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Peter Brook Production in Paris, Thonon and Clermont-Ferrand

Veteran British playwright and director Peter Brook’s new production is "The Prisoner". It has opened in Paris before moving on to Thonon les Bains and Clermont-Ferrand.

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Arctic Mystery

This B1 article will allow pupils to discover the mysterious disappearance of the 1845 Franklin Expedition to find the North-West passage, and the subsequent search expeditions and forensic archaeology which has begun to provide answers

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ULIS Begins with You

Although pupils with cognitive disabilities, who are based in ULIS classes, are more and more standardly integrated into mainstream lessons, language teaching is often overlooked. Yet it is vital for their job prospects, and simple, innovative methods can make the experience enriching for all the pupils in the class, as well as their teacher.

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Frederick Douglass: Civil Rights Pioneer

2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the most important figures in the fight for the abolition of slavery in the U.S.A: Frederick Douglass. Yet he is often unknown outside of America.

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Frederick Douglass on the Web

On the occasion of Frederick Douglass's Bicentennial, there are lots of online resources to help you introduce this major figure of the abolition movement to your pupils. This section on Frederick Douglass from the Library of Congress children’s site is suitable from A2 . It’s not a very detailed biography but has an excellent quote from Douglass which is understandable: "What was possible for me is possible for you. Do not think because you are colored you cannot accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow men." The part about his writing and speaking on abolition can be used at the same level. There are segments on his escape from slavery and work during the Civil War in two further sections but they assume a certain pre-knowledge of his story, or at least how slaves escaped to the North and the dangers they faced. This National Endowment for the Humanities mini-site has several interesting documentaries on slavery and the movement for civil rights. The one on the Abolitionists starts with a short segment on Frederick Douglass. The voiceover is clear and fairly slow, but some of the vocabulary is difficult. It could be tackled from B1 . Frederick Douglass’s house in Washington, D.C. in is a National Park Service property preserved for historical reasons. Extracts of the NPS biography of Douglass can be used from A2+. This video shows reconstructions of Douglass’s speeches, and African-Americans young and old saying what he means to them. From A2+. A Powerful Voice The power of Douglass's words is undiminished, and although the language is sophisticated it is well worth investigating Douglass's own words with advanced students. The Teaching American History site has a number of extracts, along with audio readings of them for download . It is easy to understand why people in his lifetime struggled to believe that such eloquence could come from a man who had been treated like a beast. Give me five! 4e Unit 5 "Journey to Freedom" focuses on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. It would fit well with a sequence on Douglass. Download a sample page here .         The 2019  Pulitzer Prize for history was awarded to historian David W. Blight for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom . Professor Blight is Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. In these two videos, he discusses Douglass. The first one is very short, just 35 seconds. Professor Blight briefly describes the important of Douglass's work, without mentioning his slave past. It's clear and fairly slow. Usable from A2 . https://youtu.be/_B8o4AMUDts The second one is more complex, and longer.  It covers five aspects of his life, from slavery until his involvement in the Civil War. Usable from B1 . The third point is the most difficult in terms of language. https://youtu.be/mcC0-Rvd2-0    

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American Theater in Angers, Nancy and Paris

San-Francisco-based theater company Word for Word has announced its annual tour in France. Once again the company will bring prose (five short stories) to life on stage using their original technique.

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Funding for Exchanges with the U.K.

A scheme administered by the British Council offers funding for school exchange projects for 17-to-19-year-olds: up to £10,000 per project. The deadline for applications for the next awards of funds is 14 May 2018.

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Students Demand Gun Control

After yet another school shooting in the U.S.A., surviving students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Texas, are calling for gun control. Their calls have already sparked plans for action such as a national march and two planned school walkouts.

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Gun Control Teaching Resources

After the terrible school shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Texas, gun control is once again very much in the news. Here are suggestions of ways to broach this topic in class.

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The Shape of Monsters

Despite the breath-taking effects, at its heart The Shape of Water is a good old-fashioned monster story. Two hundred years after the publication of Frankenstein , it’s the tale of shunned outsiders who show more humanity than the “normal” humans. Guillermo del Toro’s latest film is set in 1962 Cold War America. The military have captured a mysterious, humanoid water creature that Amazonian tribes worshipped as a god. It is being held captive in a tank in a top-secret laboratory while government scientists study it. One of the cleaning staff, Elisa, who is mute following a childhood trauma, develops a connection with the creature. She is convinced it’s not the monster its captors perceive, but no one will listen to her pleas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFYWazblaUA Elisa is portrayed by British actress Sally Hawkins ( Made in Dagenham, Blue Jasmine…), while her friend and collea gue Zelda is played by Octavia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures…). The Cold War, military setting provides an amplified version of society's tendency to be hostile to anyone and anything outside the norm. Elisa, her African-American colleague Zelda and of course the creature are all outsiders. In a tradition that runs from Beauty and the Beast to Frankenstein to The X-Men , the outsiders will have to prove more "human" than their persecutors. And the Winner Is… The film has already received several awards and 13 Oscar nominations. Accepting the best director award at the British BAFTA awards on 18 February, Del Toro paid homage to Mary Shelley: "She gave voice to the voiceless, and presence to the invisible, and showed me that sometimes to talk about monsters, we need to fabricate monsters of our own. And parables do that for us.”  Coming soon: A Ready to use Resource on the bicentenary of Frankenstein .    

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Australian Identity Crisis

On 26 January every year, ceremonies are held all over Australia to welcome new citizens as part of Australia Day celebrations. But the 2018 national day was overshadowed by debates about citizenship, and about finding a date for Australia Day that is less offensive to Aboriginal people. Citizenship was a major issue in the Australian parliament in 2017. In April, Malcolm Turnbull’s government announced tougher rules for obtaining citizenship, requiring four years' residence instead of one, and introducing more thorough English-language tests and interviews checking that applicants accepted "Australian values"». But in August, a parliamentary crisis began which soon touched Turnbull’s governing coalition. Eleven MPs and senators resigned voluntarily or after court proceedings. What heinous crime had they committed? Holding a second nationality — often without knowing. Section 44 (i)  of Australia’s Constitution, dating from 1901, says that any person who " is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power... shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives" . In an immigrant nation where more than 26% of citizens were born overseas, and one in two has one or both parents born abroad, it is not rare to have more than one nationality. Some countries automatically bestow citizenship on anyone born there. Others consider even second or third generation offspring of emigrants to be potential citizens. Constitutionalists say that candidates for election should check on their nationality status, and renounce any other nationalities they may hold. Rather a contrast with the joyful citizenship ceremonies held all over the country on Australia Day for new citizens – 35,000 in 2018. Change the Day Australia Day commemorates the date in 1788 on which the first British penal colony was founded on the Australian continent. Although there were holidays in various parts of Australia on 26 January from 1818, it was only formally recognised as the national day in 1946. By that time, Aboriginal people had been protesting against the commemoration for eight years, marking a Day of Mourning instead. For them, 26 January doesn’t mark the beginning of a country, but the end of one, and the beginning of many decades of mistreatment by the colonists. Richard Weston, a Torres Strait Islander and CEO of the Healing Foundation which advocates for Aboriginal affairs, explains: “For most Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, January 26th is a reminder of the pain and loss caused by 230 years of dispossession, dislocation and mistreatment. It is impossible to celebrate when it brings to mind the deep hurt borne by our ancestors and how that suffering continues to impact today.” This video shows the reaction of a number of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders of different ages to Australia Day: https://youtu.be/G8czHlPYXew The movement to Change the Date has been slowly growing, but in 2017 came to national prominence. The 2018 Invasion Day Rally in Melbourne was attended by 40-60,000 protesters, well outnumbering the official Australia Day ceremony. Find a Date So what date could be substituted for 26 January? 1 January has been mooted, because it was the date in 1901 in which Australia officially came into being as one country. 12 Marc h would celebrate the naming of Canberra as capital city in 1913. Perhaps the most symbolic of reconciliation would be 27 May , the date in 1967 when a referendum voted to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Census, and allow Parliament to legislate for them. In effect it is the day on which Aboriginal people became Australian citizens. The referendum received an overwhelming majority – 91 per cent voted in favour. Since 1996, 27 May has marked the beginning of the annual National Reconciliation Week . Spirit of Australia The Give me five 4e textbook has a whole unit on the Spirit of Australia. Download a sample double-page here .

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Pentagon Papers Webpicks

The Steven Spielberg film "The Post", starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, is an excellent resource for working on the press and the media as part of éducation aux médias. It would work very well with the theme for this year's Semaine de la presse à l'école: Where does the news come from?

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Robert Burns Digital Resources

Scots celebrate their national poet, Robert Burns, on 25 January each year. These ebooks are useful for classroom work about the poet and the event.

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Publishing the Pentagon Papers

In this era of fake news, Stephen Spielberg’s latest film looks back at the true story of the Pentagon Papers. Publishing news of this leaked government report put investigative journalists and newspaper publishers at real risk of prosecution. And yet, against the odds, they went ahead and set the scene for the Watergate scandal. The Post tells the story of the "Pentagon Papers" – a leaked top-secret government report entitled "History of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-66". The report showed that four successive presidents, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, had misled the public about U.S. operations in Vietnam, ostensibly pursuing a strategy towards peace while the military and CIA were covertly expanding the war. The New York Times obtained the leaked 7,000-page report and after failing to interest Congress members in its contents, set up a secret team of journalists in a hotel for three months to comb through the report to find and verify stories. On 13 June, 1971, they published the first of a planned series of articles. On 15 June, the Nixon Administration obtained a court injunction to stop them publishing any further stories. Publish and be Damned? This is where the dilemma at the heart of the film starts. The Washington Post managed to obtain a partial copy of the report. Its publisher Katharine Graham and editor Bradlee had to decide whether to publish, sure in the knowledge that the Administration would seek an injunction against The Post too. The paper was in a fragile state financially, and about to launch a public shares offer to bolster its capital. A legal action would not appeal to investors. Publication could mean financial ruin for Graham's family, the loss of their livelihoods for the staff, and a real risk of going to prison. And yet… telling the story meant standing up for the thousands and thousands of lives that had been sacrificed in Vietnam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXlY6gzTTM Their Day in Court Graham gave the go-ahead to publish and The Post was duly added to the Times legal action. But on 30 June, the Supreme Court examined the injunction and overturned it. In the judgement, Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfil its essential role in our democracy. […] In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.” For The Washington Post it was the beginning of a new era. From a slightly provincial paper it took on a national stature. The following year, it was The Post 's Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward who broke the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's resignation. 1971-2017 Same Combat Although set in 1971, Spielberg's film is astonishingly contemporary. The team investigation of leaked papers echoes recent scandals like the Paradise and Panama Papers which have been revealed by an international syndicate of investigative journalists and newspapers. The film's central figure is a strong female role – the publisher Katharine Graham, the first woman to helm a national newspaper. Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) wasn't a journalist. The Post had been in her family since her financier father bought it in 1933. In 1946, Katharine Graham's husband, Phil, took over as editor. In 1963, he committed suicide and Graham, housewife and mother of four, found herself at the head of a national newspaper. By 1971, she had found her feet, but the Pentagon Papers would be the test that would turn her into the formidable and respected publisher she became, the first woman to head a Fortune 500 company. Like last year's Spotlight , also about investigative journalism, The Post has been nominated for Best Picture Oscar, as well as a nomination for Streep as best actress. In a post-truth world, the story of women and men willing to risk all to tell the truth has truly struck a note with audiences and awards juries alike.

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Three Billboards and a Mother's Fury

The lead role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri fits Frances McDormand like a glove. The story of a fierce, unconventional woman touched by tragedy in small town America, it’s honest and brave, like its star.

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Hamilton Musical Arrives in London

"Hamilton", a hip-hop musical about one of America's Founding Fathers, is one of the most unlikely Broadway hits ever. It is finally arriving on this side of the pond, playing to sold-out houses in London's West End.

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From #MeToo to "Oprah for President"

Since the Harvey Weinstein scandal was revealed by The New York Times on 5 October, the movement to denounce sexual harassment has swept across America and the world. Spreading far beyond Hollywood, women from all walks of life have spoken out saying #MeToo, #YoTambien or #balancetonporc.

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An Incredible Australian Exchange

School exchanges are wonderfully enriching but can seem increasingly difficult and bureaucratic to organise. They are still possible though, as this example proves. Just in time for Australia Day, here is the tale a school exchange in the Outback: Alice Springs in Oz's Red Centre. Get ready to dream!

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Kwanzaa Webpicks

If you'd like to introduce your pupils to the annual African-American celebration Kwanzaa, from 26 December to 1 January, these articles, an audio sketch and festive music interactive can help you.

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A Writer's World: Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo is best known around the world as the author of War Horse, which has been very successfully adapted for stage and screen. However the English author has written more than 150 books for children and teens. An exhibition at the Museum of Childhood in London presents many of his creations, and gives fascinating insight into his writing technique.

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Murder in the Bookshops

As the latest film adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient Express hits our screens, Alison Bouhmid investigates women thriller-writers’ works, spanning a century of mystery writing.

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Star Wars Strikes Back

The Last Jedi , episode VIII of the famous saga which began in 1977, is finally in cinemas. For fans, it's not a minute too soon. It's been 30 years since the emblematic hero last properly featured in a Star Wars film. And two years since episode VII, The Force Awakens, in which Luke Skywalker appeared for a fleeting few seconds. Fans of the franchise have been impatiently waiting for their hero's real return. The Last Jedi reunites the protagonists of The Force Awakens : reformed Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega), Jedi-in-training Rey (Daisy Ridley), General Leia Organa (the late great Carrie Fisher — better known as Princess Leia), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO and BB-8 as well as their adversaries, the menacing Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (played by Andy Serkis), who is even more dangerous than Darth Vader. Written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper and 3 episodes of Breaking Bad…), the film introduces also several new characters to the Star Wars universe, including a pair of Resistance fighters played by Kelly Marie Tran and Laura Dern, as well as a villain played by Benicio Del Toro. Luke Skywalker is Back He is back but as you’ve never seen him before. After more than 30 years away, Mark Hamill returns to the franchise as the beloved Luke Skywalker. But Luke is no more the confident hero that we saw in Return of the Jedi . He’s now a recluse, who hesitates to hold a lightsaber again. “Rian’s version of Luke Skywalker is an incarnation of the character I never expected,” said Hamill to Vanity Fair. “That was a huge surprise when I first read the script. I think fans will be surprised too.” Hamill “never imagined” he would play the iconic role again. “It’s a reward that just never stops giving. Fans come up to me all the time. They relay all these stories, tell me about how they met their wife in line for Empire and that they had a child by the time of Return of the Jedi and named him Luke. It’s really moving. I’m proud to be known as Luke Skywalker.” The First Order is Preparing to Strike Back Two years is plenty of time in which to forget some, or many, of the details of The Force Awakens. So for those who haven’t been obsessively revisiting the previous film, here’s a short summary of what the major players were up to when we last saw them. In The Force Awakens , we learned that after the galactic civil war some 30 years ago — which served as the basis for the first Star Wars trilogy — the villainous First Order rose up, wanting to get rid of the democratic state known as the New Republic. The New Republic is not fully aware of the threat that the First Order represents. General Leia Organa founded the Resistance, a small, secretive private military force, to monitor the actions of the First Order. The New Republic tolerates the Resistance while regarding Organa and her fighters as dead-enders with a fixation on the past. Led by the sinister Supreme Leader Snoke, the villains certainly have a plan to strike back with a vengeance. Rey Combed the Galaxy to Find Luke Skywalker The Force Awakens presented us with two giant mysteries: the current location of Luke Skywalker and the origin of new protagonist Rey. Sensing the danger that the First Order presents, Organa is looking for her Jedi brother for some help. Thanks to a map assembled by helpful droids BB-8 and R2-D2, Rey finds him on a mountain island called Ahch-To and presents him with a lightsaber. But from what we see in The Last Jedi trailer, this likely isn’t going to be a sunny meeting, with Skywalker telling Rey, “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=Q0CbN8sfihY That’s probably not the way anyone saw this meeting happening, but it’s understandable: Skywalker is still haunted by the betrayal of his apprentice and nephew Ben Solo, a.k.a. Kylo Ren who turned to the dark side of the Force. We learned Kylo is the son of Leia and Han Solo who got married after the first Star Wars trilogy. Rian Johnson told Vanity Fair that The Last Jedi is the darkest, most emotional instalment of the Star Wars saga yet. “It’s the middle chapter, so we got to challenge the characters, and it’s going to darker and more intense places. I wanted the story to be emotional. That was an element that I really wanted to get in the movie. And because each one of these characters has such a brilliant setup in The Force Awakens , I wanted to take each one of them and push them.” Johnson promises that the movie also offers comedic moments. “I hope audiences will pleasantly be surprised by how fun and funny the movie is. I really tried to balance the more intense stuff with humor and fun, because it’s a Star Wars movie, after all. That’s what it’s all about.”    

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The Great Christmas Pudding Race

It has all the ingredients of a great British event: tradition, wearing costumes, doing silly things and collecting money for charity!

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