Paul from Paris

Un récent article paru dans Le Monde, "Les étudiants français toujours aussi nuls en anglais" me laisse perplexe et déçu.

Perplexe car l'article commente des données relatives au TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Il s'agit d'un examen, parmi d'autres, proposé par ETS, société commerciale aux Etats-Unis spécialisée dans le testing (l'évaluation, surtout les examens standardisés). Les données sont regroupées dans un rapport.

A lire Le Monde, il y aurait un classement national, avec la France en mauvaise place. Il n'en est rien. Le rapport, Test and Score Data Summary for TOEFL Internet-based and Paper-based Tests :

• permet une comparaison des scores obtenus selon les modalités de l'examen : par Internet ou sur suppoort papier ;
• examine les notes obtenues selon l'usage prévu : étudiant en formation initiale, qualification professionnelle, etc. ;
• regroupe des données statistiques selon le sexe ; et
• regroupe des données statistiques selon sa langue maternelle parlée et son pays de résidence.

Il n'y a aucun classement national. Au contraire, ETS souligne l'absence de différences de capacité d'apprendre l'anglais parmi groupes linguistiques ou nationaux : "It is important to point out that the data do not permit the generalization that there are fundamental differences in the ability of the various national and language groups to learn English or in the level of English proficiency they can attain." Tout au plus, les données permettent de recadrer la note obtenue par un étudiant parmi d'autres de la même langue maternelle ou pays d'origine. Surtout, par ce rapport ETS cherche à communiquer sur son sérieux et sur la valeur de son test.

Comment expliquer pourquoi les autrichiens obtiennent (en moyenne) des notes plus élevées que les français ? Quelques pistes :

• Le niveau d'études, les autrichiezns étant peut-être plus avancés que les français ;
• Le degré de préparation : un autrichien moyen est peut-être mieux préparé à passer le test qu'un français moyen. Pour ce dernier, passer le test constitue peut-être la principale préparation. Rien n'interdit de passer le test plusieurs fois, et il n'a rien à voir avec un test de type Q.I. ;
• Le degré de motivation : un français se satisfait peut-être d'une note moyenne, du minimum acceptable, tandis que l'autrichien vise l'excellence.

Enfin, je ne peux qu'être déçu à lire que les français seraient "nuls" en anglais, ou que cette "nullité" serait le fruit d'une allergie aux langues ou d'un système éducatif défectueux.

Friends have been writing me about a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times on plain English.

The contribution, by the executive counsel for the Rhode Island state insurance authorities, bemoaned the lack of clarity in health insurance policies.

The problem is quintessentially American: in the United States, private insurers offer 200 million Americans with private health insurance a patchwork of policies, with variable benefits. The policy determines whether or not it covers an affliction, condition, or procedure.

The author played up readability and comprehension tests to support his argument that policies were incomprehensible. I understand the point but disagree with the tactics. Arguing that a text is “too complicated” makes the insured look simpleminded and the policy-drafters smart. It also points to “dumbing down” as a possible remedy.

I take another view. Insurance policies often are drafted so that they fail to communicate and can’t be understood, by anybody. They perpetuate ambiguity. This makes some sense because the insurer can make a case-by-case determination and, as the case may be, argue its position in court (even if the judge follows a cannon of contract interpretation that resolves ambiguity in favor of the insured).

Ultimately most drafting problems stem from laziness: reusing old text, making piecemeal changes, having no incentive to draft clearly.

Veterinarian Vincent Petit was riding his horse on the beach on July 28 when the animal fell ill and suddenly died; Petit has to be carried away from the scene.

The culprit was quickly identified: green algae, more exactly Ulva armoricana, commonly referred to as sea lettuce. It’s common in Brittany. The photo below shows the beach at Saint-MIchel-en-Grève, where the death occurred; the numbers indicate where samples were subsequently taken for analysis.

What’s more intriguing are the origins of the sea plants. They’re indigenous to the area. But their proliferation isn’t natural; it results from human activity.

Other areas of France are sunnier or more populous, but Brittany is an agricultural powerhouse. It’s home to 60% of French pig farms, 45% of French poultry farms, and 30% of French dairy farms. The regions is the leading producer in France of cabbage, artichokes, green beans, spinach, and potatoes; Brittany is also the runner-up producer in France of peas and tomatoes. With its Atlantic coastline, Brittany is the leading French region for fish and seafood capture.

This bounty comes at an environmental price. Extensive fertilizer use boosts nitrate levels in the water, to which livestock add impressive quantities of waste. This soup flows from streams and rivers to the sea, where it becomes a nutritious brew for sea lettuce. This plant thrives, but as it proliferates it takes up oxygen and pushes out other, slower-growing plants. When the tides sweep the sea lettuce to shore, sunny weather accelerates decomposition and production of dangerous gases.

Here’s the problem, and the paradox: the problem has a human origin, and human action could stop it. Fertilizer use could be curtailed, and animal waste disposed of otherwise than by discharge into waterways. Is there an economic incentive for doing so? Today, there is not. Is there the political will to require behavioral change? Certainly not. Environmental protection is not about aspirational efforts to “save the planet”; it requires tradeoffs and exacts real costs. People in France are prepared to make neither, whether as consumers or as voters. My bet is that sea lettuce will enjoy a good future in Brittany.

“Talented people everywhere have difficulty, and perhaps take longer than ordinary people to find their way in the world.”

These words are from Ved Mehta, in an article that appeared in The New Yorker in 1993.

In the article Mehta reminisces about a time when he studied at Oxford. He writes, “in the late fifties, when I was an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, most of my friends and I felt that we were living through our happiest years.”

Mehta writes with subtlety and affection about some of his friends from that time, and what became of them:

• Roger Scott “left Oxford after a year”; “hardly anyone saw Roger after his departure”. He faded from view, and in 1970 published a novel, Downfall;
• Robert Ogilvie committed suicide, by gunshot;
• Alasdair Clayre took his life “by jumping under an oncoming train” in an Underground station around 11 at night;
• Richard Snedden killed his father with two blows to the head, delivered by axe; committed to a mental hospital after having been acquitted by reason of insanity, he died a few years later.

It’s not surprising that Mehta’s article is titled “Casualties of Oxford”.

Mehta takes pains to sketch attentive portraits, both individual and collective, of these men. From their past, no one could have divined their future. To the contrary, they were all the best and the brightest, prizewinners all, the product of “natural selection”. No one would have been surprised had any of them entered public service and become prime minister, or established academic careers, or thrived in business or at nearly any other endeavor.

Mehta writes with affection, among friends. He’s not jealous; he’s not trying to bring down these men. They were his friends. Mehta adds some biographic details that show that the friendships were not completely equal, and how Mehta was in many respects an outsider looking in, or up.

Mehta was born in what was then a British colony: India. Before coming to Oxford, he’d studied at Pomona College, in California. Compared to the golden boys of Winchester (a leading public school), Mehta was doubly an outsider.

Observant as he is, Mehta also was very much in the dark. When a child, Mehta contracted meningitis. The disease left him blind, and he received basically no formal schooling until, at age 15, he emigrated to the United States and went to the Arkansas School for the Blind.

For this reader, Mehta is descriptive, not prescriptive. I couldn’t find an answer to the question: what went wrong? Did the world change? Were all the prizes won something else than “natural selection”? For these men, was life after “our happiest years” of necessity a disappointment?

Five years after The New Yorker ran Mehta’s article, the McKinsey Quarterly (by the eponymous management consulting firm) published a much-discussed piece, “The War for Talent“, the central tenet of which was that “better talent is worth fighting for”. In hindsight, this language seems stridently martial and bellicose. I prefer Mehta’s subtle and possibly cautionary account.