@education.ox.ac.uk

The role of gesture in the acquisition of a sign language as a second language

Looking forward to welcoming Dr Gerardo Ortega to our Applied Linguistics seminar on Tues 27 January, 1-2pm GMT. All welcome online via: www.education.ox.ac.uk/event/the-ro... How do hearing adults with spoken L1 use existing knowledge of iconic gesture to acquire form-meaning links in signed L2?

Conceptual and methodological flaws undermine claims of a link between the gut microbiome and autism Claims that the gut microbiome causally contributes to autism regularly appear in the scientific literature and popular press. Mitchell et al. critically examine influential studies underpinning these...

Thanks to @deevybee.bsky.social and colleagues for this careful, insightful piece of scholarship. It is a masterclass on how to scrutinise studies rigorously and appraise what valid/reliable evidence (if any!) exists, as well as being highly enjoyable to read. Bravo.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

so I just commented on that paper in Cell Host and Microbe that is cited as evidence that the autism/microbiome link is solid: pubpeer.com/publications...
(not sure what the word “precision” is supposed to mean in the title)
tldr; looks p-hacked 🫤 and I couldn’t find the ethics approval 🤔

What autistic people – and those with ADHD and dyslexia – really think about the word ‘neurodiversity’ A new UK survey of more than 900 neurodivergent adults has revealed strong feelings about the language of neurodiversity.

Helpful umbrella terms or too broad to mean anything? 'Neurodivergent' and 'neurodiverse' as labels.
theconversation.com/what-autisti...

I’m teaching #rstats to #appliedlinguists @education.ox.ac.uk so this is fr fr a vibe. Thanks @hadley.nz 🌟My fave is vibe_check() instead of mutate() 😂

Have you heard about the UK Linguistics Olympics? The UK Linguistics Olympiad is a national language-analysis competition for students in KS2-KS5. Free to enter!
Want to know more? Sign up to our webinar: Monday 10th November at 7:30: Book here: leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/events/intro...

@hwc001.bsky.social

Reviewing Research on the Teaching and Learning of Arabic as an Additional Language: Challenges, Opportunities and Implications

Our @education.ox.ac.uk
Applied Linguistics Lunchtime Seminars continue Tues 4th Nov 13-14:00GMT with a review of the research on Arabic as an additional language by Drs @robertwoore.bsky.social and Anna-Maria Ramezanzadeh. Join us online via Teams - details: www.education.ox.ac.uk/event/review...

A joke scientific paper with the title "Over 90% of children diagnosed with autism consumed breast milk and/or formula mileL a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the obvious"

Who did this?!

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Proof or it didn’t happen: Assess it like it’s research The views expressed here are my own and do not represent those of the University of Oxford. If assessment were a research paper most of our methods sections would get rejected.

Thought-provoking piece by Kelly Webb-Davies about assessment in the age of AI.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/proof-...

💬 Around 1 in 14 people live with Developmental Language Disorder.

On #DLDDay, Natalie Waters shares how the Intervention Consensus for Language Disorder (TICLD) project is ensuring people with DLD have a voice in research.

Read the blog: www.education.ox.ac.uk/news/you-can... #Edusky

How does movement shape learning and development in early childhood education?

The latest Deanery Digest by Professor Iram Siraj shares insights from the MOVERS research, showing how movement-rich environments boost both cognitive & motor skills 🧠🤸

Read more ➡️ bit.ly/3KQmxj0
#Edusky #EarlyYears

✏️ Get your tickets: Preparing Children for Excellence in Learning Literacy in the Early Years.

Join Professor Iram Siraj in a day of learning and exploring the evidence around the central role of oral language and how it underpins early literacy.

📅20 March 2026

Register: shorturl.at/ED4GX

This is very cool - @hwc001.bsky.social look: micro RCTs! (Not mirco - oops!)

The Art Gallery game please, Santa. And a mini Egyptian cat.

Becky Francis: 5 reflections on the curriculum and assessment review With the curriculum and assessment review due to publish its recommendations ‘very soon’, chair Becky Francis writes exclusively for Tes about what she has learned through the process

"The curriculum must be updated so that young people are well prepared - for their future lives but also the changes we already see around us in our climate, technology and world events."

Prof Becky Francis writing in TES on forthcoming Curriculum Review
www.tes.com/magazine/ana...

Languages Have Mixed through History. Our Genes Can Reveal How New research shows that wherever human populations mix, their languages blend as well

The study found that when populations that speak unrelated languages have children together, their languages become 4 to 9 percent more likely to share linguistic features.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/gene...

When is it appropriate to deviate from a pre-registration?"

WRONG ANSWERS ONLY

Cc @lakens.bsky.social

For help with attribution and sourcing, Grammarly is releasing a citation finder agent that automatically generates correctly formatted citations backing up claims in a piece of writing, and an expert review agent that provides personalized, topic-specific feedback.

Screenshot from Grammarly's demo of inserting a post-hoc citation. https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/citation-finder

It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

@heathrose.bsky.social @hwc001.bsky.social @robertwoore.bsky.social @faidra.bsky.social

Our first #appliedlinguistics lunchtime seminar @education.ox.ac.uk is on 21st Oct, 1-2pm, with @dkcayado.bsky.social talking to us about morphology in Tagalog. Join us in person or online! Details ➡️ www.education.ox.ac.uk/event/tracki...

We’re looking forward to your talk, @dkcayado.bsky.social - it will also be online, and there is a Teams link for people to join on the website you shared. 🙂

Imagining, believing and achieving in L2 Arabic: Motivational self-concepts and language outcomes in a multiglossic context Drawing on Dörnyei's (2005) Second Language Motivational Self System and research on academic self-concept and achievement, this study explored curren…

Great to see this new work on Arabic learners’ motivation published in System by my colleagues Anna-Maria Ramezanzadeh, @robertwoore.bsky.social and Lars-Erik Malmberg. 🎉

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is a great read, thanks Hamish.

Teaching is the best job in the world, especially with such amazing colleagues and students @education.ox.ac.uk 🥰 Honoured to have my teaching recognised with this award, and looking forward to the new term starting!

I have just left a lengthy Pubpeer comment on the autism/Tylenol study being cited by the Trump administration. There appear to be a number of fairly straightforward errors in the paper.

pubpeer.com/publications...

ggplot2 4.0.0 A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

How can we assess risk of bias in education research? ⚖️

Our free online course teaches all the basics of how to assess trustworthiness of experiments and quasi-experiments in education.

Start the free training ➡️ bit.ly/RoBTraining

#OxEdDeanery @theeef.bsky.social