What if we revised our spelling? In Dictée!, the new podcast from the editorial staff of Current wife, Every two weeks, find a new dictation and its answer key to do alone or with family. In this third part, you will find a text from the primary education certificate for the year 1960, dictated by Madam speech therapist, spelling influencer and author of the book “Madam speech therapist, erase all your spelling mistakes”, published by Éditions de l’Opportun last October. The correction will then be available in the next episode and on the website Femmeactuale.fr.
Revise your classics by diving into the world of the primary education certificate (CEP)
Created in 1866 by Victor Duruy, former Minister of Education, “the certificate” made it possible to assess the level of schoolchildren at the end of primary school through various oral and written exams (reading, writing, history, etc.). A memorable memory for some or painful for others, this ancestor of the Brevet des Collèges has marked the memory of more than one schoolchild. And if the arithmetic problems of the time gave most of them a hard time, it is undoubtedly the dictation of the exam that we remember the most. The Dictation podcast! offers you a return to the past by delving into the dictation given for the primary studies certificate in 1960. This is a first extract from the short story “Autumn in the woods” by André Theuriet, published in 1878. Be careful of the circumflex accent here! Because it is a fairly long text, we have deliberately split it in two. The next extract will be available in the next episode of Dictée!.
To carry out this exercise in real conditions, here are the instructions given to the students in 1960. “Twenty minutes are given to students to review their copies. It is a text of twenty-five lines at most and the end point of each sentence is indicated. Any student who has made more than five spelling mistakes in the dictation is eliminated“.
The text of the dictation of the primary education certificate for the year 1960 (first part)
AUTUMN IN THE WOODS
The oak is the strength of the forest, the birch is its grace; the tree, the lullaby music; the lime tree is its intimate poetry. The whole tree has something tender and attractive about it; its supple bark, gray and embalmed, bleeds at the slightest injury;