In love
with Shakespeare
A multimedia Sequence
Level : intermediate / upper-intermediate
Objectives : getting to know one of Shakespeare’s
most famous dramas (Romeo & Juliet) thanks to
multimedia language lab activities
Teaching equipment : handouts, video of Shakespeare
In Love
Introduction
Lead-in
Students watch the trailer of Shakespeare In Love.
The file can be downloaded easily ( Quick Time or
Real Player) on
this site
Trailers for Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Apple.com Quicktime
Formats vary
Movie-list.com
MyMovies.net
(Flash 4:High)
MyMovies.net
(Flash 4:Low)
Ask your students questions in order to get an idea
of the contents of the movie :
What kind of story is it? who
are the leading characters ? Where does it take place?
What era? What about the characters’ clothes?
Possible answers: It must be a comedy, a love story.
The scene takes place in a city, possibly in Great-Britain,
in London. The characters are wearing medieval clothes,
thus it must be taking place in the Middle-ages or
in the Renaissance. One woman is very well-dressed,
she might be the Queen. Joseph Fiennes plays the part
of William Shakespeare and Gwyneth Paltrow plays the
part of his beloved. A famous play by Shakespeare
is mentioned, Romeo & Juliet.
In this trailer, students will watch some part of
the famous balcony scene that will be studied in greater
detail later on.
Analysing an extract from Shakespeare
in Love
DVD : beginning of Chapter 11 (when
G. Paltrow (a.k.a Lady Viola) appears at the balcony. Master Shakespeare ( a.k.a. Joseph Fiennes) suddenly
appears in the garden below.
Students should watch the precise extract from the
movie first.
Before watching the video, just ask the usual «
wh- questions » : Who? Where? When? What
is going on?
After watching the excerpt, ask you students to sum
up what they have understood so far.
Possible answers:
The scene takes place at night.
The young lady is at her balcony. Will Shakespeare
suddenly appears in the garden below. She is surprised.
They start talking. The woman’s nurse is calling
her again and again. William Shakespeare decides to
climb up a tree to get to her. When he pops up at
the parapet, he finds himself face to face with the
nurse who starts yelling. He falls down on the grass
and leaves at once.
The 3 interactive exercises
are meant to check their understanding
1. What is the sequence of events? «
re-ordering exercise»
2. Who does what? Quiz
on the extract.
3. Oral
comprehension : students have to listen to the
dialogue to fill in the blanks . This exercise may
require 10 to 15 minutes.
All the exercises should be corrected at the end of
the lesson. If you have time, you can start a nice
“karaoke” session : 2 students ( 1 : Will,
2 : Viola ) dub the actors.
Homework
Students should train on their own by reading the
script of the extract. You can find the whole script
on this site : un-official.com,
or just
the right extract here.
Other suggestion : you can give your students the
following handout in which they have to answer questions about the balcony scene. Click
here
Romeo & Juliet
Students will now focus on other
activities: pair-work, video dubbing and a virtual
tour of the Globe theatre.
Lead-in
Students should first say what
they remember from Ch. 11 of Shakespeare in Love (Who?
Where ?When ? What happens?)
Pair-work
Multimedia language Lab activity
NB: Requires « Labo Virtuel » software
on EDU4-type multimedia classroom.
Before the lesson : record the proper extract and
create a video file. Create the subtitles with the
“Labo Virtuel” software. Otherwise, students
may use their photocopies of the script.
Students will record their own voices on the video,
as if they were actually dubbing the characters.
William Shakespeare's life
On the
«
Inside Out » site, you’ll find a very
interesting activity on the Bard’life. It can
get even more interesting if done as a pair-work.
Student A has the text, student B has the questions
on Shakespeare’s life. Student B has to ask
Student A the questions. Then student A has to read
to find the proper answer. Then student B ticks the
right answer on his worksheet.
You can get the necessary documents here:
* for
the students 
* for
the teacher ( answer key)
Homework
To practise their grammar, students can turn some
of the sentences of the script into indirect speech
sentences.
They should also re-read Shakespeare’s life,
so that you may ask them a few questions on his life.
Shakespeare and the Globe
Correction of the grammar exercise ( indirect speech
)
Checking your students’ knowledge thanks to
an interactive
exercise here
The Globe. 3 documents to show and comment:
- London
map displaying the different theatres. Students
should notice that theatres were at the time on the
outskirts of the city.
- an
engraving of the Globe on which you can
see the different parts of the theatre. Students
can easily learn the vocabulary that is written on
this engraving. This will be useful for the virtual
visit of the Globe and the webquest
You can have direct access
to the virtual tour of the Globe theatre here : 'virtual
tour’.
However, you can also give your students a paper copy
of this activity. Click
here
Then they should visit The
Globe information page and do the following webquest.
Sometimes it is quite useful to get paper copies of
the webquests. You can find them here:
Student
webquest
Teacher
answer key
The information they will gather
on this webquest will have to be studied at home for
a possible final test on Shakespeare.
Other ressources on this site
More information on Shakespeare on our 'Literature' page. Click here
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