Dear Mma Ramotswe,

I read about you in the newspaper and about how you have opened this big new agency down there in town. I am very proud for Botswana 1 that we now have a person like you in this country.

I am the teacher at the small school at Katsana¹ Village, thirty miles from Gaborone¹, which is near the place where I was born. I went to Teachers' College many years ago and I passed with a double distinction. My wife and I have two daughters and we have a son of eleven. This boy to which I am referring has recently vanished and has not been seen for two months.

We went to the police. They made a big search and asked questions everywhere. Nobody knew anything about our son. I took time off from school and searched the land around our village. We have some kopjes² not too far away and there are boulders and caves over there. I went into each one of those caves and looked into every crevice. But there was no sign of my son.

He was a boy who liked to wander, because he had a strong interest in nature. He was always collecting rocks and things like that. He knew a lot about the bush and he would never get into danger from stupidity. There are no leopards in these parts any more and we are too far away from the Kalahari for lions to come.

I went everywhere, calling, calling, but my son never answered me. I looked in every well of every farmer and village nearby and asked them to check the water. But there was no sign of him.

How can a boy vanish off the face of the Earth like this? If I were not a Christian, I would say that some evil spirit had lifted him up and carried him off. But I know that things like that do not really happen.

I am not a wealthy man. I cannot afford the services of a private detective, but I ask your, Mina, to help me in one small way. Please, when your are making your enquiries about other things, and talking to people who might know what goes on, please ask them if they have heard anything about a boy called Thobiso, aged eleven years and four months, who is the son of the teacher at Katsana Village. Please just ask them, and if you hear anything at all, please address a note to the undersigned, myself, the teacher.

In God's name, Ernest Molai Pak-otati, Dip.Ed.

Alexander McCall Smith, The n°1 Ladies' Detective Agency, 1998.

EXPRESSION : les candidats de toutes les séries traiteront les 2 sujets

Do both subjects (one and two).

I- Thobiso comes home. Imagine the conversation. (80 words)

2- Do you like detective stories (films, books, series, etc.)? Why or why not? Use examples to justify. (120 words)

EXPRESSION

1.

Même s’il s’agit d’un dialogue, il ne faut pas oublier d’introduire votre sujet. Bien que cette question demande une certaine dose d’imagination (enlèvement, accident, fugue,…) il faut rester cohérent avec le texte (il n’y a pas d’animaux sauvages dans cette région et ce n’est pas de la science-fiction non plus) et avec le profil des personnages (Thobiso est un enfant de onze ans très débrouillard).

Le discours direct anglais exige des guillemets (surtout pas de tiret) et implique d’aller à la ligne lorsque le locuteur change.

Pensez à mettre vos verbes introducteurs au prétérit et à les varier le plus possible :

-he said, he asked, he shouted, etc

Vocabulaire de la surprise, de l’angoisse, du danger

-nervous, agitated, traumatized, angry, mad, furious, …

Utilisez l’impératif et l’interrogation:

Tell us all about what happened

Don’t (you ever) do that again!

What happened? Why did you go there, why have you done that to us?

Prenez le temps de conclure soit sur une réunion familiale heureuse soit sur une réaction plus autoritaire des parents si vous avez opté pour la fugue.

2.

Dans ce sujet, il s’agit de donner votre opinion sur les thrillers (histoires à suspense) sans oublier de vous appuyer sur des exemples concrets des films/ séries/livres que vous avez particulièrement aimés.

Pistes de réponses :

In my opinion, to my mind, personally I think/ believe/assume that…

Vous pouvez utiliser le vocabulaire des émotions que ces histories vous procurent.

I was thrilled, excited, surprised, afraid, scared

It gave me the shivers; It gave me chills down my spine.

The book was so exciting (gripping) that I read it in one go!

Vous pouvez aussi présenter une opinion contraire en justifiant pourquoi ce genre ne vous fait pas vibrer et conclure en indiquant vos préférences.