Dans le cadre de l'exploration du thème de l'imaginaire, les groupes d'anglais de 6e5 et 6e6 de Mme McAllister ont travaillé sur la mise en voix d'extraits de Shakespeare après avoir étudié le roman et la poésie (leur dernier projet portait sur Skellig de David Almond et les poésies de William Blake). 

Manon (6°5)

My class and I spent a couple hours with actor Matthew Collins. It was a rather interesting encounter since I had never heard of him before.

We started off by warming our vocal cords. He made us repeat various sounds and instructed us to sense where our tongue was placed or what shape our mouth formed whilst articulating the sound. He taught us how vocal cords stretched whilst making a high sound, and shortened when making a low sound.

We then moved on with each of us saying one line of the poem Ning Nang Nong. We did that same thing again but at the end of every line the whole class would emphasise the last word.

"Every Shakespeare poem has the same rhythm", Mr Collins explained whilst we read through the poem A Summer's Day. He told us how the rhythm of Shakespeare's poems mimicked the sound of a heartbeat. We then went through every line one by one explaining their meaning in detail.

Finally, we did a little role play as Mr Collins selected a few of us to read out some lines of Shakespeare's most famous play Romeo and Juliet. He then helped us to thoroughly understand some of the harder texts.

In the end, I very much enjoyed this experience. It was a very interesting encounter and Mr Collins was very interesting. I would love to do it again.

Aimée - Ava - Axelle and Joséphine (6°5)

"We thought this was an excellent opportunity to throw ourselves in the world of acting and to learn more about the famous Shakespeare."

We learnt that Matthew Collins visits prisons to play for the prisoners some Shakespeare plays. Apparently, the prisoners adore Shakespeare because it's very emotional and romantic and it reminds them of their early life.

First, for the training, Matthew Collins invited us to train our vocal cords by making bizarre sounds with our throat and tongue. We also read out loud the Ning Nang Nong poem. We learnt a few famous insults in the Shakespeare stories such as "I do bite my thumb, Sir"(Romeo & Juliet).

After that, we had the chance to read and act Romeo and Juliet. We all had an opportunity to act some of the characters in the tragedy.

We all enjoyed his visit and all his incredible facts about the amazing Shakespeare and his plays, full of tragedy, history and comedy.

Thanks to him, we now all want to continue acting and thinking of Shakespeare and his incredible life!