Professeurs documentalistes Collège

Chariot of Fire: The Eric Liddell Story

A hundred years ago, a Scotsman became famous for NOT running a race at the Paris 1924 Olympic Games. Eric Liddell's story was immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. And a play about his life is coming to Paris for two performances on 23 March.

Romeo and Juliet Without Words

British choreographer Matthew Bourne and his company New Adventures pride themselves in finding new ways of "telling stories without words". In Romeo and Juliet, Bourne has taken one of the best-known words in the English language and transformed the familiar story in a reinvention which plays on the dystopian elements of the original script.

La légalisation de l'avortement

Le droit à l’avortement n’a pas été obtenu en un jour : il est l’aboutissement de décennies de combats.

U.S. Congress Tries to Ban TikTok

On 13 March, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill which would ban the social-media app TikTok from the country unless it is no longer owned by a Chinese company. The legislation was rushed through in record time, although it is not certain it will be confirmed by the Senate. What risk does Congress believe TikTok represents?

Time to Put on a Red Nose

Red Nose Day is back on Friday 15 March in the UK.  British charity Comic Relief has been encouraging people to don a clown's red nose and "do something funny for money" since 1988. 

Rumours, Rumours

Definitely not one to show your pupils! Wicked Little Letters is a delicious comedy with Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley,  set in a 1920s English seaside town, where the population starts receiving defamatory letters full of profanities. An Irish migrant with a good stock of swear words in her vocabulary, Rose Gooding is accused of being the author of the letters. But the women of the town begin to doubt her guilt. The film is actually based on a real case, which took place in Littlehampton, a seaside town in Sussex. In the days before internet trolling, poison-pen letters fulfilled the same role of venting your fury. In this case, most of the ire seems to be directed at innocuous spinster Edith Swan (Colman), who lives at home with her mother (Gemma Jones) and domineering father (Timothy Spall). But much like trolling today, the poison-pen letters had real-life consequences when single mother Rose (Buckley) is charged with criminal libel. https://youtu.be/EofbpYnLj3E This is the second time Olivia Colman (The Crown, The Favourite, The Father, Wonka) and Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose, The Woman in White) have starred together. Buckley played the younger version of Colman's character in the 2021 adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel The Lost Daughter. Look out for Buckley in the upcoming adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet by Chloe Zhao and Colman in Wicker with Dev Patel. This video gives some of the background about the true story, including that of the first female police officer in Sussex, played by Anjana Vasan, but doesn't contain spoilers. https://youtu.be/hFlDmqTb9Do Wicked Little Letters On general release 13 March.

And the Oscar Goes to

2023 was the year "Barbenheimer" revived cinema attendance around the world. But despite leading the box office, Barbie received only one Oscar, for best song, while Oppenheimer dominated this year's Awards, taking home seven statuettes.

Irish Referendum on Women's Role in Society

On International Women's Day 2024, France is including the freedom to have an abortion in its constitution while Ireland is holding a referendum to remove clauses from its constitution which promise the Irish state will do everything it can to allow women to stay in the home.

Benediction: Siegfried Sassoon Biopic

Siegfried Sassoon was one of the most famous of the British World War I poets but unlike Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke or Edward Thomas, Sassoon survived the war he had despised while serving brilliantly. Terence Davies’ final film traces both the war service and the long life looking for meaning which followed, with Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi playing the younger and older Sassoon.

Technologie Collège : Nouveau programme 2024

Le nouveau programme de Technologie Collège (B.O. du 29/02/24) s'appliquera en 3 e à la rentrée 2026. Retrouvez la synthèse faite par nos auteurs sur les points-clés du programme.

Les femmes ont toujours travaillé

Les femmes n'ont pas commencé à travailler au début de la Grande Guerre, un podcast contre cette idée reçue.

L’interrogation et la négation dans Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées

La bataille de Stalingrad, une bataille de l’anéantissement

Comprendre la bataille de Stalingrad et ses enjeux par l'étude d'un document iconographique.

Happy Leap Day!

If you are born on 29 February, you can consider yourself very special… or very unlucky!

Les Choses humaines, une affaire intime à travers le prisme de la justice

Ready for the Semaine des Langues?

What are you planning for la Semaine des langues? This year’s edition is from 18 to 23 March and is on the theme of « L’important, c’est de communiquer ! », which we would happily adopt as our motto here at Speakeasy News. The event makes special reference to the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer in France: a multi-lingual, cross-cultural event like no other! Lots of schools have events planned. Here’s a selection of initiatives and ideas.

Happy Feet

When humans have trouble walking, they can get help with orthopaedic shoes or prosthetics. What happens when an animal has a problem? San Diego Zoo in California fitted one of its penguins with customised shoes to help with a degenerative foot condition.

Creative Writing Competition: Sport

It won’t have escaped your notice that this is an Olympic year. To get into the swing of things, we’d like to take sport as the theme of our annual creative-writing competition. We’d like pupils to use their imagination to write a story about sport in any way they want.

Doing the Right Thing

Most people would feel proud of saving hundreds of mainly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of World War II. But Sir Nicholas Winton was haunted by all the children he couldn't save. Until a surprise 50 years later on a TV programme showed him all the good he had done. A new film, One Life, starring Johnny Flynn and Anthony Hopkins as the younger and older Winton tells this true story.

Your Students Have Talent! Gangsta Granny

In our series "Your Students Have Talent", check out these amazing comic strips created as an intermediate task by pupils using our Reading Guide Gangsta Granny.

New Names for London Train Lines

You're no doubt familiar with London's iconic Underground map, and the names for Underground lines like Victoria, Circle, Bakerloo and Jubilee. But now the Overground trains in the network are being given new  names reflecting the history and culture of the city.

Our West Side Story Reading Guide Has Arrived

If you are studying the 1961 film of West Side Story with your LLCER 1ère students, our Reading Guide will help them analyse key scenes, explore the background and inspiration to the work, and different iterations of this story of star-crossed lovers.

Bob Marley: One Love Trailer

Watch the trailer and fill in your worksheet. [video poster="http://www.speakeasy-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SN_bob-marley-one-love_home.jpg" width="1280" height="720" mp4="http://www.speakeasy-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SN_bob-marley-one-love-trailer_mod.mp4"][/video]

Remembering Presidents

On the third Monday in February, Americans celebrate Presidents’ Day, in honour of all 46 Presidents but especially George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. A good time to brush up on what qualifications you need to be President.

Bob Marley Biopic

Not only his songs but also his face and his name are famous around the world. The new biopic Bob Marley: One Love is the perfect occasion for you and your students to learn more about the most famous Jamaican singer of all time and the difficult times he lived through.

Bob Marley: One Love One Life

Bob Marley put his home island of Jamaica, and reggae music, on the international map. Despite his death in 1981 of cancer at just 36, he is as famous now as at the height of his short career. A new biopic tells the story of those heady years.

Angoulême Festival 2024: British and American Winners!

For its 51st edition, the Angoulême International Comics Festival awarded the Grand Prix of the city to the British artist Posy Simmonds for her entire body of work and American Daniel Clowes  received the prestigious Fauve d'Or for his latest book "Monica".

"Triathlon Time" Short Story

This A2-level short story will allow you to introduce or revise sports vocabulary and have pupils think about the meaning of sport and fair play. Sisters Eden and Stella are competing in a triathlon and Eden really wants to win. But then Stella has a bike accident...

West Side Story Legend Dies

Chita Rivera, a Broadway icon, has died age 91.  Her first major role was originating the character of Anita in the original stage production of West Side Story in 1957.

Spooky Britain

Our resource for Shine Bright 2de accompanies File 4: "Mysteries in the Countryside". You can find the illustrated map "Spooky Britain" in the textbook. This A2+-B1-level resource will guide your pupils to find out more about the locations on the map from a promotional text. A group activity aimed at enriching pupils' vocabulary to help them with the final task of writing part of a mystery story.