Manuels Scolaires Anglais Collège - Infos et contenus

Who Am I? Competition

Have your A2-level pupils create a "Who Am I?" quiz about a famous English-speaker to enter our competition.

20 Septembre 2018

biography

competition

writing

Dorothea Lange Competition

We've drawn inspiration from Dorothea Lange's evocative photographs, soon to be on show in Paris, to invent a creative-writing competition for your B1-B2-level pupils.

20 Septembre 2018

exhibition

documentary

creative writing

8

Ressources
complémentaires

Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing

The “Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing” photographic exhibition at the Jeu de Paume museum encompasses Lange’s major works including (of course) the iconic “Migrant Mother” and well known documentary photographs taken during the Great Depression. In this B1-B2 sequence pupils will discover Lange and her photographs.

20 Septembre 2018

exhibition

documentary

U.S. history

Group Work: Jigsaw Method

Group work can be a valuable technique in language classes. But how can we ensure that all the students are engaged? The Jigsaw method both reassures and encourages pupils, even those who tend to take a back seat in group work exchanges.

20 Septembre 2018

group work

L.E.L.E.

collaborative work

Rendez-vous

Cleaning Plastic From the Oceans

Plastic pollution, particularly in the oceans, has been in the news a lot recently, with governments, institutions and big business calling and pledging to reduce the use of disposable, single-use plastics. But a young Dutchman has been fighting for eight years to tackle the other end of the problem: removing existing plastic from the sea. And his mission has just taken an enormous step towards becoming reality.

20 Septembre 2018

ecology

environment

pollution

Ocean Cleanup Webpicks

The Ocean Cleanup non-profit organisation is hoping to remove vast quantities of plastic pollution from the oceans. Here are some articles and videos you could use to introduce your pupils to this topic.

20 Septembre 2018

videos

ecology

environment

Rendez-vous

Brexit Confusion

As the Brexit negotiations between Britain and the EU race towards the March 29 deadline, what is the state of play?

19 Septembre 2018

Brexit

politics

UK

Pupils' Portrait Competition

The People's Portrait is in fact two portraits of Queen Elizabeth II made up of a collage of images sent in by the general public. People were asked to send in a photo and short description or anecdote. We have an A1+-level Ready-to-Use Resource about the portraits for you to introduce the topic to your classes and help them participate in a writing competition.

19 Septembre 2018

art

Queen

creative writing

Sélection culturelle

Meet an Author: Sebastian Faulks

Bestselling British author Sebastian Faulks will be giving two talks in Paris on 25 and 26 September around his latest novel Paris Echo.

18 Septembre 2018

war

literature

World War I

Rendez-vous

The Soul of Civil Rights

Aretha Franklin, dubbed “the Queen of Soul”, was one of the most influential musicians in the U.S. charts. She won 18 Grammy awards but also made a massive contribution to the civil rights movement: her songs would become their anthems.

17 Septembre 2018

civil rights

biography

U.S. culture

Sélection culturelle

Happy Birthday Mickey!

Mickey Mouse is going to turn 90 in November 2018 and for his age he still looks pretty active!

12 Septembre 2018

movie

birthday

Mickey

Sélection culturelle

2018 Deauville American Film Festival winners

For this 44th edition the Grand Prize goes to THUNDER ROAD and two Jury Prizes have been awarded to AMERICAN ANIMALS and NIGHT COMES ON.

11 Septembre 2018

film

Cinéma

festival

Rendez-vous

Portrait of Britain

How can you portray a nation of 60 million people? The 100 winning "portraits of Britain" gazing down at passers by in streets, shopping centres, stations and airports across the country are as diverse as the population: different ages, colours, activities, locations, culture and clothing combine to mirror the observers.

11 Septembre 2018

art

British culture

portrait

Sélection culturelle

Festival America

Festival America, the bi-annual event that celebrates the literature of North America, is back for its 9th edition in Vincennes from 20 to 23 September. It offers a weekend where booklovers will be hard-pushed to choose between all the delights on offer. This year, the focus is on Canada , both Anglophone and Francophone. The U.S.A. is well represented of course, as well as authors from Mexico, Haiti and Cuba. There is a special celebration of John Irving, on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The World According to Garp and homages to two greats: Philip Roth and James Baldwin. There are a whole series of events where two or three of the invited authors have a conversation on a theme. The Canada events consider bilingualism, First Nations, the landscape and environment, politics and myths among others. There is also an alphabet-themed series of more than 60 debates such as A for Adolescence, D for Dystopia or N for New Orleans… The Festival takes over the town of Vincennes with open-air photo and art exhibitions about the Tree Planter movement and the First Nations protests at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. With 75 invited authors , there is something for everyone. There are no less than four Pulitzer Prize winners, including Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex) and Colson Whitehead, who won the 2016 Pulitzer as well as the National Book Award for his wonderful mix of history and whimsy The Underground Railroad , recently translated into French. In it he examines the history of slaves escaping to the non-slave states and Canada with the help of the Underground Railroad. In reality, it was a network of abolitionists and former slaves who helped slaves escape. Whitehead imagines it as a real underground railway line. The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood, who has long been a supporter of the festival, won't be physically present, but will join a discussion on Saturday by videolink.

07 Septembre 2018

U.S. culture

Canada

Margaret Atwood

5

Ressources
complémentaires

Brexit

This B1-level article will introduce your students to the British political system. They will most probably have heard about Brexit, but will need to understand why the referendum was decided by David Cameron, how British Prime Ministers come to power and what the exit process involves as the negotiations enter their last 6 months.

06 Septembre 2018

Brexit

David Cameron

europe

Brexit Referendum Webpicks

If you would like to work on Britain's referendum on leaving Europe, the following article is a good resource.

02 Septembre 2018

video

Brexit

politics

5

Ressources
complémentaires

The People’s Portrait

This A1 plus-level article deals with a special piece of art in Greater London, linked to the iconic Queen Elizabeth II. The theme will enable pupils to review personal descriptions as well as the preterite and participate to a fun writing contest, coming very soon.

31 Août 2018

art

Queen

British culture

Sélection culturelle

Welcome to Deauville!

A whole range of visions of America and from America will be screened from 31 August to 9 September at the 44th Deauville American Film Festival.

31 Août 2018

film

Cinéma

festival

Sélection culturelle

Spike Lee is Back

Spike Lee's latest film, BlacKkKlansman, is based on the true story of an African-American police officer who managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Incredible as it sounds, Ron Stallworth masterminded an infiltration operation by posing as a white racist on the phone.

30 Août 2018

film

civil rights

Cinéma

Golf 101

One of golf's biggest competitions is coming to France for the first time: the Ryder Cup will take place from 25-30 September. The competition pits the twelve best male golfers in Europe and the U.S.A. against each other every two years. And the Junior Cup is for the 12 best under-18-year-old players from each continent, male or female.

30 Août 2018

sport

U.S.A.

europe

Teaching with BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee's new film "BlacKkKlansman" is based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, a Colorado Springs policeman who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. This downloadable audio interview with Stallworth is excellent for listening comprehension.

30 Août 2018

film

civil rights

audio

Rendez-vous

Word of the Moment: Sanctuary Cities

The term "sanctuary city" is used frequently in coverage of immigration issues in the U.S.A. What does it mean and what is the size of the phenomenon?

15 Août 2018

U.S.A.

immigration

U.S. politics

Rendez-vous

Green Coffee

A British university encouraged students to change their consumer habits and help the environment. Winchester University has significantly reduced use of disposable coffee cups by charging for them. And at the same time gave away free re-usable cups to students made partly with recycled chewing gum.

01 Août 2018

video

ecology

ethical consumption

Récapitulons !

Dans notre série de suggestions pour tirer un maximum de bénéfice des documents fournis aux élèves, voici une idée pratique et simple d’activité qui favorise l’implication de tous dans les récapitulations en classe.

01 Août 2018

apprendre à apprendre

recap

révision

Rendez-vous

U.S.A., World Champion of … Quidditch !

The 2018 Soccer World Cup title goes to Les Bleus for the second time, meanwhile, more than 6,000 km away from Moscow, on 2 July, in Florence (Italy), the United States won the Quidditch World Cup.

01 Août 2018

U.S.A.

harry potter

Quidditch

Rendez-vous

Kneeling for His Rights

NFL American football star Colin Kaepernick brought attention to Black Lives Matter's protests about police brutality towards African Americans with his silent protests, kneeling instead of standing when "The Star-Spangled Banner" played before NFL games. Two years on, Kaepernick has been frozen out of the football league but has won two major human-rights awards for his actions, and is now fronting a new Nike advert.

27 Juillet 2018

U.S. politics

protest

American football

Captain Cook: Voyages to the Pacific

250 years ago, Captain James Cook led the first of three expeditions to the Pacific which led to the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand. An exhibition at the British Library looks at the legacy of those expeditions, for Britain but also for the populations in the territories Cook visited. Cook was a Royal Navy Captain skilled in cartography. His first voyage (1768-71) had an ostensibly scientific mission: to observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769, which would help scientists calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun. However he had a second mission — to explore the Southern Hemisphere looking for lands ripe for colonisation. European geographers were convinced there had to be a large landmass in the Southern Hemisphere that would balance the land in the northern part of the Globe. They referred to it as Terra Australis, but didn't mean Australia, which had already been partially discovered by Europeans. They believed it would be around the South Pole. The expedition's crew were welcomed in Tahiti, and after making the astronomical observations they had come for, a skilled Polynesian navigator, Tupaia, joined the crew on its onward journey. The expedition didn't encounter a large Southern continent, but the reached New Zealand in October 1769. The country had been sighted by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman more than a century before but there had been no European contact since. Tupaia was able to act as an interpreter as the Maori people were Polynesian, having arrived in New Zealand, or rather Aotearoa as they call it, 700 or 800 years previously. Despite this, the British managed to provoke three violent incidents in 24 hours, leading to several Maori deaths. The expedition then spent several months circumnavigating the South Island and making the first detailed map of New Zealand before setting sail for Australia. Again, the first encounter with Aboriginal people ended with the British firing their muskets. And despite the land being quite clearly inhabited, Cook claimed possession of the entire eastern coast of the continent for Britain, baptising it New South Wales. Seventeen years later, the penal colony of New South Wales would be founded. To the Antarctic Cook's second voyage (1772-75) took him further south, into the Antarctic Circle, still looking for Terra Australis. His ships sailed closer to the Pole than anyone before, but he returned to Britain with no news to report of the mythical continent. He noted in his log book: "I have now done with the SOUTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN, and flatter my self that no one will think that I have left it unexplor’d, or that more could have been done in one voyage towards obtaining that end than has been done in this." The Final Voyage Cook's third expedition to the Pacific (1776-80) would be, in all senses of the word, his last. This time his mission from the Admiralty was try to find the Northwest Passage, a route mariners have believed existed for centuries, allowing a short passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic, thus avoiding the long journey via the southern point of South America. After various fruitless attempts at finding the Passage, in November 1778, the expedition sailed south for the Hawaiian Islands, which they had been the first Europeans to visit in January that year. In February, 1779, when the two ships of the expedition were anchored off Hawai'i, a boat disappeared from one of the ships. Once again showing cultural insensitivity, Cook took a Hawaiian elder hostage in order to demand the return of the boat. Violence broke out, and Cook, along with several of his men, was killed. Cook's Legacy Cook's three expeditions opened up the Pacific for colonisation. First Australia in 1787, then New Zealand in 1860, though not in exactly the same conditions. The British basically ignored Australia's Aboriginal people and considered the land available for use. They were more circumspect with the Maori in New Zealand, who had a reputation as fearsome warriors, and who had a hierarchical societal structure the British could recognise. The colony of New Zealand was founded based on a peace treaty with Maori tribes signed at Waitangi in 1860, although many of its provisions were later ignored. The three expeditions included botanists, artist and linguists, and brought back information to Europe about plants, animals and societies that were totally unknown. One of the artists on the first expedition, Sydney Parkinson, drew the first depiction of a kangaroo ever seen in Europe. (The name was an approximation of the word he heard used by the Gweagal Aboriginal clan.) Unfortunately, the cavalier spirit of the time meant that the British also took crops and animals with them to develop in the far-flung places they visited. These were meant to provide food for future expeditions, and generally bring sensible European innovations to primitive native people. At best, the crops failed to thrive. At worst, they ravaged existing ecosystems. The Voyages of Captain James Cook British Library, London Till 28 August The British Library is just a few minutes' walk from St Pancras Station if you're taking the Eurostar. Why not pop in? This theme goes well with the section on Aboriginal culture in Speakeasy Files 3e : A Gap Year in the Australian Outback.

27 Juillet 2018

Australia

British history

science

Making Mary Shelley

In the year in which the bicentenary of the publication of Frankenstein is being celebrated, a new biopic of its author, Mary Shelley, turns the spotlight on the young author who has long been eclipsed by a creation which escaped the pages of her book to enter popular culture.

27 Juillet 2018

literature

women

Cinéma

Sélection culturelle

Here We Go Again!

Ten years after the smash-hit original film, Mamma Mia is back with a "prequel and sequel". It's the feel-good movie of the summer. Perfect for an open-air or drive-in showing, with a cocktail in hand, your dancing shoes on and singing voice ready. For a couple of hours, we can all be Dancing Queens (or Kings of course)!

27 Juillet 2018

music

musical

Summer

Dorothea Lange Exhibition: Teacher and Class Visits

The Jeu de Paume museum in Paris is hosting an exhibition of Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange's work from 16 October to 27 January. (It's a wonderful subject for class work, and we'll be publishing a Ready to Use Resource and a competition for pupils in September. Meantime, you can sign up for a special free teacher's day visit on 6 November. And the Mona Bismarck Center will be offering class visits in English to the exhibition.

27 Juillet 2018

exhibition

documentary

U.S. history