Les concours approchent ! Certes, l’urgence est pour l’instant aux écrits, mais il convient également de commencer à préparer avec grand sérieux les oraux. Or, s’il est une matière que l’on retrouve aux oraux de toutes les écoles, c’est bien l’anglais ! Depuis le début d’année, tu as déjà pu t’entraîner avec plusieurs sujets que tu peux retrouver ici ou encore ici. Aujourd’hui encore, ne manque pas cet article pour être fin prêt le jour J !
Quelques rappels de méthode
Si une relative liberté est laissée aux candidats pour traiter les sujets à l’oral, certains éléments restent indispensables.
L’introduction
Tu ne disposes que de vingt minutes pour préparer l’ensemble de ton exposé, résumé et commentaire compris. Ce temps est très court et le stress des concours n’y arrange souvent rien. La lecture du texte doit donc être attentive mais rapide.
Il est souvent préférable de rédiger entièrement l’introduction. Il s’agit du premier contact avec le jury : évite donc à tout prix les fautes de langue ou les hésitations ! La structure de l’introduction est très classique. Celle-ci se compose ainsi d’une brève accroche pour introduire le sujet évoqué par l’article, puis d’une présentation générale de celui-ci. C’est notamment le moment d’évoquer le contexte dans lequel l’article s’inscrit (en regardant pour cela sa date de publication) et de rappeler la source dont il est extrait. Pour ne pas oublier une ou plusieurs dimensions de l’article, on pourra penser à répondre aux questions en « wh- ». When? Where? Who? What? Why?
Le résumé de l’article
La première partie de l’exposé ressemble en un sens à ce qui est attendu d’une Q1 à l’écrit. Il s’agit en effet de faire un effort de synthèse en repérant ce qui est essentiel dans le texte et en le retranscrivant avec des mots différents. Pendant la préparation, le résumé peut, lui, être écrit sous la forme de bullet points. L’objectif est bien évidemment de gagner du temps pour écrire le commentaire. Il sert avant tout à évaluer les capacités analytiques de l’élève, ainsi que sa capacité à reformuler ce qui est dit dans l’article. Il faut éviter de dépasser trois minutes pour cette partie, le jury étant souvent plus attentif au commentaire de texte qui lui succède.
Pour autant, le résumé ne peut pas se permettre d’évoquer superficiellement le contenu du texte, c’est précisément le rôle de la seconde partie de l’introduction ! Il faut donc savoir être succinct et exhaustif. Pour ce faire, il peut s’avérer utile de distinguer deux ou trois idées clés dans l’article. Il faut veiller à illustrer chaque idée avec une des ressources de l’article – une statistique ou une citation par exemple.
Le commentaire
La transition entre le résumé et le commentaire est une étape fondamentale de l’exposé. En effet, elle doit permettre d’établir un lien logique entre l’article et la question plus générale que le candidat va poser autour de celui-ci. La problématique qui est alors posée doit savoir trouver un équilibre en restant proche du texte tout en élargissant le champ de réflexion. Il s’agit d’éviter deux écueils : rester trop proche du texte et en faire un commentaire linéaire, ou à l’inverse tomber dans le piège du hors sujet.
Dans sa structure, le commentaire ressemble en réalité beaucoup au format de la Q2. On attend du candidat qu’il puisse donner une opinion tranchée mais nuancée sur le sujet proposé. Le format reste cependant plus libre qu’à l’écrit en termes de nombre de parties ou d’exemples. Le tout reste de démontrer quelque chose de pertinent par rapport à l’article qui était proposé.
Il est souvent difficile de rédiger l’entièreté du commentaire étant donné le peu de temps de préparation accordé. Mon conseil serait de rédiger avec soin les premières lignes de chaque partie et les transitions entre celles-ci, et de conserver le format de bullet points pour le traitement des exemples. Tout dépend de ta maîtrise desdits exemples et de ta capacité à improviser !
Le commentaire sert également à tendre des perches au jury pour les questions qui te seront ensuite posées. Évite donc d’évoquer des sujets que tu ne maîtrises pas suffisamment, au risque de te faire piéger pendant l’entretien !
La conclusion
La conclusion de l’exposé est en réalité la conclusion du commentaire. Il n’est pas nécessaire de rappeler tout ce qui a été dit sur l’article ni de résumer le commentaire. La conclusion reformule l’avis donné sur le texte et sur le sujet avec un effort linguistique particulier. On peut s’autoriser une ouverture sur un débat plus large si cela est pertinent. Il est là aussi conseillé de la rédiger entièrement à l’avance.
Voilà pour les rappels de méthode. Passons désormais à l’article !
Ms. Monopoly is supposed to empower women. Critics say it does the opposite
PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 13 2019. CNBC.
The typical 8-year-old probably doesn’t know much about the gender pay gap. Now the topic could come up if she or he plays the new game, Ms. Monopoly. Some critics are skeptical, however, of how helpful those conversations will be.
A new version of the game
Toymaker Hasbro announced this week the rollout of the board game in which female players receive $1,900 at the beginning of the game, compared with $1,500 for male players. Girls also get $240 each time they pass “Go” on the board, while boys get just $200. Instead of a real-estate mogul, Ms. Monopoly invests in female entrepreneurs. The front of the box is adorned with a woman in a sassy stance, gripping a to-go coffee. It reads: “The first game where women make more than men”.
Detractors say the rules of Ms. Monopoly may be well intentioned but gloss over the troubling forces behind the fact that women in the U.S. earn 80% of what men earn.
“A more apt version of the game would have male players face the penalties women face in the workplace,” said Jennifer Borda an associate professor specializing in feminist studies at the University of New Hampshire.
In the real world, women ask for raises just as often as men but are less likely to get them. Men are more frequently promoted into manager-level roles and of the CEOs who lead the companies that made up the 2018 Fortune 500 list, just 24 were women.
“If money can solve a problem, it’s actually a really small problem,” said Amy Peng, an associate professor in the department of economics at Ryerson University. “There are a lot of barriers that face women.” As an indicator of the problem’s insidiousness, by some estimates the gender wage gap could persist for at least another 50 years.
“We believe this game and its content embody a positive message about female empowerment that we hope is embraced by a wide variety of audiences,” said Kristina Timmins, a spokeswoman for Hasbro.
A controversial decision
Yet, since Ms. Monopoly doesn’t address the causes of the gender wage gap, some critics say it suggests women need a head start simply because they’re, well, women. “Are you doing this because you think women are not as productive as men and need to be overcompensated?” Peng said.
The toymaker could have opted for a more meaningful way to tackle the wage gap, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Hasbro can look at the opportunities they provide for women in the company, versus men,” Gould said. “Who’s in leadership? Who’s getting promotions? They can take a hard look at their own issues and use that as an example for the real world.”
Hasbro’s executive management team, for instance, has seven men but just one woman. Moreover, although Hasbro’s new game is supposed to empower women and girls, it fails to recognize the woman behind the invention, said Marie Pilon, author of The Monopolists. Pilon has extensively documented how Lizzie Magie received a patent in 1904 for an invention she called The Landlord’s Game, and which set the rules for modern-day Monopoly, including corners labeled “Go to Jail” and chances to buy up railroads, collect money and pay rent. Still, Hasbro cites the narrative that an unemployed man named Charles Darrow invented the capitalistic game as a distraction from the hopeless days of the Great Depression…
Proposition de corrigé
Pour rappel, il existe des dizaines de manières de traiter un même sujet. Ce corrigé n’a donc pour seul objectif que de donner quelques pistes de réflexion et de fournir un exemple de ce qui pourrait être dit un jour de concours !
Introduction
What with the rise of the MeToo movement and the growing concerns about gender issues, it goes without saying that the past few years have been genuine eye-openers for our society as far as gender inequalities are concerned. This fundamental shift has driven many companies into adapting their way of producing and their marketing strategies so as to give women more representation and thereby fight the entrenched attitudes inherited from the traditional male bread-winner system.
According to this article published in 2019 on the website of the American TV channel CNBC, Hasbro, one of the largest toymaker in the world, has also been influenced by this landmark evolution. Indeed, this article focuses on the launch of a new version of its famous board game, Monopoly.
Résumé de l’article
Hasbro is in fact debuting a new game celebrating women empowerment called Ms. Monopoly, where the twist is that female players will get more money than their male counterparts while playing the game. Here, women start with more money and earn more each time they pass “GO,” thanks to the character of Ms. Monopoly, a young self-made investment guru and female entrepreneur. As the article points out, this new game aims at raising awareness about the persistence of the gender gap, i.e the fact that women still earn less than 80% of what men make in the workplace and that women are at a disadvantage in entrepreneurial and inventive settings.
Although the game developers were presumably driven by the best intentions, critics have tried to underline how this game does not make much of a difference, given that money is only one of the issues hindering women accomplishment. Other detractors have also highlighted the blatant hypocrisy of Hasbro. In this company, women are clearly under-represented, with only one female executive in the management team. Moreover, the background story of Monopoly’s success itself reinforces the systems that made such inequality possible. Though Charles Darrow is credited as the creator of Monopoly, the patent for the game was stolen from Elizabeth Magie, the inventor of The Landlord’s Game…
Transition
The heated debate revolving around the utility and possible hypocrisy of such a game demonstrates how difficult it may be for companies to embrace social stances without compromising their credibility. Although standing for women’s rights should be praised, it seems that Hasbro is actually using feminism as a marketing tool. Therefore, one might wonder if such an initiative should or not be applauded. Beyond that lies another question: is it truly the role of entertainment companies to embrace social change?
Commentaire
From Disney’s decision to update its content warnings for racism in classic films to the removal of Gone in the Wind from the HBO platform last summer, almost all entertainment companies have been pushing for more responsible and committed content.
The case of Ms Monopoly is particularly relevant in this context. Rather than to model the discrimination faced by women in the workplace or investigate what might improve working conditions, Ms. Monopoly has created a surface-level fantasy world where women succeed merely by virtue of being women, and where all players are incentivized to be women in order to win. With its structure, the game suggests that women need a head start simply because they’re, well, women. This goes against the most basic revendications of feminism. Women all over the world ask to be considered as equal, not superior to men.
Moreover, reality is often far too complex to be correctly portrayed in a mere board game. A more accurate version of the game would for instance feature women from different racial backgrounds and with different sexual orientations – since both groups also face discriminations in the workplace. It would then become far more complicated to play.
Does this entail that companies should not be committed as far as race or gender are concerned? Far from that. But those issues need to be solved in real life before they are settled in games or movies. Both Hasbro and Disney struggle with women employment and racial inclusion in their top management teams. Let’s face the truth: pandering to minorities or particular social groups to revamp a company’s image is far from bringing about actual change, but does constitute a way to sell more.
Conclusion
All in all, entertainment can be an effective political tool, but is always created by companies driven by their own particular motives. Of course, teaching children about the importance of equality is a major concern for the future. Yet not all games or movies need to become political. Because when they do, it’s possible to be the winner in your game, and a mere pawn in someone else’s.
Voilà pour cette colle d’anglais ! N’hésite pas à profiter de ce corrigé pour récupérer du vocabulaire et des structures à réutiliser. Si tu souhaites progresser en anglais, pense à consulter cet article. À très bientôt !
