Oral bac anglais : spaces and exchanges

Sujet du devoir

Voici mon oral bac anglais pour la notion Espaces et Echanges, je suis en terminale littéraire et j'aimerais savoir si mon plan est bien et s'il n'y a pas de fautes de syntaxe et de compréhension.

Merci d'avance

Alice   

I am going to talk about the notion of Space and Exchange who deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupy and the interactions between men and different societies. Our world is built on the exploration and conquest of new spaces. The different cultural, economic, sociological and language interactions have shaped and characterized our modern-day world.

WHAT ARE THE REASONS OF IMMIGRATION?

Firstly, we will look at the history and the causes of immigration, then we will talk about the motivations of people to immigrate to the USA, the dangers of the trip and why life was better for immigrants in the USA than in their country of origin, and finally we will see the document “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac.

I'm going to speak about immigration in America. In effect, when the first English settlers reached the New World, over 40 million people have migrated to the United States. All Americans are immigrants or children of immigrants. The exception is probably the Indians. But some anthropologists believe that the Indians themselves were immigrants from another continent.

People runaway religious persecution for example, Puritans on the Mayflower (1620), people fled from their native countries to escape political regimes like dictatorships (Communist Bloc during the Cold War) and people escaped from starvation and probable death (The Trish who escaped the “Potats Famine” in the 1840.

The immigrants had to face a lot of dangers and difficulties on their way to America. They had to save up money for the trip. They had to leave their home country and say goodbye to people they loved and would never see again. They had to travel to the ports of embarkation. On the way, they could be attacked by outlaws. Sometimes, they had to stop on the way in order to work for food. They had to wait in the ports until they found a boat. The trip was very long, hard and dangerous. There were storms; boats were not very safe at that time. They could get ill and die on the way.

Many people emigrate to the U.S because they are jobless or unemployed. They want to change their living conditions and to live the American dream, for example Mexicans cross the border,(the Rio Grande) illegally (they are undocumented aliens). The Chinese built the railroad across America in the 1850, they was hand working and experts on dynamite. Europeans emigrated in millions at the beginning of the 20th century.

Secondly we study the Okies. This an woman who is probably an “Okies”, this is a nickname given to migrants from Oklahoma. They followed Route 66, from Oklahoma to Los Angeles. She is going to California to find job, to earn her living and to feed her children. She must be a widow, her husband must be dead. When they arrived to Los Angeles, Okies were discriminated against; they looked poor and dirty, wearing rags.

Thirdly, the American dream is the notion that the American social, economic, and political system makes success possible for every individual. Someone who manages to achieve their version of the American dream is said to be “living the dream”.
Many people criticize the idea of the American dream because they say that it is impossible for everyone to be able to fulfill their dreams – there are still inequalities in class, race, religion and ethnicity preventing people from “living the dream”.
The idea of the American dream is older than the USA itself – it dates back to the 1600s, when people began to have hopes for what was a new and largely unexplored continent to European immigrants. People dreamt of owning land and establishing a prosperous business and hoped that this would make them happier.
Today’s the definition of the American dream is much different. Most people nowadays hope that they will get married, have children’s and live in a nice home. Rather than looking for great wealth or success, people hope to avoid poverty or loneliness.

Jack Kerouac has very well defined the American dream with his novel “On the Road”. We have an extract who the scene takes place in July 1947, two years after the end of World War 2. The narrator is veteran, he was a soldier. He wants to go west to join a friend and to go around the world, he needs a mind blowing experience to escape the nightmares from the war “Now il the time”. He decides to hitchhike because it’s free (he can save his money for the boat), you can meet new people and learn new things from them.

To conclude, I wonder if the lives of immigrants in the United States are really better than the ones they might have in their country of origin since they earn too little money to live in good conditions. Indeed it is harder for them to integrate and they face discrimination because they don’t share a common culture with the USA.

Où j'en suis dans mon devoir

[AJOUT MODERATION]

La notion Espaces et Echanges fait partie des quatre notions d'Anglais étudiées en vue de l'oral du Bac. Il faut la préparer à l'avance en trouvant une problématique et en reliant les documents vus en cours.