This Saturday, January 25, at the private Bellevue high school, 58 people responded to the call from Rotary Alès-Cévennes. Reporting.
“I’m here to see if I’m still up to par”smiles Alesian Nadine Orsatti, sitting in the amphitheater of the Bellevue private high school. “I came with friends. To participate in a good work and because it’s fun and friendly”says Philippe Bernard, originally from Uzès. Both participated, in the afternoon of this Saturday, January 25, in the dictation of the Rotary club Alès-Cévennes, organized throughout the world to fight against illiteracy and, more particularly in the capital of the Cévennes, to help the Second Chance School to implement its project to develop the establishment’s courtyard so that it is “more pleasant and appeals even better to young people”.
Guy Sabatier: “When we write poorly, we communicate poorly”
In the lecture hall, there are 58 participants, pens in hand and facing their copies, divided into three categories: four are primary school students, four others are middle school students and those remaining constitute the group of high school students and adults. “You are interested in the French language, a beautiful language. Difficulty as we see it currently”declared Guy Sabatier, the president of Rotary Alès-Cévennes, estimating that “When we write poorly, we communicate poorly”. The Rotarian in charge of this event, François de Balincourt, immediately introduces the person who will read the dictation: Martine Bonnet, last year's winner. Then says to the assembly: “To your pencils!”
The “two fundamentals” not to lose sight of
The reader, before saying a text entitled The moorsgives some advice to those in front of her. “Two fundamentals”she insists: concentration, which is based on “auditory memory and semantic memory”and rereading, because “you can’t imagine how important this is”.
-Traps and other pitfalls
It is around 3 p.m. when the test itself, of graduated difficulty, begins. Martine Bonnet encourages the participants: “Good luck and good concentration. And you will see that you will be amazed by the results.” When she first reads the text in one go, some let out a few laughs and little exclamations as they discover the pitfalls and other pitfalls of French conjugation and spelling… Then, the atmosphere becomes extremely studious, silent.
The schoolchildren are the first to leave the lecture hall
The schoolchildren, their part of the text left on the paper, are released first. For Marguaux, 9 years old and CM2 students, it was “facile” and she bets on “three faults, maximum”. Rémi, who is the same age and is also in CM2, believes that “it wasn’t too hard”.
Who are the winners of the 2025 edition?
And it is precisely he who is doing the best among the schoolchildren since with two mistakes, he finishes in first place. In the ranks of the college students, the victory goes to Lison, whose copy has six and a half faults. Among adults, who read the entire text, the winner is a former director of the École des Mines d'Alès (EMA): Alain Dorison. He breaks with just one mistake.
