ter anglais renforcé

lesson
Tuesday the 9th of February.
Ter Anglais renforcé

Task :revision session for the mock exam.

Word of the day ( I know I forgot.No one asks me though): it has been an emotional roller coaster = my emotions have gone up and down

1.Giving back your plan on Obama's speech

2.Giving you my introduction and my conclusion to the speech :
INTRODUCTION
Our everyday world is shaped by the issue of the environment. Indeed the quality of the air we breathe, the catastrophes that befall the earth like earthquakes and tornadoes are a direct consequence of the damage we brought upon nature .Even our leaders’ decisions result from that issue: we have to pay a green tax on every product that we consume because the world leaders and especially the French ones do realise the necessity to act and limit pollution and one of its most devastating effects: global warming.
Such was also the purpose of the Copenhagen conference that took place last December and which gathered so many world leaders. But while most of them spent a week trying to find a common agreement on those issues, one came last and for only one day.
That was President Obama. His belated intervention did not prevent him from making one of the most influential speeches of the conference. That speech might be regarded as such a cornerstone in the history of the environmental policy that we have resolved to study it in depth.
Straight to the point as always, President Obama first embarked on a series of accusations that we will decipher in a first part.
Then, he carried on with the presentation of a plan of action which would, according to him, allow the world leaders to make history. His plan will thus be our next object of study.
He finally tried to win the world leaders’approval by stressing why such actions were mandatory .Thus our third part will be devoted to a thorough analysis of the arguments he put forward.
We might have some misgivings as to the efficiency of that speech as we will vent in a fourth part. But let’s not be mistaken. We are indeed dealing with the future of our world.


CONCLUSION :
To put it in a nutshell, I feel bound to remind you here of one of the accusations of president Obama as regards the mode of procedure of the world leaders. He was blaming them mostly for their lack of action and their tendency to procrastinate. The lack of concrete results will no doubt lead us to think that he was indeed right on that account.
Another meeting is meant to take place soon enough while the planet is suffering from further assaults everyday.
Would we thus favour more drastic actions like those taken by the activists from Green Peace and other Green movements, I am not certain?
But I feel inclined to say that the world might need another type of leaders , one who would voice the concerns of their people rather than panic at the thought of the results of the next elections.
Still are we courageous enough to take action or are we as guilty as them?


3.Giving you the list of texts for the mock exam:
Doc ico :
Holidays
French versus the English
Help
(choose 1 document among these) = 2 documents as a whole
Text :
A year in the merde
White teeth
Sunday bloody Sunday (*2)
THE CNN HEROES
Obama’s speech (*2)

4.rehearsing for the study of the visual document
a) preparing
b) being the student
c) being the teacher

5.Test: study the visual document on the environment issue.

6.recording

7.Here is the correction:
The document we will scrutinise today is firstly a cover from the American magazine TIME.Its date of publication is blurred but its target could not be clearer and more straight to the point.
Indeed the caption under the name of the magazine indicates that this issue is devoted to the environment.
And thus our main point today will be to underline how the author illustrated his point.
Thus let’s not waste any time and let’s focus on the picture itself .
Being set on the left side of the picture the tree is the first thing that catches our attention. But soon enough our gaze is drifting along the trunk of that massive tree .Reaching its bottom thus we notice a soldier with his slack uniform .His back is turned towards us but that does not carry any significance in my view.What matters most I believe is the downward movement that might suggest the downward movement the environment is taking and its sad fate.
So the division of the picture is clearly tow-fold with the tree and the headline at the top and a bunch of soldiers at the bottom.
The top might stand for the environment as the headline clearly points out.But if we read the words included here we do have the same bifold organisation with the terms war and Global warming, both terms being illustred by the components of the pictures.
As a matter of fact the effect of Global warming is highlighted with the fate of that poor tree who might be regarded as falling from it pedestal, struck down by all the pollution and the effect of the CO2 stuck in the atmosphere.
But the second term is exemplified by the soldiers who are either supporting the tree or trying to replant it.
But we are bound to stress that this cover is a collage from a very famous war photo representing soldiers during the WW2 planting the American flag on a hilltop that they have just seized back from the Japanese.
Thus we might infer that the author really wanted to strike a positive note here but alluding to that historical event. He aimed at suggesting that we might all win this war if we all join forces as the soldiers did in their time. Indeed the fact that they should be several soldiers do stress the necessity to combine our forces to win this battle.
That the author might have used an American icon to make his point is quite ironical considering the attitude of the Bush administration as far as these issues were concerned.
That should have been more representative of the new administration who clearly indicated his concern for those matters as stated by President Obama at the Copenhaguen conference.And yet the headline “ How to win the war on Global warning” might have been aimed at specifying the solutions available for the sake of the Bush adminsitration.
So we have alluded to the aim of the author who is no doubt to point out at the solutions that we could implement to save the world from this new menace.
It is indeed a new war but contrary to most of the actors in those matters , the author definitely wished to strike a positive note by unveiling the solutions and not putting forward the hurdles we are faced with.
I am not certain I might able to follow him suit .
My opinion:
a)on the document
b)on these issues : do I believe that the solutions are really at hand.The copenhaguen summit and the flop it led to.
Th solution put forward by the author is the replanting of trees.
Conclusion:
I do believe that the copenhaguen conference do point more at the trials the world is faced with rather that the solutions.But it is true that the document stresses the seriousness of the situation by comparing it to a conflict that we do have to win.But other conflicts are there as well and do require the world leaders’ attention and at that stage they seem to be far more important than defending the fate of our planet.Is thus terrorism the main hurdle to the environment?


ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS BUT DO NOT FORGET TO PREPARE FOR THE MOCK EXAM.

IF YOU WANT TO WORK WITH ME DURING THE WEEK OF THE MOCK EXAM, DO TELL ME SO FOR ME TO ORGANIZE A SESSION.

absent : marine mullot