Marie Laurent

Agrégée de Lettres Modernes, French & Literature Teacher

Agrégée de Lettres Modernes (ranked 14th nationally), Marie has taught French literature for 12 years at Collège Jean Macé and Lycée Ampère in Lyon, then trained student teachers at INSPÉ de Lyon. She specialises in Bac de Français methodology, EAF oral prep, and differentiated instruction for dyslexic students. Her approach — "visible thinking" — has students externalise reasoning through annotated drafts and argument maps before polished writing. Outside classroom teaching, Marie serves on the jury of the Prix des Lycéens de la Littérature française, a student-led prize that selects five contemporary French novels for consideration across eighty secondary schools in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. This role keeps her at the intersection of canonical programme texts and contemporary publication — a position she argues is essential for any teacher who wants to build genuine bridges between the Bac syllabus and the independent reading habits that determine whether students continue to engage with literature as adults. Her technical speciality within Lettres Modernes instruction is the oral EAF — the Explication de Texte and Entretien components that require sustained analytical thinking under time pressure. She has developed a preparation protocol built on four ten-minute simulation sessions per week in the six weeks before the exam, each followed by structured peer feedback using a rubric co-developed with two INSPÉ colleagues. Students who complete the full protocol show consistent gains of two to three points on the oral component across three consecutive cohorts. Marie's central conviction: the Bac de Français is not primarily a literature exam — it is a structured argument exam that uses literary texts as its subject matter. Students who understand that distinction early in the year consistently outperform those who prioritise content memorisation over analytical method, regardless of their initial reading level.