this breath-takingly beautiful landscape. It is purely the brainchild of an unholy alliance of virtue-signalling politicians and civil servants who appear to be prepared to spend taxpayers' money on the most lame of initiatives, as long as they can be passed off as contributing in some way to the sunlit uplands of 'net zero'.

HARRY MOUNT: Renaming the Brecon Beacons is a victory for woke philistines | Daily Mail Online

There’s nothing that imperialists hate more than Welsh people (or Irish people, or Scottish people) doing Welsh (Irish/Scottish) things in their own country. Throw in concern about the environment and you basically have what amounts to a genius marketing strategy, and right before the coronation of the former “Prince of Wales” as King. Note my use of quotation marks, because the last true Prince of Wales – that’s literally his name – Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, died in 1282. These sorts of union-flag-waving English jamborees can make even the mildest Welsh person feel a bit queasy...

Bannau Brycheiniog: is this Welsh national park where Tory culture warriors will meet their Waterloo? | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett | The Guardian

As covered by the EL Gazette:

Just when we thought it was safe to go back down the pub, the language wars have again broken out. This time it is the mighty ire of the English directed against a Welsh National Park...
The most common complaint is that it is “anti-English”. “The Welsh just want to have a laugh at us because we can’t pronounce it,” spluttered one commentator. Certainly the Welsh might enjoy the spectacle, just as English people collapse in giggles every time we hear an American trying to pronounce the word Worcestershire.

Putting out the flames of culture wars | E L Gazette   

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how to work together well in teams

How should you work together in teams?

Jay Doubleyou: team building activities

Jay Doubleyou: using digital technology in a student-centred classroom

How can you work together better in teams:

LEGO:

Think Outside the Blocks: How Playing with Lego Can Help Develop Your Career Skills - Atlassian Apps for Efficient Teams

The Lego Challenge team building activity & alternatives | MTa Learning | Experiential learning

5 tips for working as a LEGO building team | LEGO.com for Families GB

19 Team Building Lego Activities For Learners Of All Ages  - Teaching Expertise

How LEGO Systems builds a collaborative environment with Microsoft Teams - YouTube

MAZE:

The Maze

Team Building Activities: Blindfold Maze

How to Play Secret Maze - At Home Game And Activities For Kids - YouTube

AND MORE:

Team Building Activity - Timing and Leadership

What Are Some Fun Team Building Activities? - YouTube

AWESOME Team Building ACTIVITY for Clarifying STRENGTHS & Setting GOALS (Design Thinking Method) - YouTube

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the british empire past and present

The British Empire can be felt today - and there's still much to discuss:

"I get angry when I hear the word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."^[61]

Jay Doubleyou: british commonwealth ... british empire

The British Empire was not necessarily the 'best':

If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world. 

The First World War of 1914-1918 was the first mechanised war and the slaughter that was on an industrial scale touched every village, town and city in Britain and beyond. The sheer size of the British Empire meant it was able to meet the demands of this new type of warfare with an almost inexhaustible supply of troops and material, and after four years of carnage, the empire, along with its allies, emerged victoriously. By the end of the war, the British Empire was battered but still standing, whereas the Ottoman, Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires had all collapsed.

Jay Doubleyou: revolutions, empire and war

India, surprisingly, does not loom large in the history taught in most British schools. This is not simply a matter of children having the wrong idea about the two centuries of exploitation that financed the British empire and many of its wars; often, they have no idea at all. Even the victims — or, more properly, their descendants, the nearly 2bn people of the Indian subcontinent — have only a hazy notion of the horrors inflicted during the colonial period.

Jay Doubleyou: inglorious empire - what the british did to india

The head of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of nations has ruled out a free trade deal with the UK until at least six years after Brexit and taken a sideswipe at the idea of a new British trade empire. The ACP chief, Dr Patrick Gomes, condemned “reactionary” Whitehall talk of a second era of British colonialism – dubbed “Empire 2.0” – and poured scorn on the government’s trade strategy.

Jay Doubleyou: inglorious empire - what the british did to india

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spell check poem

(Reportedly nominated for a Pullet Surprise)  
 
Eye halve a spelling chequer 
It came with my pea sea, 
It plainly marques four my revue 
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. 
Eye strike a key and type a word 
And weight for it two say, 
Weather eye and wring oar write 
It shows me strait a weigh. 
As soon as a mist ache is maid 
It nose bee fore two long, 
And eye can put the error rite 
Its rare lea ever wrong. 
To rite with care is quite a feet 
Of witch won should bee proud, 
And wee mussed dew the best wee can, 
Sew flaw's are knot aloud. 
Eye have run this poem threw it 
Your sure reel glad two no, 
Its letter perfect awl the weigh 
My chequer tolled me sew. 
 
--Sauce unknown 

'Spell Checker Blues' - Anon

And also:

ZarOde.pdf

And:

Spell Checker Poem by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

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