The French President and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took part in a ceremony in anticipation of the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty on Thursday, September 22. The statue, which is a gift from France to the USA, will turn 125 on October 28. Read an article from the New York Times entitled: ‘Joyeux Anniversaire (un peu tôt), Lady Liberty’

and the poem :

Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

by Emma Lazarus

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10-years since the 9/11 attacks. Time flies.

It was a quiet afternoon and I was taking some time off when a friend called me on the phone and asked me to turn the TV on and see what was happening on TV. I remember thinking it was fake. It looked like a scene from a movie. Then I realised the horror and the tragedy.

Do you remember what you were doing when it happened?

Geraldine Ann Ferraro earned a place in history as the first woman vice-presidential candidate on a national party ticket.  She died last week.  She was a political pioneer.

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

more pictures here

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Welcome to the TSTG2 students on the blog !

Please feel free to visit and comment.

Our first theme for the year is immigration and The American Dream.

To start with, I would like you to watch several videos (included in previous articles) :

VIDEO 1  http://lewebpedagogique.com/englishblog83/2009/02/01/ellis-island-2/ 

VIDEO 2 : http://lewebpedagogique.com/englishblog83/tag/ellis-island/

VIDEO 3 : http://lewebpedagogique.com/englishblog83/2008/08/29/ellis-island-arrival-of-the-immigrants/

Finally , here is some vocabulary. Please download and print this page.

immigration

Quelques mots sur l’origine du 1er Mai.

For the TL1 pupils,

please watch the videos on Ellis Island (there are 3 articles) –> use “recherche” and type “Ellis Island” to watch them.

Situated in New York Harbour, the Statue of Liberty has become the proud symbol of the United States of America.The statue of the Goddess of Freedom carries the light of the spirit of enlightenment to the Free World.

Alexander Gustave Eiffel, whose tower later made him famous, built the statues ingenious iron frame construction supported by a central shaft.Around this framework a 2.4 millimeter thick copper coating was attached to the statue and it is mainly due to Eiffels frame that the monument has withstood the bays savage winter storms.

On the 28th October 1886, North Americas most important statue was inaugurated by President Grover Cleveland.The statue was the design of a young sculptor, Bartholdi, who had eagerly accepted the work due to the fact that the commission of his design of a large female statue for a lighthouse on the Suez Canal had not reached fruition.

At first, the statue received little love and affection.Indeed, New Yorkers used the statue’ s unveiling ceremony for a protest demonstration! Since then, however, it has most assuredly conquered the hearts of those who have seen it and it has become a symbol of freedom for the whole of America.