John Hodgson

This issue of English in Education is published shortly after the 2026 Voice 21 Speaking Summit in London. It seems appropriate, then, to start with a voice from Iran that draws on conversations at monthly poetry gatherings the author hosts at her university in Changchun, China.

This issue of English in Education is published shortly after the 2026 Voice 21 Speaking Summit in London. It seems appropriate, then, to start with a voice from Iran that draws on conversations at monthly poetry gatherings the author hosts at her university in Changchun, China.

John Dixon, who died recently, was one of the most significant figures in the transformation of English teaching in the second half of the twentieth century. As author of Growth through English, the report of the 1966 international Dartmouth conference on the teaching of English, he argued for English education as a conversation. This obituary for English in Education will focus on Dixon’s developing ideas about language and education.