Things up with which I will put...
If you read this post and then tell your friends about it, did you know you are indulging in word-of-mouse? "YYSSW, this post is a Wombat" I hear you say.
I'm not encouraging you to join in with the sheeple but be sure to follow the vapour trail and keep up with the latest buzzwords. That way you're sure to be the Official SME round your way.
One of my personal favourites is...
Starsky: The person in every office who regularly volunteers to take control of the mouse or click the slides for someone else's demonstration or presentation. From the 1970s cop series "Starsky and Hutch," where Starsky always drove the car.
More at BuzzWhack.
Well you can now.
Let's just say that the whole world can vote in the US elections. How do you think it would go? Would you vote? Kerry or Bush?
My colleague Yvan Baptiste has added to his extensive selection of online exercises.
After meeting Jean-Paul Nerrière, the author of Don't speak English, Speak Globish, Yvan asked me to record the "1500 English words" that are essential to Nerrière's concept of "Global English" (basically a selection of words which, in the author's opinion, are sufficient to allow people around the world to communicate without the bother of learning the whole of the extensive English lexicon).
Whatever my views on the Globish concept [For one, I think it skirts the problem of communicating with the majority of English speakers, most of whom don't actually restrict themselves to 1500 particular words, native speakers or not], it was actually a great occasion to get a nice corpus of generally common English words into audio format for the use of teachers and students alike. Obviously the words are used out of context but there's nothing like practising stressed and unstressed syllables if you want to be understood by natives. I can't er...stress this enough (BOOM BOOM!)
So, you can get listening over at Yvan's Globish page and if it tickles your fancy you can have a look at my three two (see the comments on this post) recommended books on the subject of English basics: There's Les 1800 mots de base ("collège" level in France), Les 3500 mots essentiels ("lycée/BTS" level in France), both by Christian Bouscaren and Claude Rivière, two of the most eminent exponents of French-style English linguistics. There is also Don't Speak English: Parlez Globish by the aforementioned Jean-Paul Nerrière.
Labels: anglais, English
Le rapport du Jury de 2004 de l'Agrégation externe d'anglais est disponible en ligne.
Vous y trouverez également des sujets : Dissertation en français, Composition de linguistique, Commentaire de texte en français et l'épreuve de traduction.
Labels: agregation-anglais, CAPES-anglais, concours-anglais
As teachers of English you may well teach your students about British or American society and in particular, fashion and youth movements. Indeed, who doesn't fondly remember Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, Hippies, Punks and New Romantics? So what's happening in 2004? Well you may well have come across the expression "Chav" (or "Charver" or "Scally"...). If so, you have you will almost certainly have seen the words "Bling" and "Burberry" in the same paragraph. There may well have been a reference to Ali G and people finishing every sentence with 'innit' too.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you all go out and prepare lessons on the Chav theme but I do think it's worth getting yourself acquainted with the phenomenon:
Warning!
The Chav lifestyle has invited some extremely virulent criticism and even hatred. Whilst some commentators have suggested that...
"the chav thing is just another way of marginalizing and demonising the poor".
...many resent the what they see on the streets and have little time for poverty theory. Some of the sites listed contain extremely strong language and paradoxically hateful comments from people who consider themselves decent law-abiding citizens. Other sites such as The Sun "newspaper" tend to glorify the Chav thing (then again it's all about readership and circulation 'innit'?).
Whatever your opinion, you will find it an interesting and sobering journey through modern British youth culture. Underclass or a hopeless, helpless generation? You decide, innit?
Chavs on the web
Update
The Chavscum and Chavtown webistes were actually down for a couple of days due to server overload when the IT and science site The Register linked to them. More uplifting information in their article entitled "Oi, Chav! Check out me website!".
Labels: anglais, English
