Atelier Anglais English Workshop First Workshop 1st October 2013

SPEAKING ENGLISH EXERCISES My personal advice on taking notes: Feel free to write down any new words. Look them up and write down the meaning, but after reviewing them the next day, you may as well throw them away. I dont want you to write a reference book.

The Michelin Red Guide. Cooking is a French national pride. The chefs wear tall white hats. Each year the red Michelin guide comes out and lists all the best restaurants, and awards them stars for the best, going from 1 star to 3 stars.

There are many fine restaurants in England which receive these awards. Some non-French food critics have alleged that the rating system is biassed in favour of French cuisine or French dining standards. In England The Guardian commented in 1997 that some people maintain the guide's principal purpose is as a tool of Gallic cultural imperialism".

When Michelin published its first New York City Red Guide in 2005 Steven Kurutz of The New York Times noted that Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe, a restaurant rated highly by The New York Times Zagat Survey and other prominent guides, received a no star-rating from Michelin.

(He did acknowledge that the restaurant received positive mention for its ambience, and that two other restaurants owned by Meyer received stars.) Kurutz also claimed the guide appeared to favour restaurants that "emphasized formality and presentation" rather than a "casual approach to fine dining". He also claimed that over half of the restaurants

that received one or two stars "could be considered French". In 2010 Michelin guides ranked Japan as the country with the most starred restaurants. This sparked grumbling over whether these high ratings were merited for Japanese restaurants, …

The question was whether the Michelin guide was too generous in giving out stars to gain an acceptance with Japanese customers and to enable the parent tyre-selling company to market itself in Japan. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2010

that some Japanese chefs were surprised at receiving a star, and were reluctant to accept one, because the publicity caused an unmanageable jump in booking, affecting their ability to serve their traditional customers without lowering their quality

That was the easy bit. Now, we will read parts of a report on school discipline – it is not easy reading, and it is not very important whether you understand all the words. These are exercises in speaking, not comprehension.

How good is discipline in schools today? TES_Community 18/6/2010 (TES = Times Educational Supplement) Terry Haydn explores the cost of classroom disruption on pupils and teachers and provides a 10- level scale to assess what's going on in your class. The latest Ofsted annual report states that behaviour is inadequate in less than 1 per cent of schools. Yet statistics show that 17,000 pupils were expelled for physical attacks on adults last year.

Did they all take place in that small proportion of schools where behaviour is officially inadequate? I have conducted several studies in the area of "classroom climate" and the results suggest that behaviour is a problem in far more than 1 per cent of schools. And the disruption teachers talk about is not limited to low-level incidents such as pupils not putting their hands up or leaving their seats without permission.

Many schools have to deal with pupils who are very difficult to manage, and teachers often have to make tough decisions if they want keep everyone in the classroom while preserving a climate that is ideal for learning. Some of the research involved using a 10-point scale (see below), with level 10 representing a climate which is perfect for learning, and level 1 representing an atmosphere where behaviour makes learning virtually impossible.

HOW DO YOU FARE ON THE SCALE? 10. You feel completely relaxed, able to undertake any form of lesson activity without concern. You and the pupils work together, enjoying the experience. 9. You feel completely in control and can undertake any sort of activity, but you need to exercise authority at times, in a friendly way, to maintain a calm, purposeful working atmosphere.

8. You can maintain a relaxed and co-operative working atmosphere, but this requires thought and effort at times. Some forms of lesson activity may be under less control than others. 7. You can maintain a co-operative working atmosphere and undertake any form of classroom activity, but this requires more considerable thought and effort. 6. It is often a major effort to establish and maintain a relaxed, calm atmosphere. Several pupils will not remain on task without persistent surveillance, exhortation or threats. It is sometimes difficult to get pupils to be quiet while you are talking, but there is no major disruption.

5. Your control is limited, and there are times when you would be embarrassed if the head walked in. The atmosphere is rather chaotic at times, with several pupils manifestly not listening to you. But pupils who want to work can get on with it, albeit in a rather noisy atmosphere. 4. Your control is limited: it takes time and effort to get the class to listen. You try to get onto the worksheet or written part of the lesson fairly quickly in order to get their heads down. Pupils talk while you are talking, and minor transgressions go unpunished because too many occur. You try to keep a lid on things and concentrate on those pupils who are trying to work

3. There is major disruption and many pupils pay little attention to your presence. Swearwords may go unchecked and pupils walk round the room at will. When you write on the board, objects are thrown around the room. 2. The pupils largely determine what goes on. You take materials into the lesson, but once distributed they are ignored, drawn on or made into paper aeroplanes. When you write on the board, objects are thrown at you rather than around the room. 1. Your entry into the classroom is greeted by jeers and abuse. There are so many transgressions of the rules it is difficult to know where to start. You wish you had not gone into teaching.