group "english practice"

[teacher]

For next week, I suggest we work on this text from the BBC website : Illinois baby obtains gun permit

Ok Anne pour le texte. On se voit quand pour en parler deja?

Pitchoune

Grrrr... NO FRENCH here , ONLY ENGLISH ...as it's giving you as much pracice as possible .

[nunu]

You are speaking together via Skype or MSN ??? aren't you ?

If it is the case, can I join you ?

[Oblivion]

Hi nunu

I think we'll just compare our summaries, correct our mistakes and study our grammar, vocabulary etc. We just have one hour a week to work together so I don't think we'll have time to do more.

Yet if you want to set up a group on Msn to speak English, I'd be glad to join

[muuroah]

I agree with Oblivion. What is the next text?

[Oblivion]

What about this text for next time? Teens 'turn to social websites'

[muuroah]

OK let's go !

[nunu]

Well I made a summary about "Illinois baby". Here it is :

"Illinois baby obtains gun permit" is the title of an article published on BBC's website on the sixteenth of May, 2007. It shows how absurd is the US law about guns. As the journalist explains, the debate of guns law is regulary discussed above all after killings like in Virginia Tech Campus. Guns lobbies are very hard in US and they argue this right is written in the second article of the US Constitution.

In the article the journalist emphasizes how this law is ridiculous telling the story of Mr Ludwig who asked a gun permit for his 10-month-old son. He tried three times to obtain a licence but, twice is was refused. However it was not due to the young age of his son but to technical problems !! Indeed, in spite of Illinois gun law is known to be one of the strictest in the US, there is unfortunately no age restrictions as so incredible it seems to be.

Moreover, the journalist sheds light on the non-sense of Mr Ludwig's sentiments. He said "I'm not about to approve any unsupervised hunting or trap shooting for Bubba"; Bubba is his son... So we want to ask him : "Why do you make him a permit ?". And he added : "because it makes an adorable addition on his baby book". These sentiments reveals as well what is americans position about guns : Have a gun is important for a men, it is a kind of pride, and the law must not forbid it. On one hand Mr Ludwig seems to consider how dangerous a gun could be, but one the other hand he concludes he will give him when he is forteen. Is a forteen year old boy could be enough responsable to have a gun ? Obviously not !

This article, with Mr ludwig's sentiments and the demonstration of the no age restrictions to have a gun, shows how absurd is the law in America and why it would be difficult to change it : actually, no one - except the journalist - seems to be astonished that a baby could have a gun permit : neither Mr Ludwig, nor the police. It is very difficult to understand with our french eyes.

Thanks for correcting it,

Emma

[nunu]

...

nobody ????

...

[teacher]

Well I made a summary about "Illinois baby". Here it is :

"Illinois baby obtains gun permit" is the title of an article published on BBC's website on the sixteenth of May, 2007. It shows how absurd is the US law about guns. As the journalist explains, the debate of guns law is regulary discussed above all after killings like in Virginia Tech Campus. Guns lobbies are very hard in US and they argue this right is written in the second article of the US Constitution.

In the article the journalist emphasizes how this law is ridiculous telling the story of Mr Ludwig who asked a gun permit for his 10-month-old son. He tried three times to obtain a licence but, twice is was refused. However it was not due to the young age of his son but to technical problems !! Indeed, in spite of Illinois gun law is known to be one of the strictest in the US, there is unfortunately no age restrictions as so incredible it seems to be.

Moreover, the journalist sheds light on the non-sense of Mr Ludwig's sentiments. He said "I'm not about to approve any unsupervised hunting or trap shooting for Bubba"; Bubba is his son... So we want to ask him : "Why do you make him a permit ?". And he added : "because it makes an adorable addition on his baby book". These sentiments reveals as well what is americans position about guns : Have a gun is important for a men, it is a kind of pride, and the law must not forbid it. On one hand Mr Ludwig seems to consider how dangerous a gun could be, but one the other hand he concludes he will give him when he is forteen. Is a forteen year old boy could be enough responsable to have a gun ? Obviously not !

This article, with Mr ludwig's sentiments and the demonstration of the no age restrictions to have a gun, shows how absurd is the law in America and why it would be difficult to change it : actually, no one - except the journalist - seems to be astonished that a baby could have a gun permit : neither Mr Ludwig, nor the police. It is very difficult to understand with our french eyes.

Thanks for correcting it,

Emma

Attention à ne pas faire d'inversion : ex ( it shows how stupid the law IS)

[celynett]

Hi !

When is the next time ? I would like to work on the new text, it's for thursday, that's it ?

Thanx

[Oblivion]

Hi !

When is the next time ? I would like to work on the new text, it's for thursday, that's it ?

Thanx

Hi celynett

Yes the next text is scheduled for Thursday

I've just realized I forgot to post my summary of the previous text, so here it is :

The BBC website published on the 16th of May, 2007 an article intitled « Illinois baby obtains gun permit ». In this article, the journalist lays the stress on the flaws regarding the issue of gun permits in the USA.

We know that guns can be freely sold in the US. The right for every citizen to get a gun so as to defend themselves is even written in the second amendment of the US constitution but it is also regularily debated by the public opinion. Such a right seems utterly dangerous from our points of view, but what seems even more dangerous is what the journalist explains in his article : the father of Bubba Ludwig, a 10 month-old babyboy, managed to receive a gun permit for his son. Indeed, the Illinois law for the issue of gun permits does not mention any age restriction. Though his request was rejected twice, it was not because of the baby's age but because of technical problems regarding the form.

In my opinion, laws should be more strict so as to avoid any tragedy as the Virginia Tech killings, which are referred to in this article, or the Columbine's killings in 1999. Unfortunately, we have to keep in mind that the pro-gun lobbying groups in the US have strong powers and that the current Bush administration does not seem to be keen to change the law at all : President Bush even canceled a law passed during Clinton's mandate and which made the sale of guns more difficult.

Documentaries as Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine for instance were shot in an attempt to make people aware of the necessity to change the laws but to no avail. Others as Elephant aim at understanding the reasons for committing such crimes.

In spite of the alarming figures of people killed by gunshot in the US, it seems indeed that it will be difficult to change people's mentality regarding the sale of guns : the last sentence of the article shows all the pride of Howard Ludwig when he talks about his baby and his gun permit. To my mind, that sentence almost sounds cynical.

[rufio]

HELLO !

here my summary for thursday !

and a special thanks to teacher !!!

This text entitled « teens turn to social websites" is extracted from the website BBC news. It was published in January of 2007. This article deals with teenagers and the using of the Internet.

A survey shows that more than the half of teenagers Internet using (55%) has a site to communicate with other people.

It concerned teenagers between 12 and 17 years old. But using are different if you are a girl or a boy :

Girls want to keep contact with their "real" friends and boys want to have new friends.

This article sublines the fact that teenagers are more and more long time in the Internet, to work, to communicate, to play.

The survey shows that more girls use the social networking sites (70%) than boys (54%) and they are connected for 48% of them every day.

For Amanda Lenhart, a researcher, there are consequences in their studies, we can understand that teenagers prefer visiting their site than do their homework.

But for teenagers who have a personal site "a blog", they say many things about their life, and their habits. It's very important to be carefully about that because everybody can read it.

The problem is, there is no adult to control that and the example of teenagers do something very stupid because "it's a bet with my friends" and they film it, show us that they need control.

The other example with the 2 girls who have jump across the windows for a bet (perhaps a collective suicide) was prepared by internet, in their personal website !

To conclude I thing that more and more teenagers will have a website and they say that they want, but adults, parents, teachers must do warning them about danger.

It's really important to do that to prevent them before that is too late,

We can do that with many things

-at school

- in their family

- on advertisement

- in newspapers for teenagers-

- on the radio

With all the media using by teenagers !

bye and good luck for the result !!!

for me, it's only friday afternoon