L3 Britain since 1945, commentary on "The Wind of Change"

In general this was a good commentary. Relevant details of who the speaker was, when and in what context it happened were given. The main points the speaker made and some comments on his style were correctly explained. His colonial attitude, the attitude of the US to the situation, and the cold war  context were higlighted.

Sources were varied (books and recognized media sources). The English was fluent.

Some comments then on weaknesses and possible improvements:

Language :
Pronunciation : although the phonemes were correctly mastered (no difficulties with “h” or with “th”) word stress was rather uneven. Here are some of the words which were incorrectly stressed : Exchequer, Conservative, decolonization, apartheid, opposition, frontiers, and the phrase “above all”.

** For word stress problems, this website will help you enormously http://www.howjsay.com/ **

Vocabulary
- The verb “to precise” does not exist.
- There was confusion between the verb “to remember” and the verb “to remind”.
- The expressions “in a first part” “in a second part” are purely French.

Grammar
Not many difficulties, but the distinction present perfect/ preterite was not always correctly made. A sentence which begins “Fifty years before” will use the preterite. The best book on this, which is hard to find, is “Le prétérit en anglais” by Anne Trevise.

Content
It was not clear why Rhodesia/Zimbabwe were mentioned. They could certainly be linked into this commentary, since the crisis with Rhodesian UDI was only a few years after this speech, and involved similarly White elites who did not want to share power with Black people. However, the link was not made clear.

The characterization of the audience for the speech was insufficient. The dominant presence would be Boer nationalists, who were the main force behind the apartheid system. There had been a war between the Boers and the British at the end of the nineteenth century, and considerable tension since. The Boers came from the Netherlands a very long time before and viewed themselves as pioneers rather than colonists. This is the explanation for the section on “the first African nationalism”. Furthermore, Boer nationalists were fervently opposed to the USSR, and therefore the mention of anti-communism is aimed more at them, rather than being a spontaneous expression of Macmillan’s feelings.

A few sentences on the Suez crisis as a key turning point which made this speech possible would have been useful.

The opposition to apartheid by Macmillan could be seen as a political expedient. To clarify, we can look at what happens later. Partly because of the need for Britain for allies in the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth carried out sanctions against South Africa in order to express their opposition to apartheid. However, British companies and institutions continued to invest large sums of money in South Africa and Namibia, and one of the political features of the 1980s was wide, especially student campaigns for disinvestment from South Africa. Nelson Mandela was officially considered like a terrorist for a long time.

Those are the comments which came to mind immediately.