Louise Sallé, edited by Alexandre Dalifard 06h15, April 11, 2023

This year, during the oral French test of the baccalaureate, first-year students must read a text that they will have to analyze in front of a jury. This reading is evaluated and must be "expressive". To help students with this ordeal, actors invite themselves to schools.

The written French exam for the baccalaureate takes place on June 15, and the oral test takes place the following week. During this performance, the candidate must read a text that he analyzes in front of a jury: a reading evaluated on two points, which must be "expressive". To help high school students in 1st to prepare it, actors are currently inviting themselves in schools. This meeting is organized as part of a festival, by the Leclerc cultural spaces. In Bayeux, Normandy, the students of the Lycée Jeanne d'Arc worked on their text on April 7, on stage, with an actress. Europe 1 was able to attend the rehearsal.

"You need a certain intonation, you have to set the tone"

"Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason is heard...", begins Lilou, in a confident voice. Olympe de Gouge, the feminist revolutionary, is on the baccalaureate program this year, and the high school student is trying to appropriate her "Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizen". "It's like a speech," she notes. "I think it's quite a complicated text to read because you need a certain intonation, so you have to set the tone," Lilou continues. "There's a lot of punctuation and some pretty complicated words," she adds.

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The advice of the actress Anne Le Guernec

Yann also lends himself to the exercise, under the watchful eye of the actress Anne le Guernec. "Women, what do you and us have in common?" the student reads. "Ask the question," the actress advises. "Two points... open the quotation marks... You can ask the question even more, you know?" she explains. "Ask with a lot of depth", proposes Anne Le Guernec.

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Reading and understanding a text go hand in hand

This "expressive reading", evaluated on two points (out of 20), has existed for years in the baccalaureate. "Students read the text in front of the examiner and usually they read it fluently, but expressively it's more difficult," says Karine Castel, a French teacher. "So to be able to work on expressive reading with an actress, for us, it's extraordinary!" she says. Thanks to theatre, it is also the meaning of the text that becomes clearer. Because to read it well, you have to understand it. And this is a way to study it better.