Category: Miscellaneous news etc

I’ve read a very interesting article about what educational lessons there might be for the Arab world from Finland’s continuing academic success. The article is really an interview with Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish scholar and educator, who points out some socio-cultural idiosyncrasies of their system and cautions against its wholesale transfer elsewhere. For instance, Sahlberg talks about “the power and importance […]

So Vivien reports. I hope to see both them both next week 🙂

Hi all, I haven’t been on here lately as a result of lots of things happening with regards to work and study, but while browsing I came across the post from 2011 about life after the doctorate. I’m not quite there yet but hopefully I can see some spark of completion on the horizon – having scheduled a few weeks […]

Perhaps the following posts are of some use, with the conference season coming up and all… How to present a conference paper Engaging with feedback Feedback and comments are, of course, very welcome.

I read an article in the Metro today about a guy who has learnt a whole load of languages by travelling around the world, landing in a country and starting to chat to people – in other words, total immersion. He has now written a book based on his blog called ‘Fluent in 3 months’. I’m not sure how he […]

At least that’s the best explanation I can think of to account for why a piece that I authored now appears in Social Science Space, a content aggregator run by SAGE. I am sure you would take my word for it, but here’s a link anyway: Fake papers are not the real problem in science . Rather unfortunately, the theme they […]

You probably know that there is an undergraduate programme called “English Language for Education” at the University of Manchester. It is formerly known as BA (Hons) Language, Literacy and Communication. The programme has a Facebook page and Twitter account. We try to post interesting content related to education and English language every day. Please follow and/or like it! Thank you […]

I have recently come across two interesting pieces, the second being a response to the first. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html?_r=1 2. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/02/why-is-academic-writing-so-academic.html Is academic writing “knotty and strange, remote and insular, technical and specialized, forbidding and clannish” as Rothman puts it, and has academia “become that way, too”? Are academics irrelevant, stuck in “a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience”, […]