lycee gabriel guisthau nantes

Section Européenne Anglais au Lycée Guist’Hau

Qu’est-ce qu’une section européenne?

La section européenne permet aux élèves de renforcer la maîtrise de l’anglais, à l’oral comme à l’écrit, grâce à la pédagogie bilingue.

En dehors des cours de langue classiques avec ses objectifs linguistiques et culturels, les élèves suivent des cours d’Histoire-Géographie ou de Physique-Chimie en langue étrangère.

Au terme des trois années, les élèves se présentent au baccalauréat à l’épreuve de “section européenne” et peuvent obtenir une mention européenne.

Qu’est ce que la DNL?

Dans les cours de DNL (Discipline Non-Linguistique), les élèves communiquent en langue étrangère tout en restant concentrés sur une question d’Histoire, de Géographie ou de Physique-Chimie.

A titre d’exemple en Histoire-Géographie, on adopte un regard anglophone sur des questions au programme. Les cours de DNL renforcent ainsi non seulement la pratique de la langue, mais aussi les connaissances sur la culture anglophone. Les élèves apprennent à lire, expliquer et analyser des documents authentiques,

En Physique-Chimie, à partir de supports variés, les élèves vont produire des cartes mentales, des posters, réaliser des exposés, des vidéos en langue anglaise traitant des différentes parties du programme. Certains thèmes peuvent également être traités de façon expérimentale. Le but étant de savoir décrire et expliquer des phénomènes scientifiques en anglais, et éventuellement d’émettre son point de vue.

Au lycée Guist’hau, les élèves sont affectés dans les groupes de DNL (Histoire-Géographie et Physique-Chimie) de manière aléatoire, de manière à créer des groupes de DNL équilibrés au niveau du nombre d’élèves. Un réajustement est effectué en Première afin d’affiner la cohérence avec les spécialités choisies.

Quels sont les projets en section européenne?

La section européenne vise l’acquisition d’un niveau de langue soutenu et souhaite favoriser l’ouverture européenne et internationale des élèves.

La section européenne Anglais organise un voyage culturel pendant l’année de première. En terminale, les élèves passent le Cambridge English Certificate (CEC).

Quel est le cursus en section européenne?

Seconde européenne3h Anglais + 1h DNL (Histoire-Géographie ou Physique-Chimie)
Première européenne2h30 Anglais + 1h DNL
Terminale européenne2 h Anglais + 1h DNL
Horaires hebdomadaires en section Européenne Anglais

Notez bien qu’il n’est pas possible pour les élèves de choisir la matière de DNL: les élèves sont intégrés à la DNL Histoire-Géographie ou Physique-Chimie de manière aléatoire, pour former des groupes équilibrés.

Qu’est ce que la mention européenne?

Actuellement, la mention européenne pour le baccalauréat est validée si la note à l’épreuve écrite de langue est égale ou supérieure à 12/20 et si la note à l’épreuve orale de la discipline non linguistique est égale ou supérieure à 10/20.

La mention européenne donne une valeur ajoutée au diplôme de baccalauréat et représente un plus pour le parcours post-bac quelles que soient les études supérieures visées.

A qui s’adresse la section européenne?

Aux élèves motivés par la langue et la culture anglophone qui ont un bon niveau de langue et qui aiment s’impliquer en classe. Elle est ouverte aux élèves issus de sections européennes, mais aussi à ceux qui n’ont pas eu cette opportunité.

Le programme en anglais européen est identique à celui du tronc commun d’une classe classique. Cependant, le rythme de travail y est plus soutenu et les exigences renforcées, notamment en termes d’autonomie.

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“If” – by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

— Rudyard Kipling, “If”, 1895

Ressources pour enseigner l'anglais au primaire photo 2

Ressources pour enseigner l’anglais au primaire

anglais-au-primaire

L’année dernière, j’ai – contre mon gré – enseigné à l’école primaire à deux classes de CM2 et ces quelques ressources m’ont été utiles :

  • http://chapman.jimdo.com/
  • http://www.maprimaire.fr/pages/anglais/accueil.html
  • http://www.academie-en-ligne.fr/Ecole/Ressources.aspx?PREFIXE=AL5AN0E

J’ai étudié aussi quelques vidéos en fin d’année dont deux en particulier ont suscité un certain intérêt de la part des élèves.

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English : guide to good writing photo

English : guide to good writing

plume-encrier

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

A writer must not shift your point of view.

A writer should not alienate half his readers by using gender-specific language.

Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

Always pick on the correct idiom.

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

Avoid clichés like the plague – they’re old hat.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Be careful to use the rite homonym.

Be more-or-less specific.

Contractions aren’t necessary, and shouldn’t be used.

DO NOT use all caps for emphasis.

Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.

“Do not use unattributed quotations.”

Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.

Don’t indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.

Don’t never use no double negatives – that’s a no-no!

Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!!!

Don’t repeat yourself, or recapitulate what you have said before.

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

Eschew obfuscation.

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

Exaggeration is a million times worse than understatement.

Foreign words and phrases are no longer de rigueur; French is so passé.

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Indubitably, you should employ the vernacular.

It behoves thee to be abstentious of archaic expressions.

Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.

No sentence fragments.

One should never generalise.

One-word sentences? Eliminate. Always!

Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.

Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of ten or more words, to their antecedents.

Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.

Prepositions are not words to end a sentence with.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Puns are for children, not groan adults.

Remember to never split an infinitive.

Subject and verb always has to agree.

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.

The passive voice is to be avoided.

Understatement is always absolutely the most fantastic and best way to promote earth-shattering ideas.

Use an apostrophe in it’s proper place, but omit it when its not needed.

Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

Using euphemisms is ill-advised; they should be consigned to the sanitary landfill.

Who needs rhetorical questions?

Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

— Written by Frank L. Visco and originally published in the June 1986 issue of Writers’ Digest.

Une carte visuelle et sémantique de la langue anglaise photo

Langue anglaise : carte visuelle et sémantique

Un groupe de chercheurs du Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) et de la New York University (NYU) ont créé une carte interactive de la langue anglaise en utilisant plus de 7,5 millions d’images trouvées sur internet.

Ces images sont triées selon les relations sémantiques entre les mot et, selon les chercheurs, ce projet explore “la relation entre les similarités visuelles et sémantiques”.

Voici ce que cela donne au final :

Chaque pixel de l’image est relatif à un des 53 464 noms communs et représente environ 140 images, donnant les caractéristiques visuelles de chaque mot : cela peut être une image précise, un résumé, une définition. La liste des noms vient de Wordnet.

C’est assez génial je trouve : essayez la carte.

English Pronunciation (by G. Nolst Trenité) photo

English Pronunciation (by G. Nolst Trenité)

Si vous pouvez prononcer correctement chaque mot de ce poème alors vous parlez mieux anglais que 90% des native English speakers dans le monde.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

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Dialogues ZEP :

Dialogues ZEP : “l’anglais ça pue sa mère” (Stargate Edition)

Aujourd’hui un grand classique, déjà évoqué brièvement, auquel j’ai droit chaque année. Les années précédentes, j’avais eu droit à “l’anglais de toutes façons ça sert à rien”.

Cette année, “l’anglais ça pue sa mère”.

J’ai un peu changé mon angle d’attaque.

zep_anglais_pue_stargate_edition

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English is a crazy language

CrazyLet’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indixes ? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught ? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it ?

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Vocab : “up”

UP!

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP”.

It’s easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or toward the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

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“Do you speak English ?”

Allez, voici un petit classique, “Do you speak English?”, histoire de se détendre un peu avant d’attaquer demain avec nos délicieux apprenants :

La vidéo est bien évidemment issue de la comédie Big Train, diffusée sur la BBC.

Love it :)

The Glorious Revolution of 1688

The Glorious Revolution of 1688

Introduction

Civic liberties and parliamentary institutions represent one of the major cultural legacies England left to the civilization of the world.

The first document protecting individual liberty and the prototype of modern Parliament appeared in England as early as the 13th century. But effective protection against arbitrary power and the first parliamentary regime emerged much later in the 17th.

However, the modern notion of democracy, which implies full political citizenship for everyone (no one deprived of the right to vote) took a much longer time to take route in Britain than elsewhere in the world.

The pioneer of Parliamentarism took the slow road to universal suffrage. As the American claim for independence and liberty showed in the late 19th century, English liberty celebrated by the most famous philosophers (Voltaire and Montesquieu) was more a myth than a reality.

Origins of Parliament and Civil liberties

In Britain, there is no written constitution to protect civil liberties and define the rules of the political game. Yet, several traditions, constitutional agreements and political conventions exist and constitute the pillars of the regime.

One of those documents is the Magna Carta (Great Charter) granted by King John in 1215 under the pressure of his aristocracy and clergy. This document excluded very early in English history the practice of political absolutism and excessive use of the royal prerogative).

Moreover, after Magna Carta, no excessive demand for money could be made by the King without the consent of the aristocracy and clergy. British and American tradition of the vote on taxation finds its origin in this event.

Finally, concerning individual freedom, after Magna Carta, no arrest in prison or punishment could be performed on aristocrats and clergymen without a trial by similar kinds of people, according to the law of the land. It is the starting point of the notion of trial by peers.

Later on, in 1265, Edward I was forced by his aristocracy to assemble (summon) the first Parliament in English history, which took the name of Model Parliament. The very notion of Parliament, from the French word “parler” implies a discussion on every legislative decision and therefore, the possibility for a diversity of opinions.

The English Parliament was the first to include representatives from outside the clergy and aristocracy. It was established in a very pragmatic way, simply for the King needed the support of the whole nation for his military campaigns against Wales, Scotland and France.

Thus, it was necessary for him to raise money through taxation. So, before being a full legislative body where the law is made, Parliament rests on the principle of no taxation without political representation.

From its origin, the Parliament started to meet in two separate chambers located in the Palace of Westminster:

  • The Upper House or House of Lords, organized according to the principle of heredity (by birth, not by elections).
  • The Lower House or House of Commons, organized by elections and receiving the representatives of taxpayers and landowners (= the rich).

The Parliamentary institutions founded in the Middle Ages have a paradoxical nature.

The Model Parliament was the first representative political body in Europe, England was called the Mother of Parliament but the right to vote (= the Franchise) and the right to be elected (= Eligibility) were defined as a privilege either of birth or property and money, not as a universal right.

It took several centuries for England to reform this initial trend.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688

In the first part of the 17th century, abuse of authority from the King led to a re-statement of rights whose origins could be found in English history.

At the end of the 17th century, after a period of Civil War and a peaceful revolution, the tradition of parliamentary sovereignty became part of the legal framework of the English constitution.

In 1628, the Parliament opposed a petition of rights to the King, claiming for political guarantees against money for Charles I’s European and colonial wars. The King’s refusal to renounce this prerogative led to a civil war and to the King’s execution in 1649.

The principle of the petition re-emerged in the events of 1688, called the Glorious Revolution for it was bloodless.

The current King James II was forced to leave the country and was replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband William on the condition that the two would accept a declaration of rights in exchange for the throne.

The contract was instituted: political power against rights. After it was approved, the declaration was known as the Bill of Rights in 1689, which constituted the first constitutional monarchy in the world by stipulating once for all:

  1. The King can’t suspend a law voted in Parliament
  2. The King can’t raise taxes or maintain a permanent army in time of peace without a vote in Parliament.

The new institution created the notion of Government by the leaders of the country’s majority and led to the formation of two political parties alternating in power as the majority and the opposition.

The name of the first party is the Whigs: they supported the new regime and represented the world of business and commerce. In the 19th century, the Whigs became the Liberal Party.

The second party was the Tories, who supported a more authoritarian definition of the monarchy. They represented the class of agricultural landowners. In the 19th century, the Tories became the Conservative Party.

In the field of individual rights, before the Glorious Revolution, a piece of legislation passed in 1679 and called the Habeas Corpus aimed at protecting subjects against royal absolutism alongside the lines first defined by Magna Carta.

The Habeas Corpus banned arrest and detention without trial but freedom from custody could only be obtained after came on an amount of money, given as a guarantee and called a bail.

Therefore, by the end of the 17th century, England has become the first representative government in Europe. The King’s right to suspend legislation (= to refuse to give assent to a bill accepted by both Houses of Parliament) became purely theoretical: this right of veto was last exercised in 1707.

Later on, the tradition of cabinet government and the position of Prime Minister progressively emerged and later became an unquestionable right of the British people.

The P.M. was the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. He became the real head of Government: British Kings were said to reign but not to rule.

Yet, this perfect picture of British liberties needs to be corrected by several remarks.

The myth of English liberty

In the 18th century, apart from the Bill of Rights and the Habeas Corpus, no constitution really protected British subjects from political abuses. The King had the full power of creating Lords (= Peers). He therefore had an influence over legislation.

In terms of elections, out of 8 million inhabitants, only 160 000 were voters. Until the middle of this century, parliamentary debates were secret but before 1872, ballot was not secret. Thus, the King could use corruption and intimidation to buy votes.

Radical agitators criticized the fact that the British were subjects instead of being full citizens: parliamentary reforms became more and more advocated both inside and outside Britain:

  • The major group of protesters were the American colonists who were not represented in Parliament for they lived outside Britain but who had to pay taxes to the British government.
  • The second major group of protesters was the middle-class dissenters who were refused access public jobs for religious reasons.

British people had to wait until 1832, i.e. several decades after the American and French revolutions to witness some partial changes in their system of representation.

Under popular pressure, the 1832′ Reform Act abolished unrepresentative seats in Parliament in order to increase representation. For instance, the medieval village of Dunwich, which had totally disappeared from the map still returned an MP to Parliament and the village of Old Sarum had 7 voters who elected 2 MPs!

At the same time, the Act distributed new seats to represent the population of recent industrial centers like Birmingham or Manchester but even after 1832, the numbers of voters represented no more than one fifth of the adult male population.

It is only in the second part of the 19th century that the progressive extension of the franchise opened Parliament to the working class.

Full universal suffrage for men over 21 was finally reached in 1918 but paradoxically, this very late measure was at the same time an early victory for the cause of women’s rights.

British women received the right to vote in 1918, i.e. some 38 years before French women. Voting parity for all citizens, male or female, was finally decided in 1928.

From the experience of the middle ages and thanks to the institutional changes triggered off by the Glorious Revolution, British political culture inspired most modern parliamentary regimes.

However, the long absence of truly democratic representation was one of the origins of the American Revolution and led to the definition of new political models.

Sommaire de la série From the Reformation to the birth of the American nation (1534-1776)

  1. The Reformation in the British Isles
  2. English Expansionism
  3. The Glorious Revolution of 1688
  4. The American colonies : Religion and Politics
  5. USA: Birth of a Nation