🗞️ EAP for Social Justice Newsletter #2

🌐 Please share with colleagues and networks digitally or pinned up on a noticeboard the old-fashioned way 📍

Pleased to share our first RefugEAP Programme impact report, detailing the impact that this free online trauma-informed academic English and skills programme for refugee-backround students across the UK has had over the past three years. Download here:

le.ac.uk/-/media/uol/...

@eap4sj.bsky.social

U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Many Chinese Students, Rubio Says Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the students who will have their visas canceled include people with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those studying in “critical fields.”

"The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or I.C.E., has aggressively moved to detain some students whose visas or residency status have been canceled by Mr. Rubio."

tinyurl.com/2pbpm3w9

@ucu.org.uk @teflunion.bsky.social

Screenshot of book cover Title: Workable Accents: How International Teaching Assistants Vocally Fashion and Contest Academic Labor Author: Vijay A. Ramjattan Image: A multi-coloured and patterned speech bubble being assembled by four hands of different skin tone; "Bloomsbury" is written beneath the bubble

Screenshot of one section of the book entitled, "Why Examine Workable Accents?"

If you want a sneak preview of my book, Workable Accents, please click this link to read a decent chunk of the introductory chapter:

shorturl.at/MfGLQ

Please remember to ask your university or local library to order a copy and share this post widely! Thanks in advance!

Join us for our pre-symposium event on the 27th of May! @elinet-lsj.bsky.social

Steven Pinker spent the last several years framing those of us who disagreed with views as a “woke mob” attacking his free speech, which laid the foundation for the fascist takeover of higher education he now laments.

In Attacks on Harvard, Chinese See Yet Another Reason to Write Off the U.S.

"Even as other symbols of the United States — Hollywood, for example, or iPhones — lost their cachet for many Chinese, American universities remained a source of aspiration, even veneration [...] Schools like Harvard were an exception."

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/w...

@harvard.edu

📢 Are you a UCU member or representative working in English for Academic Purposes?🎓

✉️ Join the UCU working group by emailing Angela Hulme: a.l.hulme@leeds.ac.uk

@ucu.org.uk @teflunion.bsky.social
#UCU #EAP #HigherEd

For lovers of podcasts and social justice:

My colleague @severyandyakonov.bsky.social has interviewed Canadian doctor Yipeng Ge, who went to Gaza on a humanitarian mission and was suspended from his university.

Public history at its best.

Please share!

creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

👥 Seats still available for this public seminar on futures of linguistic justice 🗣️

@iancushing.bsky.social @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social

This week, I spoke with one of the Duolingo contractors impacted by its 'new' AI strategy, and they clarified that

1) it's not new. Duolingo has *already* fired an estimated 100 writers and translators.

2) they worked for months training an AI system that still makes egregious mistakes.

36% of lecturers describe themselves as frequent users of generative AI tools. Is this the beginning of the botification and self-alienation of academics?

Initial reflections on today's article by @kashhill.bsky.social from @biblioracle.bsky.social

This Is How a Democracy Dies—One University at a Time During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump didn’t exactly hide what he was planning. He said he’d take control of higher education—and in the 100+ days since his second inauguration, he’s been …

"Universities are bureaucratic messes sometimes and struggle to provide equitable access. But they were our messes—governed by scholars, accountable to professional standards, not political agendas. It was what made the university worth defending."
@nelsonlflores.bsky.social
www.bit.ly/4kg9yU3

“Top five AI uses for students were writing-centered:
–starting papers and projects (49%);
–summarizing long texts (48%);
–brainstorming creative projects (45%);
–exploring new topics (44%);
–and revising writing (44%)”

AI systems are built on English – but not the kind most of the world speaks AI models too often produce a monolithic version of English that erases variation.

🤖 "AI models produce a monolithic version of English that erases variation, excludes minoritised and regional voices, and reinforces unequal power dynamics[...] The AI ecosystem is multilingual in theory, but monolingual in practice." 🇺🇸

theconversation.com/ai-systems-a...

@celesterl.bsky.social

English test among range of Labour measures to control immigration Keir Starmer says system ‘will be tightened up’ in all areas, following sharp rise in support for Reform UK in elections

"Foreign students who have studied for degrees in the UK will face tighter rules over their right to remain after finishing university."

"Dependants will be expected to pass the more advanced English A2 test."

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

✂️ Concerned about the cuts, redundancies and 'restructuring' facing our sector? You're not alone! Colleagues at BALEAP are collating resources on this Padlet 📚

padlet.com/alhulme1/ide...

BALEAP has expressed dismay by recent news of increasing threats to centres and lecturers in English for Academic Purposes across the UK ✂️ See below for full statement and commitments from their executive commitee 📣

@teflunion.bsky.social

Special issue on 'Education, Antiracism & Decoloniality' from ESC ✊ Multilingual and open-access with some very relevant reflexions for EAP practitioners 👇
www.up.pt/journals/ind...

@ces-uc.bsky.social l @sumingkhoo.bsky.social

Duolingo’s Billionaire Founder Is All In On AI Duolingo’s Guatemalan Immigrant Founder Luis von Ahn Is Now A Billionaire

In between bites of al pastor tacos and sips of a margarita, Duolingo billionaire Luis von Ahn talks about how AI will make some jobs disappear.

“It’s a tough situation that'll affect the poor, the less educated. And not just in the U.S., but in poor countries.”

Free: archive.ph/2024.09.24-1...

The case for ASL Instruction for Hearing Heritage Signers In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Emily Pacheco speaks with Associate Professor Su Kyong Isakson (Community College of Baltimore County, USA) about her 2018 paper, The Case for H…

New on the Language on the Move @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social: why its important to find better ways to work with atypical language users and to train interpreters to work with atypical language users

www.languageonthemove.com/the-case-for...

Alternative Futures in the Postdigital Classrooms of the Global South - Postdigital Science and Education When planning a learning event, teachers will carefully craft learning tasks, while choosing specific social arrangements and selecting material and digital tools for their students. Each learning eve...

More amazing work on postdigital classrooms! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This webinar critically examines the impact of English-language dominance in global academia on Indian international students, focusing on the intersecting challenges of caste, race, and geographic marginalization from rural areas or Tier 3-4 cities. As English remains the dominant medium of scholarly communication, Indian students from these backgrounds face amplified barriers in publishing and collaboration due to linguistic gatekeeping. These challenges, rooted in systemic inequities, marginalize voices already sidelined by caste hierarchies, racialized perceptions abroad, and limited access to quality education in rural or smaller urban centers. Through an intersectional lens, this webinar explores how these dynamics shape their academic experiences, highlighting their unique struggles and innovative strategies to resist exclusion. By fostering dialogue among researchers, educators, and students, the session aims to propose equitable solutions tailored to the Indian context, contributing to a more inclusive global academic landscape.

Join our upcoming event: "Language as power: The role of linguistic gatekeeping in research with international students" led by Akanksha Dochania (University of Delhi)

23 May 2025
13:00 – 14:00 IST / 8:30 – 9:30 am GMT
Online via Zoom

Register at: zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Reminder: our unmissable online roundtable on the crisis in UK HE and how/whether it's fixable.

We'll be hearing from @gunjans.bsky.social, @ronaldhartz.bsky.social, Kalpana Shankar, Susan Robertson, before opening up the discussion.
#academicsky #highereducation
www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-...

GenAI Conference @ The Open University UK - Eurocall Shifting Power in Language Learning and Applied Linguistics with GenAI A conference at The Open University UK, School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, in Milton Keynes and online November 13t...

*Shifting Power in Language Learning & Applied Linguistics with GenAI*

The conference is inspired by the Shifting Power project (shiftingpower.kmi.open.ac.uk) and the Radical AI Network (www.nature.com/articles/d41...)

#GenAI #EuroCall #CallForProposals #CfP

eurocall-languages.org/events/genai...

Interested in answers to this:

"A friend contacted me about their supervisor possibly using AI to give feedback on their dissertation (feedback shows 100% AI generated on checks + makes very little sense in context)"

sciences.social/@kavana@scho...

@academic-chatter.bsky.social

#AcademicChatter