Fiche de révision : Portraits of Power

📋 Plan du Cours

1. Photography and Royal Images
2. Oral Comprehension Methods
3. Superlatives and Intensifiers
4. English Stress and Pronunciation
5. Mediation and Diary Writing
6. Crystal Palace and Victorian Britain
7. Royal Portraits and Possible Meanings
8. Pronouncing the Letter S
9. Writing a Royal Diary

📖 1. Photography and Royal Images

★ À maîtriser

• The sequence studies three documents portraying different images of the British monarchy in different historical periods.

Compléments

• Royal photographer Chris Jackson says an image succeeds when it generates a response in the person looking at it.

• At Princess Charlotte’s christening, Prince George was photographed peering into his little sister’s carriage.

📖 2. Oral Comprehension Methods

★ À maîtriser

• A report should identify :

  • the main theme
  • the intended audience
  • the events, situation and information
  • the people and their relationships
  • any different viewpoints
  • any implicit elements
  • the function and impact of the document

• For the listening task, prepare the WH checklist and answer its questions during three listens, taking notes in English as much as possible.

Compléments

• The WH checklist asks who, where, when, what, for what reason and why.

• The listening document is played three times and lasts between one minute thirty seconds and one minute fifty seconds.

📖 3. Superlatives and Intensifiers

★ À maîtriser

• The superlative is used to describe exceptional events, such as “the most incredible day of my life” and “the most popular prince of this century.”

• One-syllable adjectives ending in a consonant after one vowel double the final consonant in the superlative.

• Two-syllable adjectives ending in y change y to i in the superlative form.

Compléments

• The sequence practises superlatives with big, tall, lovely, awesome, hot and nice.

• The examples use these intensifiers :

  • awfully
  • horribly
  • absolutely
  • totally
  • completely
  • utterly

📌 Awfully hot and horribly frightening express negative ideas, whereas absolutely charming and utterly adorable express positive ideas.

💡 Astuce mémo

Negative intensifiers: awfully hot; positive intensifiers: absolutely charming

📖 4. English Stress and Pronunciation

★ À maîtriser

📌 The noun present is stressed on its first syllable, the adjective present on its first syllable, and the verb present on its second syllable.

📌 Most English words, including adjectives and adverbs, are stressed on the first syllable unless it is a prefix such as un- or dis-.

Compléments

📌 Grammatical suffixes such as -est and -ly do not alter a word’s stress.

• To improve pronunciation, practise saying words aloud and check their pronunciation in a pronouncing dictionary.

💡 Astuce mémo

PREsent is a noun; preSENT is a verb

📖 5. Mediation and Diary Writing

★ À maîtriser

• For the oral mediation task, the student speaks as the young American woman who witnessed the princess’s birth outside St Mary’s Hospital and recounts the event to her mother in the United States that evening.

• The preparation should : identify expressions of feelings, add intensifiers to emphasize excitement, select scene details likely to interest the listener, use the past simple for narration

Compléments

• The oral mediation recording should last approximately one minute.

📌 Written preparation for the mediation task should be in note form only.

💡 Astuce mémo

Feelings → details → intensifiers → past-tense narration

📖 6. Crystal Palace and Victorian Britain

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Crystal Palace : The Dilemma of Style: Architectural Ideas from the Picturesque to the Post-Modern, 1987 - The Crystal Palace is described by J. Mordaunt Crook as an architectural structure whose aesthetic qualities came from repeated manufactured units, criss-cross trusses, transparent space, the elimination of mass and a sense of tensile strength.

★ À maîtriser

• The Crystal Palace was built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park.

• Queen Victoria’s account presents the Great Exhibition as an international gathering of industry and arts, with flags of every nation and a large public procession. - journals, 1851

Compléments

• Charlotte Brontë describes displays including :

  • railway engines and boilers
  • mill machinery in full work
  • carriages of all kinds
  • goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ work
  • diamonds and pearls

• Queen Victoria’s account describes the opening procession as comprising nine state carriages. - journals, 1851

• The Great Exhibition’s organ was accompanied by 200 instruments and 600 voices.

💡 Astuce mémo

A glass palace filled with machinery, crowds and treasures from around the world

📖 7. Royal Portraits and Possible Meanings

★ À maîtriser

• An image description should identify the image type and subject, describe the composition, analyse visual features, and conclude with the overall impression and possible artistic aim.

📌 May and might express possible interpretations, and may have or might have followed by a past participle express possible interpretations of past events.

• The sequence frames royal portraiture as art that can enhance a monarch’s splendour and, consequently, her authority.

Compléments

• The sequence presents Elizabeth I’s oil-on-panel portrait as dating from circa 1575.

• Possible interpretations include :

  • The portrait may be a Royal Commission
  • Elizabeth I may have worn pearls for a symbolic reason
  • The feathers might represent prosperity
  • The painter might have enhanced the Queen’s features

💡 Astuce mémo

Art enhances royal splendour → strengthens the monarch’s authority

📖 8. Pronouncing the Letter S

★ À maîtriser

📌 The letter s is pronounced /s/ or /z/ in the practice words, and the sound can differ between related forms such as close as an adjective and close as a verb.

Compléments

• The pronunciation exercise includes clothes, close as an adjective, close as a verb, pearls, eyes, hands, fingers, distant, feathers, precise, use as a noun, use as a verb, British Isles, Charlotte’s and George’s.

💡 Astuce mémo

close /s/ (adjective) contrasts with close /z/ (verb)

📖 9. Writing a Royal Diary

★ À maîtriser

• A diary entry should : include a date and use the first person, express feelings and their intensity, use superlatives to present an exceptional event, use present participles in descriptions, narrate events in the past simple

• The diary-writing project offers two situations: an artist commissioned to paint the Queen records his feelings, or Queen Victoria records her coronation.

Compléments

• In 1838, Queen Victoria was crowned, an event proposed as a diary-writing situation.

• On 9 November 2016, Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a new portrait by Northern Irish artist Colin Davidson at a Co-Operation Ireland reception in London. - Robbie Meredith, BBC News NI

• Colin Davidson told the BBC that he was aware of the gravity and responsibility involved in painting the monarch.

• The assessment considers :

  • quality of content
  • coherence of the discourse
  • accuracy of the language
  • richness of the language