Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Date :
GET READY !
Read the title and identify the topic .Then take a quick look at the text and check!
What type of text is it ? Tick the correct answer(s).
an extract/excerpt from a novel
a newspaper article a magazine article an online article
informative
argumentative
a narrative
Identify:
the authors name : ...
the release date : ....
Focus on the repetitions and highlight 6 keywords which will help you make sense
of the article
....
Making use of the words above , identify the problem the journalist refers to.
....
.....
Now, find basic information about the issue being raised that has become a matter
of great concern? Quote elements from the text and fill in the grid.
People
Place
Key moment
actions
c- 50:
d- 30:
e- 18:
f- 4:
g- 2:
Pick out elements from the article to give a definition of baccalaureate.
....
....
Tick the main skill being referred to in the article regarding the issue. Quote
the text to justify your answer.
speaking reading writing listening
....
Match them up !
a journalist
Turner
Le Crpuscule
Carol
a novel
Ian McEwan
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
Change.org
Alissa J.Rubin
Nenad Djokic
a defender
a novelist
EF Education First manager
a main character
Atonement
a social media site
a poem
the Education minister
Engish teacher
a-
a complaint :
to make someone feel worried or upset :
confusing or difficult to understand :
to deal successfully with a difficult situation:
an urgent or emotional request for something :
someone who supports someone elses point of view :
to be baffled by :
to be able to speak a foreign language very well / spoken well and without
difficulty :
to say that you are not satisfied with something :
b-
BUILD MEANING !
What solution has been found ? Identify what the students did to cope with the
situation.
...
..
About the petition :
a- Who was it addressed to ?
b- What for ?
c- How successful were they?
Arguments for / against the petition . Complete :
COMPLAINANTS & DEFENDERS
Arguments For
OPPONENTS
Arguments against
Who should be held responsible for this lack of fluency at foreign languages ?
Who is to blame according to the defenders?
...
.
...
..
....
....
...
..
....
According to you, which adjective(s) best describe French students in the article ?
lazy strong-willed hard-working foolish determined polemical bold critical provocative
Comment on the journalists point of view and on the tone of the article.
Use the
below.
sympathetic
approving annoyed
FOR
AGAINST
NEUTRAL
He/she approves of =
He/she sides with = se ranger
du ct de / prendre parti pour
He /she stands for = tre
pour / dfendre
He/ she advocates =
prconiser / prner / recommander
PARIS There is no easy translation or even a firm concept of the word coping in French, so
when it turned up last week in a question on the national exam to earn a high school degree,
it set off a fracas among the 350,000 or so students who took the test.
So far, about 12,000 of them have signed a petition posted four days ago on a social media
site, change.org, arguing that the question was too difficult.
The word appeared in the English reading comprehension section of this years baccalaureate
general exam, which requires an intermediate level of proficiency in two foreign languages.
The students said they were baffled by a passage from the best-selling novel Atonement, by
Ian McEwan, in which the word cope appeared. Then came two questions about a character
named Turner: What concerns him about the situation? and How is Turner coping with the
situation?
Also puzzling for some was the word concern.
Students described the questions as incomprehensible and impossible to answer, and
asked to meet with senior figures in the Education Ministry.
Was the question grammatically correct? asked a student named Tho. Another wrote:
Were there some words missing? If not, I didnt understand it at all.
Many other students, however, including even some who were flummoxed by the same
questions, dismissed the complaints, saying the petition made French students look foolish.
I didnt get the question, but it happens, said Clmence Siouffi, an 18-year-old at Lyce
Jean-Pierre Vernant, near Paris.
This petition is bothering me. We had already insulted Victor Hugo last year during the
French baccalaureate, so it bothers me to be part of this generation that is only complaining
and looking like idiots, she said, referring to a controversy last year when students
complained that a section asking them to analyze a Hugo poem, Le Crpuscule, was far too
difficult.
The education minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, quickly rejected the students pleas, saying:
In truth, I was quite surprised by the petition. Because to cope with is part of the things one
learns and I am not fluent.
But the students have their defenders. This word to cope is unusually hard to translate into
French, wrote Carol Just, a teacher of English in France, on the change.org website, and the
English notion is difficult to understand even for experienced adult learners because there is
no real equivalent in the French language and in the French mind.
Nenad Djokic, the country manager in France for EF Education First, an international language
company that has schools teaching English in 50 countries, blamed the French educational
system, which he said failed to give people enough of a chance to develop fluency. Language
training in France is done in classes of 30 students on average for 50 minutes three times a
week, he said.
The teacher has to cover the grammar, the vocabulary and some speaking, he added, but
how can you speak with 30 students one by one? You cant, so the methodology is that the
teacher does the speaking.