Oxford Australia Blog

Sharing our love of education, language, and books

Month: March 2017

  • Government seeks input into nationwide phonics assessment and numeracy check

    The Federal Government has called for feedback to inform the development of a new nationwide phonics assessment and numeracy check. A questionnaire on the Department for Education and Training  website is the next step in the staged implementation of the checks, announced by Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham in late January. The assessments…

  • Celebrity activism: do we really need another hero?

    In Media and Society (6th ed. pp. 380–382), we discuss the pervasiveness of celebrity activism, particularly in recent times, considering social media’s ubiquity. Celebrity activists, including celanthropists (celebrity-philanthropist) and other cause endorsers and advocates locate themselves under multiple ‘issue’ banners. Some of these include humanitarianism, feminism, and political activism. Such celebrity engagement is not a…

  • Beware the Drop Bear

    It is large and predatory, ambushing its prey from above. It targets tourists and finds Vegemite repellent. It is the mythical Australian drop bear. ‘Drop bear’ was one of 300 terms added to Oxford Dictionaries’ free online dictionary of current English. OxfordDictionaries.com described the drop bear as, “A mythical marsupial resembling a koala, said to…

  • Yarning Strong author Ali Cobby Eckermann wins one of the world’s richest literature awards

    Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand congratulates Yarning Strong: His Father’s Eyes author, Ali Cobby Eckermann, on winning one of the world’s richest literature prizes for her poetry. The celebrated Indigenous poet and writer was one of eight recipients of the 2017 Windham-Campbell prize, who each received $215,000. The prizes were awarded to writers…

  • Oxford Word of the Month: March – Corflute

    noun: a temporary sign or poster made of corrugated plastic sheeting. THE STORY BEHIND THE WORD OF THE MONTH Another election and another spate of corflute crimes in Gladstone. (Gladstone Observer, 31 May 2016) 2016 was a year of elections, here and elsewhere. It was also a year in which the corflute gained extra traction…