The Scarman report - feedback on the text commentary

The text commentary on the Scarman report, given by Slimane

It’s obvious that you did a lot of work on this document. You correctly explained the reasons for the riots (*not*, as is often said, simply « race riots »). You explained the police reaction with Swamp 81 and so on. You gave examples and statistic s- for example about housing shortages. And you pointed out some of the longer term results of the Scarman Report in terms, among other things, of police recruitment.  Your English was fluent and interested.

You needed to centre more around the document, and keep coming back to it. You should never leave the document for more than two paragraphs.  Some of the details you gave were not necessary : the date of birth and death of Lord Scarman do not help us understand this document and so should be omitted.

It would have been good to give some of the longer histories within which the Scarma report resides. It is one key moment in the history of disaffection among Black and other  youth. You could have mentioned others – a comparison with the riots of 2011 would have been useful, or a reference to the Stephen Lawrence scandal which in the 1990s led to another report about the police and race relations which was far more scathing.

There wre quite a lot of words which were not correctly pronounced, including the following : law, stabbed, riots, injured, inquiry, interesting.

And you have picked up the strange habit of saying « nineteen sixty first » instead of « nineteen sixty one » !