Hey,

today after warming up about your favorite types of music, we began to study the song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. Here is what we said about it:

 The singer conveys a lot of emotions through her song, thanks to the melody, her voice, her attitude and her lyrics.
The melody is slow, low and conveys a melancholy feeling.
The topic is very serious and Billie Holiday is committed / involved
Her voice is powerful. She sounds as if she were about to cry. Her eyes are empty when she remembers the necktie party / lynching party and the suffering of the black people.
Her voice conveys both pain and hatred, sorrow and anger when she pounds on / stresses some important words.
As for her attitude, she grimaces and her mouth is often twisted.
She wails at the end of the song to express her suffering. She is very sensitive.
The lyrics evoke a lynching party: "black bodies hanging". But the scene is in contrast with some words with a positive connotation: "Southern breeze", "swing"... We cannot but sympathize with her when she refrains from crying / when she is on the verge of tears / when she has tears in her eyes.

HW: finish finding the words that are in contrast in the lyrics and get ready to talk about the song + Learn your new vocabular (a test in on the way...)

More information about the song and a documentary that was made about the song here.

Hey,

today you first had to record an audio commentary about the cartoon we had studied and then we could continue listening and analysing the song Strange Fruit. We first focused on the tone of the melody and then on the content of the lyrics themselves. Here is what we said:

The song is a metaphor to speak about a lynching party. It’s really horrible / gruesome / macabre because the singer uses words that are « in conflict » together. For instance, there is a stark contrast between the dead bodies / corpses hanging and the words « breeze » or « swinging » that she uses and that have a positive connotation.

"breeze"--> A type of light wind, gentle and soft, during the summer time.

HW: for next time, you need to find all the words that are "in conflict" and have a positive connotation and those which have a negative meaning.

More information about the song and a film that was made about it here.

Bonjour à tous,

voici le document que nous comptons soumettre à notre inspection académique (Créteil) concernant le bilan des groupes de compétences tels que nous les avons mis en place au Lycée Marx Dormoy (Champigny sur Marne, Créteil - 94) depuis le début de l'année scolaire 2010. Nous avons demandé une réunion avec nos inspecteurs pour pouvoir en discuter, notamment en raison des différents problèmes qui émergent (mise en place et montée des groupes en 1ère, puis terminale) et du flou plus ou moins "blurry" qui règne autour de la mise en place et de la constitution de ces groupes.

Je vous laisse lire soigneusement ce rapport et me donner un retour sur ce que vous en pensez de façon à pouvoir faire évoluer notre pratique si besoin et préparer au mieux nos interventions lors de cette réunion. Toute réaction et / ou information bienvenues; nous ferons remonter vos remarques si vous le souhaitez. Utilisez la partie "Commentaires" (enter comment) de cet article pour échanger vos points de vue.

Je ne manquerai pas de vous faire un compte-rendu détaillé par la suite (réunion prévue pour le 11 Février mais qui sera finalement déplacée; nouvelle date non connue pour le moment).

Vous trouverez également l'extrait quasi complet de notre 1ère séquence annuelle sur Global Warming avec une visée actionnelle.

Bonne lecture!

(click right and
"save target as..." to download)

Documents créés par Cyril Brot, Anne Menenteau, Armelle Batard, et Philippe Hattais (pour l'équipe d'anglais)

Hey,

today we first had the oral presentations of both Karine and Fanny. Then we continued the lesson with the correction of your exercise about attitudes.

You need to learn this vocabulary by heart. Finally, we talked about phonetics and how to pronounce the /-ed/ and /-ous/ endings correctly.

HW: For next time, you will need to know this vocabulary by HEART! and to present the document of your choice below (I-D-A-H-O -> Identify = type of document, main topic, target / goal).

Hey,

today we first did a quick recap of what had been said in previous lessons and in particular things about mobile phone usage (conclusion of the opinion poll). Then we listened to the document again and here is what we said about it:

Conclusion of the study:

The report / study / poll shows that students between the ages of 18 and 24 are addicted to calling.
They dial 290 phone calls a month.
The study also shows that teenagers between 13 and 17 are not addicted to calling, they are hooked on sending text messages . They send an average of 435 messages a month.

 

Finally, we tried to understand if the opinions of the interviewees were positive or negative. Here is what we wrote in the chart:

The poll shows that people think it can be an advantage or a drawback:

• Advantages:

-> to rely on / to trust
-> more privacy

• Drawbacks:

-> refuge
-> dangerous -> impersonal

HW: get prepared to talk about the document and about your personal use of the cell phone.

Hey,

today we began to talk about the correction of your mock exam that you did NOT succeed at all!

There are some simple tricks about methods that you don't master yet! You need to try and make hypotheses about what the text means even when you don't understand EVERY single word.

Try to highlight everything that's important about the typical WH- questions and remember the historical context: 

WHO -> characters
WHERE -> place
WHEN -> time / date -> 1991 (published 1 year before the end of Apartheid)
WHAT -> actions
HOW -> feelings / reactions / attitudes / behaviours

Know the translation for the main questions:

PICK OUT FROM THE TEXT = QUOTE --> QUOTATION
ANSWER AND JUSTIFY IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Try to make a connection between the different elements in the text (why this reaction? why some pauses"---" in the speech? why a bomb? who died? why TV? what happened before? what will happen next?)

It's only this way that you will make progress! As for how to improve the writing part, we'll see about it next time.

HW: you need to complete a matching exercise about feelings.

Files: download your exercise here (orginally created by Cyril Brot)

Hey,

today you first talked about your personal mobile phone usage thanks to an opinion poll (a questionnaire / a study). Here is what we said and the conclusions we drew:

Conclusion of the study:

Many students in class spend a lot of time sending text messages. For instance, Laurianne sends an average of 150 text messages a day*. It corresponds to about 1 message every two minutes*. However, the students in this class are not addicted to / hooked on calling. The largest package is a 2 hour-package. On average, students spend 1 hour a month* on the phone. Alexia admits that it would be bizarre if she didn’t have her mobile. It would be difficult to do without it.

* GRAMMAR: exprimer la fréquence.

Then we continued on with a new oral document about mobile phone usage.

You can listen to it again below:

Here is what we said about it:

The document is a report (a set of interviews with an introduction and a conclusion).

It deals with mobile phone usage.
The scene probably takes place at a work place or a fast-food restaurant. We can hear people talking in the background. The journalist asks questions to 3 people (1 female and 2 males) who are probably young adults (their voices are not teenagers’ voices).

HW: for next time, you need to be able to talk about your personal usage of the phone and prepare a short recap about what we said about the document.

Tale STG - MERCA

For your reviews at the end of the year, you might want to print this lexical sheet out.

Hope it'll help you!

(orginally created by Monique Mirza)