Hollywood moment
Hollywood is one of the most important cinema industries in the world. Film makers and producers spend a lot of money on great films. In this section, you will learn about some historical facts portrayed in Hollywood films and will create your own timeline based on a classic drama film.
At the end of this section, you will have:
- Learnt about classical films in Hollywood.
- Learnt about some historical facts from films.
- Practised and revised Past Simple tenses and time expressions.
- Learnt about the use of the Passive in Present simple and Past simple.
- Designed and presented a timeline on a fact in history.
Leading activities: historical films
The contents below will help you acquire the necessary knowledge to develop your next challenge more effectively.
- Activity 1: Cleopatra and her time (video)
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Start this section by watching Cleopatra's trailer. This historical film was mainly shot in cinema studios.
After watching, answer the questions below.
- When did Cleopatra live?
- Do you know about any emperors, slaves or gladiators who lived in Rome and/or Egypt?
- Why did they become famous? / What did they do?
- Where is Egypt located?
If you are able to answer most of these questions, it means that you are interested in ancient history. If you do not know about the answers, enter the bbc.com site and learn some relevant information on ancient Egypt.
To learn key facts in Cleopatra's life, enter the ducksters.com site and read information about Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt. What facts surprise you? When did these facts happen?
- Activity 2:Learning history from films
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A lot of historical drama films portray real facts or events that have happened throughout history. People can learn about disasters such as wars or shipwrecks or biographies of important people by watching great classic films like the ones below.
Titanic
Schindler's list
Elizabeth
Gandhi
Hidden figures
With a partner, comment on what real facts or events the titles above are based. When did these facts happen? If necessary, search for information about the events on the Internet. To give information about what events happened in the past, you need to revise and practise the form and use of the past simple tense and, also, of past-time expressions.
Take your time to find on the Internet the answers for the questions below. These are based on the films mentioned above. With your partner, take turns to answer the questions with full sentences including time expressions. Be as precise as possible.
- Did the Titanic sink in the morning or at night? On what day?
- What month did World War II end?
- How long did queen Elizabeth rule?
- When was Gandhi born? When did he win the Nobel prize?
- When did man first travel to space?
The links provided in the language help section can be useful to perform this task accurately.
- Language help
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Enter the agenda web site and do interactive activities on past tenses. Practise the Present and Past passive on the English for U page and on the agenda web page. On the englisch-hilfen page, you can learn about the use in English of time expressions.
- Extra resources
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- Basic time expressions: TEFL.net site
- ESLFLOW Worksheet based on the film Titanic.
A king/queen of ancient Egypt.
The destruction of a ship at sea by sinking or breaking up.
A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country.