Infonews n°311 from 30/09/2007

A la Une this week, discover what happened in Jena and use this current event to start your unit about African American or segregation, you can also present it as "living together" in seconde, "revolt" in premiere or "conflict resolution" in terminale. Then read about the fifth anniversary of West Side Story, and find my answers to a special request for documents to start a teaching unit about video games addiction. At the end, discover a site for pair work, a DVD : cine V.O anglais and resources for SEGPA, including a discussion list.

Have a nice week,
amicalement,
Christine Reymond

Sommaire

A la Une : Jena

The controversy
The facts

West Side Story

Video game addiction

Other cartoons
Pictures
The site of an anti-addiction machine
Videos
News Articles about computer games addiction

Teaching Practice

Pair Work
Ciné-VO
SEGPA


A la Une : Jena

What happens in Jena? Is segregation back or still vivid in Southern sates of the US? Depending on the level of your students, you can deal with this current event in different ways. With advanced students, you can deal with the controversy; with intermediate students, I think it is better to keep to the facts, and link them to a traditional study of racism and segregation around Jim Crow, MLK Rosa Parks or Emmett Till, or the poem Strange Fruit or some of the films we often use like Mississippi burning.
[ To find ideas to study these themes, look for them in the archives of Infonews:
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/archives/archives.htm ]

The controversy

A real case of racism and segregation in the traditional South of the USA, or a story made of unrelated events that got out of proportion? Were the incidents worth a rally? Is the press trying to minimize the events? If you really want to investigate the case, it's better to work with advanced students and read several articles. I especially like this article from ABC News : it is 4 pages long, but features several testimonies of people living in the area, and also a good picture of the local context and way of life.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3641855
a slightly shorter version of the same article on the Associated Press website:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOl6L858y0iDf4k_28ojhYLcuLGg
and another shorter one on MTV, refering to the AP article
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570444/20070924/id_0.jhtml

You can find information and audio files on NPR, with interviews of parents of the Jena 6 and a reflection on how people get organised through blogs to protest:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14658077
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14575347

It is also interesting to follow how to page about Jena in Wikipedia evolves. You can read the warnings about :
- the fact that the content of the article is currently disputed (with a link to a talk page);
- that the article needs reliable references, and can be challenged and/or removed
- that it is a current event and that the content can change as the event progresses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena,_Louisiana
And I think that this can be the opportunity to show the students how an article on Wikipedia is made, discussed and evolves, and remind them that they must always verify their sources and make sure they are reliable. (too many students tend to consider wikipedia as the bible!)

The facts

On e-teach, Catherine Serreau recommends this very well done video from which you can train your students to pick up dates and the related facts (just invite them to build a table with entries like : when, who, what happened, what were the consequences)
you can watch the video on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY
and download it from here
http://cache.googlevideo.com/get_video?video_id=YuoiZnr4jLY&origin=chi-v299.chi.youtube.com
The above address is the download address that I got from Save Video. Then you just right click on the address and download it as "jena.flv", and you will of course need a FLV reader to read it.
Here is the page from Save Video to get the address:
http://www.savevideodownload.com/download.php
And you go there to download a free FLV player:
http://applian.com/flvplayer/
You can also get a longer version of this video on Philebrity (last video on the right)
http://www.philebrity.tv/
and you can easily download this video with Videodownloader, the add on for Mozilla Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/2390

She also recommends this other video on France 24, with transcript:
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20070907-Civil-rights-protest-US-Louisiana-Jena-6.html

On Liste Anglais from Rouen, Vincent Dorange recommends this video from CNN, with a full transcript. It is about the rally that took place in Jena on September 20th to ask for a fair trial for one of the black boy who was sentenced to jail.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/studentnews/09/20/sn.transcript.fri/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
He also recommends the site "free the Jena 6" created by the people who organised the petition and the rally. You can find there lots of articles and links to NPR audio files with transcript and Democracy Now videos.
http://www.freethejena6.org/

West Side Story

On EteachNet, Catherine Serreau announces the 50th anniversary of West Side Story in Washington :
<http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-165.html>http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-165.html
and the show will be in Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet, between November 20th and December 1st. It seems booked out for the classes, but you can still book up to 4 seats on the internet (at least I did it last Tuesday...).
<http://www.chatelet-theatre.com/fiche_spectacle.php?id=146>http://www.chatelet-theatre.com/fiche_spectacle.php?id=146

She also points at this article from the BBC, with useful links at the end:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/events_westsidestory.shtml

you can also find lots of activities and links on Michelle Henry's page:
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/cinema3.htm#west

Hélène Dupont recommends this video from Voice of America :
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-09-18-voa52.cfm

and Marina Bureaud offers her favorites:
http://www.filmsite.org/wests.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/love-in-the-arts/west.html
http://www.westsidestory.com/
http://fr.lyrics-copy.com/west-side-story/america.htm
http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/america.html a different version
http://perso.orange.fr/yvanbaptiste/cinema/Films/westwork.htm
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/cinema2.htm#west

Video game addiction

Our colleague Jenny Léger asked on e-teach where she could find a picture to start a new teaching unit in Terminale STi, based around the Bac paper from June 2007. I'm sure lots of you will be interested in such a unit, so here are some useful documents.

A cartoon and the bac paper

I found this picture, showing a boy taking roots and turning into a tree, with his fingers becoming roots that look like spaghettis...
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7BF4A58228-DA12-4919-92D0-29625CABB179%7D.gif
Here is the paper, for Bac STG-STI-SMS-STL 2007. The text was about a new clinic opening for video game addicts. Here is the original presentation:
http://pedagogie.ac-montpellier.fr/disciplines/anglais/ressources/sujets/met-STG-LV1-2007.PDF
and there you can find it in Word and .rtf formats, plus a correction and a grid
http://anglais.free.fr/sujets/index_sujets.html

Other cartoons

"you spend too much time on your computer, we'd like you to watch more tv!"
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/thumbnail/%7B2EB8099A-85A3-4276-BC8C-4245CAC5B069%7D.gif
mechanical workaholic
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/thumbnail/%7B18FB14F7-2275-4163-A9F4-1B1BE39E3C51%7D.gif
chat room addict
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7B2037AD3A-1AC2-4288-ABAF-F1A702C48314%7D.gif
caught reading (with lots of computer vocabulary)
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7B0884C37F-FB3F-49B1-971A-FECD2BE55DAF%7D.gif

Pictures

video game addict who can't even stop to drink his coffee
http://www.extremefunnyhumor.com/pics/video_game_addict.jpg
beaucoup plus hard, look drug addict
http://www.kodykoala.com/uploads/wow2030_062207.jpg

The site of an anti-addiction machine

excellent for STI and BTSI : play limit is a machine that you can (or could?) buy! it look a bit old, but the description of the product is very interesting.
http://www.playlimit.com/
there is also an excellent user guide, with pictures and diagrams, but it seems to date back from the 70s or 80s, so remember to present it as an historical documents....;)
http://www.playlimit.com/forms/PlayLimitUserGuide.pdf

Videos

a teacher who was an addict explains his case and gives advices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zyQoM36Fg
" Documentary, does video game addiction exist?" a bit long (12mn), with interviews of people : how much and often do they play? What games? Why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aCmWoVrHDc
a video, with an article close to the text of the exam " (but I couldn't get it...)
http://www.wsbt.com/news/8483782.html
from YouTube, a student's project for a college class. Interesting video without words, showing roommates having a discussion through computers instead of just talking to each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBKv8CcfJZk

News Articles about computer games addiction

short : "are video games addictive?"
http://www.parenthood.com/articles.html?article_id=6108
long but comprehensive, with a photo of Tim "Detox for video game addiction?"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/03/health/webmd/main1773956.shtml
the same article, shorter "treatement for video game addicts : it's no joke, clinic director compares problem to drug"
http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/09/games_reviews/main1696705.shtml??source=RSS&attr=_1696705
from the BBC : video games, cause for concern?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1036088.stm
about a clinic in the US
http://www.computeraddiction.com/
an article about this doctor, written in 1999
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/01.21/computer.html

to widen the scope, other addictions like gambling, alcohol and mobile phones
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1036088.stm

Teaching Practice

Pair Work

Looking for ideas and documents for pair work? it's all there, ready to use and prepared for you by our colleague Yannick Troccaz. The topics are varied, from themes like chores, sport or biography, to grammatical objective like frequency or giving permission.
http://www.pairworkandvoc.net

Ciné-VO

Le CRDP de Paris publie le second volume de la collection « Ciné-VO », cette fois à l'usage des professeurs d'anglais dans les classes. Ce DVD « Ciné-VO anglais», a été conçu par une équipe de 4 professeurs d'anglais de l'académie de Paris, sous la direction de Madame Chen Géré, IA-IPR d'anglais.
C'est un outil novateur, qui allie supports de travail (extraits de films en VO, extraits audio, images fixes) et matériaux pédagogiques : fiches d'aide à la compréhension, aides lexicales et culturelles. Il est interactif et pratique.
Ce produit sera présenté à Paris au Cinéma Escurial Panorama, 11 bd du Port-Royal 75013 le samedi 29 septembre à 10 h 30. Vous êtes cordialement invités à cette présentation. Vous trouverez toutes les informations dans l'invitation à télécharger sur le site d'anglais de l'académie de Paris.
<http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/>http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/

SEGPA

Une liste s'est créée cet été autour de collègues de e-teach. Elle s'appelle e-segpa et est pilotée par Monique Cren et des collègues. Pour s'abonner, allez à :
http://teachers.domainepublic.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/e-segpa
et vous trouverez aussi des documents, liens et activités sur la page de Michelle Henry
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/segpa.htm


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réalisé par Christine Reymond
lycée Blaise Pascal, Rouen, France
E-Mail: Christine.Reymond@ac-rouen.fr
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