Oral sur l'idée de progrès en anglais

Sujet du devoir

Bonjour, je suis une élève de terminale et je voudrais savoir si c'est possible que l'on me corrige mon oral d'anglais pour le bac. Il me faut un peu près le niveau B2 donc dîtes moi si je dois refaire quelque chose ou si ça va. Je n'ai pas tout à fait ce niveau donc il ne me faut pas de structures trop compliquées sinon il va y avoir un trop gros fossé entre la prise en parole en continue et l'entretien avec l'examinateur. je dois tenir 10 minutes donc je ne peux plus trop rajouter de chose. Je mettrais par la suite mes autres oraux sur les trois autres notions. Merci d'avance.

The idea of progress

I'm going to talk about the notion of idea of progress. First of all I would like to state a definition of this notion. The Idea of Progress is the fact that the different advances in technology, science, and social organization can produce an improvement in the human condition. Indeed, people can become happier in terms of quality of life with the social progress through economic development and modernization, and the application of science and technology with the scientific progress. Progress implies change and evolution in the society and most of the advances have been positive through the history. However, today these advances are not only positive but also negative. To illustrate this notion, I'm going to speak about social networks because nowadays they take an important place in our life indeed we are more and more connected.
We may answer the question are the social networks a progress in our lives or a threat for our private life ?
My presentation will fall into two parts, firstly i will concentrate on the advantages of the social networks then, I will analyze their disadvantages.

First and foremost, progress is essential because without it our world would not be what he is today. One the one hand, social networks are a progress interessant on account of it allows us to communicate with others easily and free. Moreover, we are enable to talk with our friends and our family from all over the world instantly with social networks as Facebook or Twitter. In addition, social networks are a good way to keep in touch with our old friends or new ones. Futhermore we can share our thoughts, photographs, or videos with everybody. To illustrate this good point, I'm going to talk about two documents which are « SouthCoastLizzie on Mumsnet », an extract from the book The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe and « The Haiti relief effort : new media's maturation moment. ». Firstly, « SouthCoastLizzie on Mumsnet » shows that mothers can support each others talking about how to raise their children. It enables them to get in touch with other mothers and exchange tips and they are able to post what they like best. Consequently it enables them to see that it is difficult for all the mothers to bring up children so they reassure themselves together laughing about their misadventures. Moreover these shares help them in their everyday life.
Subsequently, the article from Skylight about Haiti deals also with the social networks but with a different point of view because the title suggests that social media may have become more mature. Indeed before the Haiti earthquake social media was mainly used to chat to friends and family but during the Haiti crisis, it played a critical role, social media became adults. The 12th January 2010, Haiti endured a severe earthquake which destroyed many buildings and houses so over 1 million people became homeless, this natural disaster generated a shortage of food and water on the island. Many people got killed, others got hurt. It ruined many people lives. In this disaster, traditionnal media couldn't land their planes to make their report because the place was for medical planes. Thanks to Twitter and generally every social and digital media some of medical planes succeeded in landing however rescue workers are still struggling to save people. Hopefully, digital devices given tracking apps enabled their owners to give their location to rescuers or to their own families because many people were trapped under rubble. It is shown by some quotations as line 14 I quote « a global communication medium ». Besides, social media made it possible for people to donate money I quote line 16 « the Red Cross's Haiti text message campaign » or I quote line 17-18 « a historic mobile giving drive » so they outweighed traditional media like TV channels or radio station which have to rely on online content. Thus, social media had changed during the Haiti crisis helping Haitian.
On the other hand, social networks have disadvantages. Indeed when we talk with a new friends, it is possible that he lies to us and that it is a ill-intentioned person. Moreover, we have to be careful with social networks because or private life can be in danger.
The document «SouthCoastLizzie on Mumsnet » also shows the negative points of social networks. The extract deals with Maxwell Sim who must have felt upset when his marriage broke up with Caroline and we have the feeling that he may still love her. That's why he creates a fake identity on Mumsnet since Caroline is listed there. It is a social network for mums. Although he feels ashamed of himself joining Mumsnet to spy on Caroline he pretended to be Liz Hammond's with the pseudonymn « SouthCoastLizzie » ; it is a figment of M.Sim's imagination with which he logs on Mumsnet. As a result he supposes on Mumsnet to live in Brighton and to be a single mother for example. Into the bargain, he made a point of posting a message right after Caroline and he made it his business to pretend he was interested in her posts. He was desperate to get in touch with her to get noticed by her in order to be able to send her a private message. Finally he felt astonished when he got Caroline answer. Indeed when there were married she had never spoken to me like that with such affection. She showed more affection to a fictional character than to him. I quote line 25 « she never ever wrote to me with the kind of affection she showed to Liz Hammond » or I quote line 28-29 « the love she put into those words, those words adressed to a complete stranger ». As a consequence, this shows that social networks are bad because now Maxwell knows that Caroline may never have loved him and that he didn't really know him. He regrets joining Mumsnet. If he never spied on his wife, he still thought she has loved him. Social networks can disappoint us as Maxwell regrets to have discover Caroline's real personality and Caroline must feels upset if she ever discovers the real Liz Hammond. It can be everybody behind our screens.
An other document deals with privacy on the internet, it is an advertisement. The young woman looks downcast and dejected ? She must have been bullied because of what she posted on the social network. She may have been sexually harassed. This ad shows that we should really think before we post because everybody can see our postings and use them againt us even if they don't want to do harm like our little sister or our best friend they can get us into trouble.

In conclusion, social networks can be really useful as we can see on Mumsnet to share our tips and to help people in some situations as in Haiti. Indeed in a social point of view social networks have numerous advantages. Nevertheless, there have even more drawbacks, indeed we can be dissapointed as Maxwell and to be victim of cyber-harassement. That's why it can be dangerous if we do not control their use. Progress can save many lives inevitably will destroy many others.
We are also able to talk about others idea of progress as the robots.