Oscar time

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8th March 2010

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International Women's Day
Kathryn Bigelow won the best film & best director Oscars, the first woman to do so in Oscar history, fitting that it almost coincides with International Women's Day, 8th March. You can find some classroom ideas at:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips48.htm

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It's that time of the year. The results this year:

Best Picture The Hurt Locker
Best Director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Best Actor Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Best Actress Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Best Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Best Supporting Actress Mo’Nique – Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push” by Sapphire
Best Original Screenplay Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
Best Adapted Screenplay Geoffrey Fletcher from Push by Sapphire (Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire)
Best Foreign Language Film El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Argentina) – Juan Jose Campanella
Best Original Song “The Weary Kind” (Crazy Heart) – Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett

Did you know that:

'Popular legend has the Oscars statuette as unchanging, made of precious metals, and non-replaceable. This is not entirely the case. One-off variants have twice been produced. In 1939, Walt Disney was voted a special award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Academy presented him with one normal one, plus seven little miniatures.'

And:

'In 1937, the supporting actress winner Alice Brady was at home nursing a broken ankle. When her award was announced, a man stepped forward to receive it, then left the stage. Neither he nor the statuette was ever seen again.'

These are from the article 'Oscars Babylon: Tales from the Academy awards - Tonight, Hollywood's red carpet is rolled out once again for the annual orgy of self-congratulation. But not everything in the history of the Oscars is a cause for back-slapping.'
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/
oscars-babylon-tales-from-the-academy-awards-1917584.html

Read the article, take a few notes & give your students some interesting live listening.

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And here are some short reading texts about each of the films nominated for the best film award.

Best picture Avatar 9 nominations No movie enters with as much firepower as Avatar. Cameron's $500 million epic pushed the boundaries of 3D technology & broke records at the global box office. In so doing, it assured nervous studio heads that the future's so bright that they'll have to wear stereoscopic shades. District 9 4 nominations The dark horse of this year's Oscars race is this Peter Jackson-produced South African sci-fi yarn. District 9 leans lightly on the allegory with the tale of a local bureaucrat charged with segregating a race of extra-terrestial 'prawns'. Critics have applauded its blend of action & intelligence. An Education 3 nominations Based on the memoir of the journalist Lynne Barber, as adapted by Nick Hornby, An Education stars Carey Mulligan as a precocious 16-year-old from 60s suburbia who falls in with a shady property developer (Peter Saarsgard). All hail the big British hope at this year's Oscars. The Hurt Locker 9 nominations It was shot for $15 million & barely made a profit. And yet Cathryn Bigelow's taut, tense tale of a US bomb disposal squad in Iraq is fast becoming the film to beat. Its creator, moreover, may yet become the first woman to win the best director Oscar. Inglourious Basterds 8 nominations It's the Second World War according to Quentin Tarantino, with all that this entails. Inglourious Basterds is bloodsoaked, freestyle & contains lip smacking turns from Brad Pitt & Christoph Waltz. The script takes Hitler to the movies - where by God, he gets what's coming to him. Precious 6 nominations Lee Daniel's film 'Precious' rattles us off the red carpet, away from the Oscars & into the dark tenements of 1980s New York. Gabourey Sidibe plays the abused, overweight heroine, while Mo'nique co-stars as her monstrous mum. Both are now in the frame for awards. A Serious Man 2 nominations The Coen brothers won with No Country For Old Men in 2008. But will A Serious Man prove too teasingly cerebral to snare the voters. Michael Stuhlbarg stars as the gulping Jewish academic who endures all manner of indignities in 1960s Minnesota. Up in the Air 6 nominations George Clooney stars as a corporate hatchet man in Jason Reitman's cool, crisp comedy-drama. Up In The air plays out in departure lounges & chain hotels. It spotlights a world that we are all passing through in search of home. The Blind Side 2 nominations Voters of a conservative nature will surely plump for The Blind Side. This stars Sandra Bullock as an average American mum who nurtures a troubled black football prodigy. Fans see it as a classic Hollywood heartwarmer; detractors as a slushy, racially dubious fairytale. Up 5 nominations Pixar's buoyant 3D enterprise charts the odyssey of a lonesome widower who rediscovers his zest for life in the wilds of South America. UP, directed by Peter Docter, was adored by press & public alike - but can an animated film win the best picture Oscar?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/interactive/2010/mar/03/
oscars-2010-best-picture-nominees

A couple of ideas on using the text:
- match titles with description
- jigsaw - different students have a description each, they work on the language, & then get together to explain the films to each other, as well as teaching each other the new language they have picked up.
- students find all film-related lexis > discuss meanings & connotations.
- discuss each - who has seen the films, tell others about the plot & general opinion.
- class vote on the best film.
- students choose one of the descriptions, of a film they have seen, & write a continuation.
- students invent their own title & write a short description, & then go on to sell their film, followed by a class vote.

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A few classroom ideas from past Tips on the Oscars:

Have a look at the following short article:

Academy has custody of some 100 orphaned Oscars By The Associated Press – 18.2.09 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences requires all Oscar nominees to sign a contract specifying that they will not sell their statuette without first offering it back to the academy for $1. The so-called winner's agreement dates back to 1951, at a time when the organization began to worry about orphaned Oscars winding up in the hands of the highest bidder. So, how many Oscar winners have sold their statuettes to the academy for a buck? None, says AMPAS Executive Director Bruce Davis, although Oscars still make their way back to the academy's custody. "We have statuettes willed back to us fairly regularly — maybe two per year — from recipients who don't have appropriate heirs, or who just want to be sure that nothing undignified ever befalls their Oscar," Davis says. The academy says it owns almost 100 statuettes that have been returned by winners, heirs, or buyers like Steven Spielberg, who purchased pre-agreement Oscars won by Clark Gable and Bette Davis in order to return them to AMPAS. Statuettes from the collection occasionally go on display at academy headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif., and eventually, the organization's long-planned Oscar museum in Hollywood will include space for more of the collection.

To use this - cut & mix up the paragraphs & students put in a
logical order. They justify their logical sequencing decisions to
all Then possibly on to some other language focus eg. direct &
indirect speech decisions.
Follow this with a discussion:- why & what uses could the
statuettes be put to? Some must have been sold as Spielberg
needed to buy them back? etc...

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- Check out any of the following for good material on the cinema & the Oscars:
http://www.hollywood.com
http://www.oscars.com
http://oscars.movies.yahoo.com/
http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2007/
http://www.allmovie.com
http://darkhorizons.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Awards
http://eonline.com
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
http://www.filmsite.org - an excellent source of info about film. The author, Timothy Dirks, lists his top 100 all time favourite films - you'll probably disagree - there's a paragraph about each of the 100 films which could be exploited nicely in class. Lots of other related topics including the famous film quotes page.

- http://script-o-rama.com - a massive collection of film scripts. Gone are the days of transcribing pages of the script to use in class. Just copy & paste the part you need.

- Oscar quiz - check out the Tim Dirks' site above.

- Oscars - discuss equivalent in own country - language of prediction & comparison before 'X will win because...' - language of past criticism afterwards 'X should've won because...' - language of dis/agreement with the Oscar results

- Lexical field - actor, actress, star, an extra, a bit part, producer, cameraman, studio, to shoot a film, still, clip, excerpt, set, on location, to edit, script, lines, costumes, action, different genres (western, comedy, adventure, sci-fi etc), screening, premier, critic, reviews ...

- A good opportunity to review narrative telling.

- Past Tips around film:
Budding Screenwriters:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips51.htm
Shadow reading:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips11.htm

- Famous film quotes - match film, character & quote.
http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/quotes.aspx - 100 quotes
'To get an Oscar would be an incredible moment in my career, there is no doubt about that. But the 'Lord of the Rings' films are not made for Oscars, they are made for the audience.'
Peter Jackson
'I live in Spain. Oscars are something that are on TV Sunday night. Basically, very late at night. You don't watch, you just read the news after who won or who lost. '
Javier Bardem

- Film reviews - students could write them for films they have recently seen to swap around for colleagues to read & add comments when seen - an on-going mini-project. There are several net chat groups for students devoted to this as well.

- Cinema What's On Guide - a similar procedure as given for the lonely heart's guide we mentioned in the last newsletter - we would naturally scan a cinema guide so give out one to each students & you ask a question, the students look quickly for the answer & raise their hands when they have found it - wait till half have their hands up & elicit the answer & locate it for those who are having difficulties. Have eight to ten questions ready e.g.. Where can you see 'The Full Monty? What time/How much ...etc. It's a very good way of gauging the scanning ability in the group.

- Making a film - imperatives - beginner students act out a short scene using imperatives from the director on tape - total physical response - a great effective way of building up elementary students store of verbs. A possible procedure would be to act it out yourself, taking on both roles while students listen & watch you, after several times the students then act out to the tape & then they write their own instructions in small groups for a short scene & you can feed in the verbs they need. The one std reads out the verbs & the others from the group act - for the rest of the class to observe.
Tip - Action - TPR:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips35.htm

- Interviews with the stars - dubbing - this involves the class discussing a picture of a film star & writing a list of questions they would like to ask the person in the picture. When a series of questions has been complied, give the picture to a std who takes on that role & the others interview her/him. A well prepared roleplay then ensues.

- Interview with a film star - one word collective person - this is a fun, challenging roleplay. There is an interviewer & three/four students take the role of the one interviewee. Each std supplies one word in the response to a question e.g.. Why did you start acting? A:Well B:at C:school D:I A:was B:always C:involved D:in A:the B:Christmas C:play. Each std has to continue the utterance so that it makes sense. Can be difficult but lots of fun.

- Day in the life of a film star - this could come as a continuation of the previous activity - students write up a typical day by way of compiling the responses from the interview - they take notes when they ask the questions.

- Discussion topics - Does violence in movies influence real-life events? - Prefer the book or the film? - The film star you would like to meet? What say/do? - Where prefer to sit in the cinema? Front, middle, back? Why?

- Roleplay ideas - son wants to be an actor, Dad wants him to be a doctor like him, Mum is caught in the middle - you are an actor in the middle of shooting a film & the director wants to change your lines (reduce them!) & you disagree strongly etc.

- Have a class outing to the cinema & then use it in class.

- Get students to go to see films & report back to the class - if they go to the cinema a lot, this could be a regular early in the week feature of the lesson. They could write reviews for each other, recommending or not that they see the film.

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A past Tip on using video in class - 'Video viewing':

It's becoming so much easier to use video in class these days with the multitude of downloadable videos available online, as well as laptops becoming cheaper by the month.

To download YouTube videos I use the web page VidiMonkey: http://www.vidimonkey.uni.cc/. All you need to do is copy the link for the YouTube page & paste it into the VidiMonkey page & click on 'Save'.
As you save, make sure you give it a name with '.flv' on the end. So then it is on your hard drive & to watch it in 'flv' format, download the very versatile VLC media player from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
And away you go.

If you want to watch the videos in 'mpeg' or 'avi' you can download the 'Pazera Free FLV to AVI Converter' from http://www.download.com/Pazera-
Free-FLV-to-AVI-Converter/3000-2194_4-10786669.html

All very easy once you get the hang of it.

So then what do you do with the videos in class. We had a past Tip 'View the video' on classroom ideas. Here they are again with some more:

• turn the sound down & predict moods, relationships & conversation from the visual clues. Listen with sound up to confirm.

• give out one half of a written dialogue & students view the video a couple of times to fill in the other speaker's words. Listen to confirm.

• commentate - play a news scene without the sound & students write the commentary. Listen to confirm.

• speculation - cover half of the screen vertically - students view & speculate on the covered part. Uncover, view to confirm.

• with films for language students, in English with English subtitles, cover the film & the students read the subtitles - speculate on what is on the film. Uncover, view to confirm.

• play the video backwards & students then discuss what happened. Play forwards to confirm.

• one half of the class view the section of video with the sound off & the other half with no picture but with the sound on. After, pair up one student from each group to explain what they heard & saw.

• fast forward - show the video sequence, eg. news broadcast on fast forward. Students predict what sequence is to be about. Follow up with comprehension task & showing at normal speed.

• prediction - freeze the picture just before something is going to happen and ask for prediction. Could be without sound for actions, with for predicting speech.

• viewing for pleasure - you should be able to gauge their comprehension by their reactions, esp. if humorous.

• interesting sounds - students listen to sounds on sequence with monitor turned round. Students invent the story for sounds & then watch the sequence to compare with own ideas.

• half a dialogue - choose a sequence consisting of a dialogue between two people. Transcribe one person's part only, creating a gapped dialogue. Play the sequence with the sound off a couple of times. Students try and fill in the second person's part. Play sequence as much as necessary. Finally watch with sound on & students compare with their version.

• act out - write out 10-20 lines of dialogue from a video sequence, omitting characters (who's speaking) and punctuation. Students punctuate dialogue and decide who are the characters, where they are, etc. students act out dialogue in groups. Compare with actual scene on video. Good for lower levels.

A lot of these ideas can be found in the following books:

'Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom' by Jane Sherman (CUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521799619
/developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521799619/
developingteac0b

'Video' by Cooper, Lavery and Rinvolucri (OUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194371026/
developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194371026/
developingteac0b

'Film' by Susan Stempleski & Barry Tomalin (OUP)
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194372316/
developingteache
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194372316/
developingteac0b

There are lots more things you can do with video & the more you use it the more will occur to you. Happy viewing!

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International Women's Day
To mark Women's Day - on 8th March, here is some material taken, with permission, from the United Nations Cyber School Bus website with ideas on how to use it.
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips48.htm

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Any more ideas? Please post for all in the Forums at:
http://forum.developingteachers.com/index.php?topic=1935.0

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