Text commentary by Hyann on Thatcher’s speech before she was
Prime minister. die
Your text commentary began well, your pronunciation is good
and your English is fairly fluent. However, the second part of your text
commentary was purely paraphrase and you did not really show you knew what her
ideas were in detail, or how she was trying to get them across in her rhetoric.
You quoted too often from the document, often without
showing that you understood what you were quoting. For example, when she
denounces « others, under the shelter of our education system » she
is talking about (in her view) dangerous left-wing teachers. You do not show
you understand this.
You do not give examples of the nationalizations she
denounces or of the debate which surrounded them.
At some points you made some excessively naive statements
like « We can see she is completely against communism » (everybody
knows this). Or you said « She thinks it is important to remain
free ». This last sentence is extremely problematic. First of all, who are
the politicans, or indeed anyone else, who would say in public « it is
important not to remain free ». Now, when everyone declares attachment to
a value such as freedom, we learn nothing specific about Thatcher by hearing
that she claims attachment to freedom. You need to explain : what did she
mean by freedom ? What did her opponents mean by freedom ? Freedom
for whom, and to do what ?
A little later you said « Her main aim is to create
wealth and better services for those in need ». Well this is certainly
what she says is her main aim. But if every political leader clearly stated, in
an objective fashion, their main aim, we wouldn’t need political debate or
historians !
Language problems.
Confusion between « what is important » and
« which is important ».
You do not always pronounc ethe « s » at the end
of a word.
The structure « she is not agree » does not exist.
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