Becoming a cinema director

Welcome to this amazing new learning adventure that presents some language contents to learn and practise the English language with a wide range of  ICT resources.

In this project, you are going to learn about the basic steps to create and produce your own short film, which is this project's final challenge.

JanBaby. Cine (CC0)

Along with this, you will  learn about vocabulary on cinema, place names, prepositions of time and place, past time expressions and adjectives to describe people and characters. You will also revise present and past tenses and useful expressions in conversational English.

By working on all these contents, you will be able to write and talk about films and, what is more, to create and produce your own short film. Challenging, isn't it?

Let's get started!

Open Educational Resource by EDIA Project de Cedec.

English. Compulsory Secondary Education.

Author: María José Alcaina Fort.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

About the project

Our project. General information

The final challenge of this project is the production and promotion of your own short film. But before that, you need to surf different websites and overcome several missions that will help you gain knowledge and acquire strategies.

Collaborative work is highlighted in this project, which means you will mainly acquire knowledge by working in pairs or small groups. Likewise, you will also work individually on interactive activities to which you will access by clicking on the website links provided.

Do not forget that your teacher can help you whenever necessary on your way towards the big final challenge.

Stokpic. Ordenador portátil (CC0)

 It is advisable that you read some general information about this resource before you start working so that you learn about the objectives that you will need to achieve and the tools and applications with which you will fulfil your tasks or missions. You will also know about some aspects on the evaluation of your work and how to use Your learning diary. Click on the titles below for detailed information.

Your Work

The missions that you will have done at the end of this project are:

The creation and presentation of a film billboard.

A Google map based on film locations.

A timeline based on real facts recreated in films.

The preparation of dialogues for several scenes in a short film.

The final challenge which consists of the edition of a short film and its promotion at a film festival and on the Internet.

Tools and Apps

To create, design and edit your work, you will be able to use the following apps, among others.

Cacoo, an online tool with which you will create word maps to work on key vocabulary.

Canva, which will enable you to design and create your own charts and posters.

StoryboardThat. You will use this online app to prepare the drafts for your presentations. 

Google Slides, to create slide presentations.

Google maps, to create a location map based on films.

Sutori. This enables you to create digital timelines.

Audacity, A voice based learning tool.

Wevideo, the tool with which you will create and edit your big final challenge: a short film,which will be published on a YouTube channel. If you prefer, you can find other video-editing tools at the edtechteacher.org site.

Kdenlive. Video editor

Magisto movie. Video editor for mobile phones.

Promoting your work

Notice that you will be performing several missions and we are sure that, by the end of this resource, you will be proud of your great work, which you can prepare, publish or share with the help of the online tools and apps listed below.

To publish, you will use Weebly site. An email account is required to create your own site where you will be posting all your missions. Within this site, you will create a blog entitled 'Your learning diary' in which you will be including relevant information concerning your learning process.

To share your work with other people, you will use Pinterest, a digital board where you can publish your tasks and share them with your classmates.

Throughout the project, your teacher may award you with a badge from Open Badges in case of excellent performance.

Assessment

Your progress on this project will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Teacher's evaluation: your teacher will use the assessment rubrics to evaluate your work on the missions and the final challenge.

''Rubric for assessing a digital poster' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing a presentation' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric to assess a digital map' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing a timeline' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric to assess a classroom video' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing your digital site'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf). This refers to your Weebly site where you will publish all your work of this and other projects.

Peer evaluation: you will assess other partners by creating your own assessment sheet with the items that you consider as appropriate or by using the assessment rubrics listed above. 

You will self-evaluate the final outcome using the document 'Rubric to assess the project Becoming a cinema director' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf). This rubric brings together the main criteria for assessing your missions and challenge.

Teacher's observation in class will be based on your degree of participation in the project and how well you perform all the missions. 

As you can see, you will get entirely involved in this project by acquiring, creating and sharing contents as well as assessing both, your own andyour classmates' learning progres.

Learning diary

You will learn more meaningfully if you reflect on your work progress throughout this project. In your Weebly site, you will create a blog entitled "Becoming a cinema director", which will be Your Learning Diary. Here, you will answer several questions and will become aware of your efficient work and of the difficulties that you find in each mission and in the final challenge.

Final remarks.Your work on this resource will help you develop your linguistic competence as you will be presented some language aspects that you will practise in several reading, listening, writing and speaking activities. Here, you will also have the chance to develop your autonomy in your learning process and to work in a collaborative way with your classmates. Besides, you can broaden your digital competence with the online tools and apps suggested to carry out your work.

Learning diary

After reading the general information about this project, we encourage you to reflect on the work that you are going to do. It is time to start creating your Learning Diary. It will help you reflect on what you are learning and, most important, what the best way of learning is.

Make a first post on your blog/diary  entitled 'About the project' and type/write your answers for the questions in Writing the post. 

Remember that if you use a Weebly website, you have the possibility to create a blog which you will entitle 'Becoming a cinema director'. This is going to be your Learning Diary.

Another option is to use a personal notebook where you can write down your reflections on your own learning process.

Feedback

In your post 'About the project',  type/write your answers for the questions below.

Which is the final product?

How are we going to get organized in the classroom?

What resources am I going to use and create?

What do I have to achieve to overcome the mission?

From my point of view, what aspects or tasks are the most important to be developed in this project? What do I expect to learn throughout this work project?

What doubts do I still have?

Is it clear for me how to access and manage the site where I will be publishing all my work based on this and other projects?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Going to the movies

Your favourite films

Going to the cinema is a popular free time activity. Choosing one film to watch may be sometimes difficult if you like all kinds of films. In this mission, you will learn to talk about different types of films and will create and present a film billboard.

At the end of this section, you will have...

Learnt and revised vocabulary on types of films.

Listened to a conversation about going to the cinema.

Performed a dialogue on going to the cinema.

Designed and presented a film billboard.

The film industry offers new films every year to entertain the audience. Action, horror or romantic films, among other types, are regularly produced and showed at cinemas. Watch the following video based on film genres and comment with a classmate on the type/-s of films that you both prefer and justify your choice.

Khrystyna Khyzhun. movie genres - trailers (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

Get some help on the film genre site. To describe films, you can find useful information on the IELTSLIZ.com site.

Leading activities: Going to the cinema

The activities presented below will help you acquire key vocabulary and useful language to perform successfully your first mission within this project. They are your first steps towards the final challenge of this project: the production and promotion of a short film.

Activity 1: Identifying key vocabulary (Listening)

Listen to a conversation at the learnenglishteen.britishcouncil.org site and check your oral comprehension by answering the questions below.

What type of film are they going to see?

What is the film about?

Activity 2: Going to the cinema (Roleplay)

Perform your own dialogue with a classmate about going to the cinema. On the bridge-online worksheet, you can find some useful language. To prepare the dialogue, you can choose film titles from the article about the top 25 films of all times.

Make sure you can use film-related vocabulary because you are going to need it in the mission you are about to start.

Activity 3: Reinforcing your vocabulary (Poster creation)

Sign in at Canva and create a poster on one of your favourite films. Include the title, attractive images and a two-line plot summary  Share your film poster with your classmates on  Pinterest. Remember to attach a photo illustrating the film when you post it. Publish your poster on a page that you will entitle 'My digital Resources' in your Weebly site.

Extra resources

Talking about movies video

Film-related vocabulary. Interactive activity I,Interactive activity II

Film review-Useful language

A plot summary is a synopsis of a book, play or film's story.

A film billboard

Let us see if you are able to perform successfully the mission consisting of creating a billboard announcing several films for a future film festival at your school. In this mission, you are going to work collaboratively with three other classmates from your classgroup.

Webster2703. Star Wars (CC0)

Please, click on the titles below and read carefully the information to do the mission accurately.

Your work

Get together in groups of four students.

Show the students in your group the poster you have created in the previous section and explain to them what the story is about and why you like it

Create original fact files on every film with the following sections: title, film genre, cast, a two-line film plot and grading (from 1 to 5 stars). 

Design a poster with Canva.com or any other online tool. In this poster, insert all the fact files and nice pictures illustrating the films announced.

Practise as much as you can before you present your billboard. Try to use typical language for reviewing a film. The expressions and tips included in the teachingenglish.org site can help you.

On a fixed day, you will present your billboard in your class taking turns to explain the film each member of the group has chosen. The Filmclub page presents useful cinema-related vocabulary that you can use in your presentation.

Finish your presentation with a remark on what people can learn from each film.

Let your classmates vote for the best film billboard.

Work evaluation

Your individual and group work will be assessed by your teacher taking into consideration the 'Rubric for assessing a digital poster'' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf) and Rubric for assessing a presentation'. (download in editable odt format, download in pdf) . You will also have the chance to evaluate your classmates' work using the same rubric or other criteria that you and your teacher consider as appropriate for this mission.

Work promotion

Publish your billboard (copy and paste the URL link) on the page entitled 'My Digital Resources'  in your Weebly site. You can share your work with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany your post with an image.

A collection of information about a particular subject or product.

A billboard is a very large board on which posters are displayed.

The actors in a film, play, or show.

Learning diary

We hope you finished this first mission successfully.

Make a new post on your blog/diary with the title 'Going to the movies' and type/write your answers..

Remember that if you use a  Weebly website, you have the possibility to create a blog which you will entitle 'Becoming a cinema director'. This is going to be your Learning Diary.

Another option is to use a personal notebook where you can write down your reflections on your own learning process.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering the following questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Shot on location

About places

Finding locations for shooting a film is one of the first tasks that film makers do before they start filmiing. A lot of films are set in real settings such as castles, blocks of offices, parks, houses or museums, among others. In this mission, you are going to create a Google map based on film locations.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Learnt about place-related names.

Practised how to locate people and things in space.

Created and presented a Google map.

pen-ash. Castillo de Hogwarts (CC0)

Leading activities: talking about locations 

The activities below will help you acquire the necessary knowledge to perform the mission correctly.

Activity 1: Checking your knowledge

For a start, click on the Forrest Gump's trailer and comment with a classmate on the questions below.

What places can you see on the video?

Where do you think the film is set?

What do you know about Forrest Gump, the character?

Think about one of your favourite films, Where is it located?

At the learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org site, you can learn and revise names of places in town. Also, you can revise and learn about the use of the most common prepositions of place on the ecenglish page.

On the Roughguide.com site, you can learn about film locations around the world.

Activity 2: Speaking about your favourite location

Tell a classmate about a location that you would like to visit because it appears on one of your favourite films. Follow the guidelines below to talk about this place.

Mention the film's title.

Say the place's name and where it is.

Add more information about the place. If you do not know much about it, search for relevant information on the Internet.

The expressions The film is set in... or The story takes place in... can help you talk about film settings.

Activity 3: Posting and sharing

Find a picture of this place and publish it on Pinterest. Type the information that you know about this place and share it with the rest of your classmates.

Extra resources

The video entitled Settings are characters too presents famous films and points out the importance of locations in films.

Interactive activity on prepositions of place.

Video on How to read maps

It is important that you learn about how to refer to places in films because this will be an important point in the mission you are about to start.

A person represented in a film, play, or story.

An actual place or natural setting in which a film is made.

The place and time at which a play, novel, or film is represented.

Represented (a story, play, film, or scene) as happening at a specified time or in a specified place.

Your map location

In this second mission, you and your classmates are going to create a map with the locations of a film.

You will work collaboratively using the Google maps. By working on this task, you will learn not only about cinema but also about Geography and above all, you will check how much you can learn by working in a team.

Tero Vesalainen. Mapa (CC0)

Important: please, read carefully the information in the headings below, where you will find out what you must do, how your work will be assessed and how you should promote it.

Your work

Get together in groups of four students and agree on a film that you all like. Remember that the film must contain several shot on location  scenes. The movie map and the Movie location pages may be useful if you are not sure about what film to select.

Look for information on the places that appear on the film.

With a Google account, enter Google maps and create your own map entitled "Film location map". Search places from the film in the map search bar. When you find what you’re looking for, click on the icon that looks like a balloon to add a marker. Put your cursor over the location and click to add the marker. A screen will appear where you can title the marker, add a description and links. By clicking on the camera icon, you can add videos or photos.

Be sure to save changes.

Make your map public or send the link to your teacher.

You and your classmates will present your map on a fixed day in your classroom. Each member in the group will present a scene location. First, show your classmates the film scenes on which you have based your map. Then, start your presentation of the places. You may find useful the expressions below.

The film is set in…(place / time).
The scene's shot on location in... (place name).
The characters are.... (say what they are doing) in that place).

Use some adjectives to describe these places from the list on ESOLcourses page.

Practise as much as you can before presenting your map.

Work evaluation

The map that you and your classmates will create will be assessed by your teacher following the criteria included in the Rubric to assess a digital map' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf)

The way you present your map will be assessed considering the criteria in the Rubric for assessing a presentation'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Remember that you can evaluate other groups' work with the same criteria in these two rubrics. If you think that some criteria are missing, do not hesitate to tell your teacher and consider them to evaluate your classmates.

Work promotion

Publish your map on the page 'My Digital Resources'  in your Weebly site. You can share it with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany your post with an image.

When you finish your work, do not forget to open your learning diary and answer the questions on how you think you performed your own part and your classmates'.

Not filmed in a studio, but in real places.

Learning diary

How is it going? Open again your Learning Diary and create a new post on your blog entitled 'Shot on location'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering the following questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

A matter of time

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.

skeeze. Película (CC0)

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)

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

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

20th Century Studios. Titanic 25th Anniversary | Official Trailer (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

Schindler's list

Universal Pictures. Schindler's List 25th Anniversary - Official Trailer - In Theaters December 7 (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

Elizabeth

Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers. Elizabeth Official Trailer #1 - Richard Attenborough Movie (1998) HD (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

Gandhi

Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers. Gandhi (1982) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

Hidden figures

20th Century Studios. Hidden Figures | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

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

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

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.

A fact timeline

You and your classmates are going to work on the following mission in a collaborative way. In this case, we suggest that you create and design a timeline based on a film that you all agree to watch. With this task, you will be able to apply the main language contents presented in the section above.

Janbaby. Cine (CC0)

Please, click on the headings below to find out concise information about your work, how it will be assessed and the ways in which you can promote it. 

Your work

In groups of four students, decide on a film's title to watch. The film can be a historical drama or a film based on real facts.

Watch the film at home. You can meet your group mates to watch the film together.

Write down notes of the main events that happen in the film. Do not forget to write down the time when each event happens.

With your email account, create a draft with storyboardthat.

Search for more detailed information on the internet about the time period on which the film story was based.

Agree with your classmates on the main facts that happened at that time and find related illustrations or videos to include in your timeline.

When you finish your draft with all the contents, create a timeline using an online application such as sutori or any other application. Click on the Middle Ages timeline to see an example of what you have to do.

On a fixed day, you and your classmates will present your timeline in front of your classgroup and teacher. For the presentation, consider the following points:

Introduce the film's title and the time when it was made and released.

Refer to the fact/-s on which the film is based.

Take turns to present the sequence of events in your timeline.

Summarize your presentation with a reflection on why the event/fact was so important in history.

Practise as much as possible before your presentation.

Work evaluation

Your team work in this mission will be evaluated with the criteria found in the Rubric for assessing a timeline'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

The way you present your timeline will be also evaluated considering the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing an oral presentation' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Work promotion

Publish your timeline on the page enltitled  'My digital resources' of your Weebly site. Share the timeline link with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach an image to the link.

After presenting all the timelines, the classgroup will vote for the best and most interesting presentation.

After completing the mission, remember to open your learning diary and answer the questions to help you reflect on your learning progress.

Learning diary

It is very important that you reflect on how you felt while you were learning the contents to create your timeline.

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'A  matter of time'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering the following questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Playing with roles

First encounters

Interaction among characters in a film is essential to develop a film story. Can you remember famous phrases or words by characters in films? Who were they talking to? Your work in this section will be about the creation of dialogues for different scenes.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Watched and listened to casual dialogues in films.

Practised conversational English.

Revised adjectives to describe people.

Located places for filming scenes.

Created conversations among characters.

Filmed and presented several scenes.

3dman_eu. Hablar (CC0)

Leading activities: working on dialogues

The activities that you will find below will help you create and develop informal dialogues for several film scenes, which is the mission of this section.

Activity 1: Watch, comment and listen

For a start, watch the first two minutes of the short film entitled Post it with no sound and imagine what the characters are saying.

With a classmate, guess the answers to the following questions.

Do the boy and the girl know each other?

What are they talking about?

Is the conversation formal or informal?

Watch the video entirely a second time with sound and check your answers. Comment with your classmate on the questions below.

How can you describe these characters' personality? Revise personality adjectives on the Grammarbank.com site.

What do they look like? Enter the englishwsheets.com page and revise how to describe physical appearance.

Activity 2: Socializing

With a partner, suggest other ways of starting the conversation between the two characters. Think of expressions they could use to greet, introduce themselves and say goodbye. You can find some help on the ESOLcourses.com site and on the BBC World Service page.

It is important that you practise social English expressions because you are going to use them in the dialogues that you will create for your short film.

Activity 3: About your favourite scene

Use the online tool Canva to create a poster based on a film scene that you like. Include in the poster a description of the scene and a photo or clip. Add adjectives to describe the characters' personality and physical appearance.

Publish your poster on the page entitled "My digital resources" of your Weebly site and share it with your classmates on Pinterest.

Extra resources

Enter the eslflow.com site and practise some conversational English.

On the  ESOLcourses.com site, you can find more personality adjectives.

Appearance and personality adjectives (List).

Describing people (Conversations)

Filming scenes

The mission you are about to start is based on planning and filming a short film, which is the final challenge of this project.

MikesPhotos. Arte (CC0)

First, you will work individually and then with three other classmates.

Please, click on the headings below and follow the instructions to do the mission accurately.

Your work

Individually, film a place with your phone camera that will be the setting of one scene in the film that you and your classmates are going to produce.

Get together in groups of four and show the images to your groupmates. Tell them why you like this place and what tyoe of scene you can film there.

Agree on a film story and the characters that are going to take part in the film. Decide what event will happen and what the characters will say in each setting. Remember that you need to have at least four different shots. Each group can then discuss these and use them to come up with a story.

You can use storyboardthat for your project's draft.

Write down an introduction to your film story and develop an informal conversation among the characters.

Distribute the roles among you all and practise the scenes as much as possible.

Go back to the places/locations that you filmed. Film the scenes with the actors performing their roles.

On a fixed day, you will present your film scenes in front of your classgroup. In your presentation, consider the points below:

Introduce the topic of your short film.

Refer to the setting (time and place).

Describe the characters' personality and physical appearance.

While presenting, show images of your film scenes but do not play them.

Invite your classgroup to suggest an end for your film story.

Work evaluation

The way you present the information on your filmed scenes will be assessed by your teacher with the items in the 'Rubric for assessing a presentation'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

You will finish the production and edition of your film in the next section (A film festival). When it is ready, your teacher will be able to assess your performance as actors/actresses in the film scenes considering your intonation, pronunciation, content (grammar and vocabulary), fluency.and interaction with other characters.

Work promotion

Upload the scene films  to your Google drive. Get a link and publish it on the page entitled 'My digital resources' in your Weebly site Share the link to your film scene section with your teacher and classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach a picture to the link.

After completing your mission, enter your learning diary and answer the questions so that you can reflect on your learning process.

Learning diary

We hope you finished your mission successfully.

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'Playing with roles'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering the following questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

A film festival

Organizing a film festival

In the previous sections, you have worked on some basic elements to create and produce a film. In this final part of the project, you and your classmates will prepare and organize a real film festival to show your own short films within the school community.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Edited all the scenes for your short film.

Organized and promoted a film festival at your school.

Promoted your short film on social networks.

Reflected on how much you have learnt by working on this project.

As you did in the other missions of the project, you are going  to work on the final challenge with three other students. Remember that you and your classmates can learn a lot by working together.

27707. Películas (CC0)

Please, read the steps in the section below to perform the final challenge of this project.

Film Premiere

This project's final challenge includes two main steps:

Getting your film ready

Promoting a film festival 

Your work on the final challenge will be assessed by your teacher with the criteria included in the 'Rubric to assess the project Becoming a cinema director' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

OpenClipart-Vectors. Cine (CC0)

Please, follow the ideas that we suggest you to complete the challenge.

Steps for the challenge

For preparing the film festival, you and the members of your group first need to edit your short film with a computer.

Remember to include in your film a title, credits and music adequate for the film topic You can also use some image effects available in the video editor that you use.

Create a poster similar to the one that you designed in the"Going to the movies"section. In this case, your poster will be based on your own short film.The poster will include a title, a two-line plot summary, actors and actresses' names and an attractive phrase to attract the audience's interest.

Coordinate with other groups and design an official poster for the film festival. Include information about when and where people at your school can view the films.

Copy the URL links to your short film poster and the festival poster and post them on the page entitled 'My digital resources' of your Weebly site. Share them on Pinterest with the people you like by attaching an image.

Activities to promote your work

You have made a great effort to complete all the missions and the challenge within this project. At this final stage, we encourage you to show it to as many people as possible. The promotion of your project is a very important part of your work. Otherwise, what is the point in doing such hard work if nobody knows about it? 

Copy the URL link to your short film and post it on the page entitled 'My digital resources' of your  Weebly site. Share it on Pinterest with your classmates by attaching an image.

Why don't you show all your work to your family, friends and  school mates? Your teacher will create a film channel on YouTube where you can upload your short film.

You can put flyers on the school walls announcing and promoting your film premiere. Include the link to the site where it can be viewed. 

We want you to promote it by using the social network Pinterest. Your teacher will create a board and will invite you to collaborate by inserting the link to your short film. Remember to insert an image related to the film. You will find out the number of people that pin it, which means they like it.

Another promotional activity can be done by using your own school web page. Your teacher will create a page entitled 'English Portfolio - 2nd Year CSE'  in your school website and will include the links to your own Weebly site and to your classmates'. This would be not only a good way of promoting your work within your school community, but also a way of reaching a higher number of people interested in learning English through collaborative projects.

Another possibility is that you present your short film at a real film festival. You could send your film to the Kid film festival, for example. Here you could nominate other films that you like or you could even win an award!!

Any other ideas? Can you imagine other ways of promoting your work?.

Resources

As a film maker and producer, you can choose among a great variety of video editing tools for making your short film. Find below some apps and tutorials on video edition.

How to create and edit a video with Wevideo.

How to create and edit a video with Kdenlive.

Magisto movie editor for mobile phones

Learning diary - project assessment

Your participation in this project will be completely finished after you evaluate your own experience all along your learning process. 

You will create the final post entitled: "A film festival. Assessing the project". Here, reflect on your work and answer the key questions below.

Feedback

At this point, it could be very useful for you to focus on these questions:

What final task have you done?

What have you learnt?

Knowledge

Skills

Values & Principles

How have you learnt?

What tasks and activities have you carried out?

What has been the most original in your opinion?

What has been the easiest task? And the most difficult? Why?

How has my team worked? What could be improved?

Do you like this way of working on the English subject? Why?

What do you think that can be improved in other projects? What do you think that has to remain the same?

Did you have the same difficulties as your classmates in the accomplishment of the missions?

Has collaborative work been a positive experience to you? Why / why not?

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Didactic Guidelines -

Didactic proposal

Becoming a Cinema Director is an OER included in the series What a Digital World! which is addressed to EFL students of the 2nd year of CSE. However, as a teacher, you can  implement this material on other levels by adapting or modifying  its contents. 

With this resource, students will go into the world of cinema and, apart from acquiring linguistic knowledge of the English Language, they will have the chance to gain some basic notions on how to make a film. They will find locations, will research in history to set the storyline in a specific period of time, will write scripts for dialogues and will learn how to edit and produce a short film.

This project will enable students to learn and develop contents, procedures and attitudes related to the basic knowledge areas of communication, multilingualism and intercultural values of the new educational curriculum. 

Download this Didactic Guideline in editable format or in PDF.

By working on this resource, students will face some individual activities, but also some collaborative tasks and a final project in which they will use all their knowledge and will demonstrate how able they are to develop and consolidate some specific and key competences in several  learning situations similar to those in which people may get involved in real life.

Becoming a Cinema Director has been designed to achieve the following objectives:

to learn while working on a project.

to encourage collaborative work, since most assignments require information sharing and interaction with other students.

to foster students' self-learning process by using IT resources.

to reinforce students' communicative skills through activities of listening and reading comprehension, but above all, through tasks in which they must produce their own oral and written messages.

The project includes several stages that students will need to go through to eventually do the final challenge based on the production of a short film. Within this learning resource, relevant language contents can be practised and a wide range of tasks  (named missions in this OER) is presented so that students get encouraged to practise and improve the linguistic skills required for their final output.

About the project is the first section of the project containing information about the channels that students will use to publish and share all their work as we think that they will be happy to showcase their outputs to both, familiy and classmates. From the wide range of websites and social networks available, we suggest that students have their own site at weebly.com, just like a portfolio, where they can post all their work and complete a Learning diary that will help them reflect on their own learning process.

Encourage students to design their site following a clear structure. Their site must contain at least these pages:

Homepage, the first and main page which must include a title, index, images and a description of the project.

My writing guide. This page will include all the student's writing tasks and tips for good writing.

Key vocabulary . Students will include here links to the wordmaps and charts that they create using key vocabulary.

My digital resources.. On this page, students will publish the links to the digital material that they will have created in their tasks like the creation of a billboard announcing some films and the design of a timeline on which to base a storyline.

On the other hand, students can use Pinterest to share their outcome with the people they like. Google drive apps will be also used for writing texts and preparing presentations collaborativelly. Besides, students can collect and add notes about vocabulary and grammar using online tools such as Cacoo and Canva.

The other stages of this resource are listed in the Learning Path section of this didactic guideline. In this section, we include the learning objectives  as well as the recommended timing for each stage of the project.

Curricular Framework

Competencias clave

Competencia en comunicación lingüística (CCL) 

Competencia Plurilingüe (CP)

Competencia en conciencia y expresiones culturales (CEC) 

Competencia digital (CD) 

Competencia personal, social y de aprender a aprender (CPSAA) 

Competencia ciudadana (CC) 

Competencia emprendedora (CE)

Competencias específicas y criterios de evaluación

Competencia específica 1: Comprender e interpretar el sentido general y los detalles más relevantes de textos expresados de forma clara y en la lengua estándar

Criterios de evaluación
1.1. Interpretar y analizar el sentido global y la información específica y explícita de textos orales, escritos y multimodales breves y sencillos sobre temas frecuentes y cotidianos, de relevancia personal y próximos a la experiencia del alumnado

1.2. Seleccionar, organizar y aplicar de forma guiada las estrategias y conocimientos más adecuados en situaciones comunicativas cotidianas para comprender el sentido general, la información esencial y los detalles más relevantes de los textos.

Competencia específica 2: Producir textos originales, de extensión media, sencillos y con una organización clara, usando estrategias tales como la planificación, la compensación o la autorreparación, para expresar de forma creativa, adecuada y coherente mensajes relevantes y responder a propósitos comunicativos concretos.

Criterios de evaluación

2.1. Expresar oralmente textos breves, sencillos, estructurados, comprensibles y adecuados a la situación comunicativa sobre asuntos cotidianos y frecuentes, de relevancia para el alumnado

2.2. Organizar y redactar textos breves y comprensibles con aceptable claridad, coherencia, cohesión y adecuación a la situación comunicativa propuesta, siguiendo pautas establecidas, a través de herramientas analógicas y digitales.

2.3. Seleccionar, organizar y aplicar de forma guiada conocimientos y estrategias para planificar, producir y revisar textos comprensibles, coherentes y adecuados a las intenciones comunicativas.

Competencia específica 3: Interactuar con otras personas con creciente autonomía, usando estrategias de cooperación y empleando recursos analógicos y digitales, para responder a propósitos comunicativos concretos en intercambios respetuosos con las normas de cortesía.

Criterios de evaluación

3.1. Planificar y participar en situaciones interactivas breves y sencillas sobre temas cotidianos, de relevancia personal y próximos a la experiencia del alumnado.

3.2. Seleccionar y utilizar, de forma guiada y en entornos próximos, estrategias elementales para saludar, despedirse y presentarse; expresar mensajes sencillos y breves; y formular y contestar preguntas básicas para la comunicación.

Competencia específica 4: Mediar en situaciones cotidianas entre distintas lenguas, usando estrategias y conocimientos sencillos orientados a explicar conceptos o simplificar mensajes, para transmitir información de manera eficaz, clara y responsable.

Criterios de evaluación

4.1 Inferir y explicar textos, conceptos y comunicaciones breves y sencillas en situaciones en las que atender a la diversidad, mostrando respeto y empatía por interlocutores e interlocutoras y por las lenguas empleadas, e interés por participar en la solución de problemas de intercomprensión y de entendimiento en el entorno próximo, apoyándose en diversos recursos y soportes.

4.2. Aplicar, de forma guiada, estrategias que ayuden a crear puentes y faciliten la comprensión y producción de información y la comunicación, adecuadas a las intenciones comunicativas, usando recursos y apoyos físicos o digitales en función de las necesidades de cada momento.

Competencia específica 5: Ampliar y usar los repertorios lingüísticos personales entre distintas lenguas, reflexionando de forma crítica sobre su funcionamiento y tomando conciencia de las estrategias y conocimientos propios, para mejorar la respuesta a necesidades comunicativas concretas.

Criterios de evaluación

5.1. Comparar y contrastar las semejanzas y diferencias entre distintas lenguas reflexionando de manera progresivamente autónoma sobre su funcionamiento.

5.2. Utilizar y diferenciar los conocimientos y estrategias de mejora de la capacidad de comunicar y de aprender la lengua extranjera con apoyo de otros participantes y de soportes analógicos y digitales.

5.3. Identificar y registrar, siguiendo modelos, los progresos y dificultades de aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera, seleccionando de forma guiada las estrategias más eficaces para superar esas dificultades y progresar en el aprendizaje, realizando actividades de autoevaluación y coevaluación.

Competencia específica 6: Valorar críticamente y adecuarse a la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística a partir de la lengua extranjera, identificando y compartiendo las semejanzas y las diferencias entre lenguas y culturas, para actuar de forma empática y respetuosa en situaciones interculturales.

Criterios de evaluación

6.1. Actuar de forma empática y respetuosa en situaciones interculturales construyendo vínculos entre las diferentes lenguas y culturas.

6.2. Aceptar y adecuarse a la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística propia de países donde se habla la lengua extranjera, reconociéndola como fuente de enriquecimiento personal.

6.3 Aplicar, de forma guiada, estrategias para explicar y apreciar la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística, atendiendo a valores ecosociales y democráticos y respetando los principios de justicia, equidad e igualdad.

Saberes básicos

A. Comunicación

Autoconfianza. El error como instrumento de mejora y propuesta de reparación.

Estrategias básicas para la planificación, ejecución, control y reparación de la comprensión, la producción y la coproducción de textos orales, escritos y multimodales.

Conocimientos, destrezas y actitudes que permitan detectar y colaborar en actividades de mediación en situaciones cotidianas sencillas.

Funciones comunicativas básicas adecuadas al ámbito y al contexto comunicativo: reseñar una película, expresar gustos y preferencias, hacer sugerencias, saludar de manera formal y casual, conversar de manera casual.

Modelos contextuales y géneros discursivos básicos en la comprensión, producción y coproducción de textos orales, escritos y multimodales, breves y sencillos, literarios y no literarios: características y reconocimiento del contexto (participantes y situación), expectativas generadas por el contexto; organización y estructuración según el género y la función textual. Textos dialógicos.

Unidades lingüísticas básicas y significados asociados a dichas unidades tales el espacio y las relaciones espaciales, tiempos verbales en pasado, Pasiva en Presente y en Pasado; preposiciones de lugar, preposiciones de tiempo.

Léxico de uso común y de interés para el alumnado: tipos de películas, adjetivos para describir películas y para describir personas, nombres de lugares, saludos.

Patrones sonoros, acentuales, rítmicos y de entonación básicos, y significados e intenciones comunicativas generales asociadas a dichos patrones.

Convenciones ortográficas básicas y significados e intenciones comunicativas asociados a los formatos, patrones y elementos gráficos.

Convenciones y estrategias conversacionales básicas, en formato síncrono o asíncrono, para iniciar, mantener y terminar la comunicación, tomar y ceder la palabra, pedir y dar aclaraciones y explicaciones, reformular, comparar y contrastar, resumir, colaborar, debatir, etc.

Recursos para el aprendizaje y estrategias básicas de búsqueda de información: diccionarios, libros de consulta, bibliotecas, recursos digitales e informáticos, etc.

Identificación de la autoría de las fuentes consultadas y los contenidos utilizados.

Herramientas analógicas y digitales básicas para la comprensión, producción y coproducción oral, escrita y multimodal; y plataformas virtuales de interacción, cooperación y colaboración educativa (aulas virtuales, videoconferencias, herramientas digitales colaborativas, etc.) para el aprendizaje, la comunicación y el desarrollo de proyectos con hablantes o estudiantes de la lengua extranjera.

B. Plurilingüismo

Estrategias y técnicas para responder eficazmente a una necesidad comunicativa básica y concreta de forma comprensible, a pesar de las limitaciones derivadas del nivel de competencia en la lengua extranjera y en las demás lenguas del repertorio lingüístico propio.

Estrategias básicas para identificar, organizar, retener, recuperar y utilizar creativamente unidades lingüísticas (léxico, morfosintaxis, patrones sonoros, etc.) a partir de la comparación de las lenguas y variedades que conforman el repertorio lingüístico personal.

Estrategias y herramientas básicas de autoevaluación y coevaluación, analógicas y digitales, individuales y cooperativas.

Léxico y expresiones de uso común para comprender enunciados sobre la comunicación, la lengua, el aprendizaje y las herramientas de comunicación y aprendizaje (metalenguaje).

Comparación básica entre lenguas a partir de elementos de la lengua extranjera y otras lenguas: origen y parentescos.

C. Interculturalidad

La lengua extranjera como medio de comunicación interpersonal e internacional, como fuente de información y como herramienta para el enriquecimiento personal.

Interés e iniciativa en la realización de intercambios comunicativos a través de diferentes medios con hablantes o estudiantes de la lengua extranjera.

Aspectos socioculturales y sociolingüísticos básicos relativos a la vida cotidiana, las condiciones de vida y las relaciones interpersonales; convenciones sociales básicas; lenguaje no verbal, cortesía lingüística y etiqueta digital; cultura, costumbres y valores propios de países donde se habla la lengua extranjera.

Estrategias básicas para entender y apreciar la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística, atendiendo a valores ecosociales y democráticos.

Estrategias básicas de detección y actuación ante usos discriminatorios del lenguaje verbal y no verbal.

Becoming a Cinema Director

(Intro to resource)

About the project

Going to the Movies

Shot on Location

A Matter of Time

Playing with Roles

A Film Festival

CCL
-

X
X
X
 X
X

CP
-
X
X
X
X
X
X

STEM
-

X

X

CD
-
X
X
X
X
X
X

CPSAA
-

X
X
X
 X
 X

CC
-

X

CE
-

X

 X

CCEC
-

X
X
X
X
X

Competencia en comunicación lingüística (CCL), Competencia plurilingüe (CP), Competencia matemática, ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería (STEM), Competencia digital (CD), Competencia personal, social y de aprender a aprender (CPSAA), Competencia ciudadana(CC), Competencia emprendedora (CE), Competencia en conciencia y expresión culturales (CCEC)

Learning Path

Section

Objectives

Sessions

Becoming a Cinema Director

Introduce the topic to students.

 1 session

About the Project

Make students become familiar with the structure of the project and the tools they will use to perform, publish and self-assess the tasks and the final challenge.

Going to the movies

Learn and revise vocabulary on types of films.

Listen to a conversation about going to the cinema.

Perform a dialogue on going to the cinema.

Design and present a film billboard.

2 sessions

Shot on Location

Learn about place-related names.

Practise how to locate people and things in space.

Create and present a Google map.

 1 session

A Matter of Time

Learn about classical films in Hollywood.

Learn about some historical facts from films.

Practise and revise Past Simple tenses and time expressions.

Learn about the use of the Passive in Present simple and Past simple.

Design and present a timeline on a fact in history.

3 sessions

Playing with Roles

Watch and listen to casual dialogues in films.

Practise conversational English.

Revise adjectives to describe people.

Locate places for filming scenes.

Create conversations among characters.

Film and present several scenes.

 2-3 sessions

A Film Festival

Edit all the scenes for a short film.

Organize and promote a film festival at school.

Promote students' short film on social networks.

Reflect on how much students have learnt by working on this project.

2-3 sessions

The tasks and the final challenge in this resource can be approached from several didactic departments working in a collaborative way. Here, we suggest some ways in which different departments could contribute.

We consider Multilingualism as really important as we think that students can enrich their linguistic learning and acquire intercultural values more easily if they develop their communicative competence not only in the official language/-s from where they live, but also in the foreign language/-s that they study. A way in which both, the English teacher and the Spanish teacher can coordinate their work together is by making students gather all the key words and expressions and write them in both languages so that they identify any English linguistic loans or linguistic calques  and reflect on the big influence of the English language on the Spanish language. Dubbing a scene from a film in several languages can also be fun for students and it can also serve as a technique to identify, organize, retain and use linguistic units  in a creative way.

The ITC Department can help students on the use of the different tools and apps that are required to carry out the students' outputs. 

In History, the teacher may encourage students to search for some important historical facts that have inspired films and design a timeline that serves as a resource on which students can explain what and when the historical facts happened.

One way or another, all the didactic departments can take action on the contents of this resource, think them over and suggest other optional tasks that facilitate students the acquisition of the linguistic contents included and the development of the key and specific competences contemplated in the curriculum of the English subject. 

Assessment

We highlight the formative character of the evaluation process within this resource. Along the project, teachers will be observing and monitoring the students' work and will use a system of rubrics to assess their performance in every task. These rubrics contain relevant criteria to detect any difficulties in the students'  competential development and, with the feedback that these tools provide, teachers can readjust contents and take action either way to help students  perform their work successfully.

The evaluation process will also have both, a diagnostic nature and a summative nature.. All in all, the students' work will be assessed throughout the whole learning process. Find below some more information about the stages in the assessment process.

At the beginning of the resource

Diagnostic assessment. Teachers can get some feedback from students by asking them some prompt questions so that they can check  the students' previous knowledge about the topic of this resource. Also, at this stage, teachers should inform students about the tools that will be used to assess their work, that is, rubrics, learning diary to assess students' own work and assessment sheets to evaluate their peers' work.

During the process

Teachers will assess their students' work by observation in class and they will use the rubrics listed below. These rubrics contain the relevant criteria to identify progress or difficulties in the students' leaning process.  Each rubric is  associated with a task in each section.

Rubric for assessing a digital poster.

Rubric for assessing a presentation.

Rubric to assess a digital map.

Rubric for assessing a timeline.

Rubric to assess a classroom video.

Rubric for assessing your digital site. This refers to Weebly site where students will publish all their work of this and other projects.

Apart from the rubrics, students will be able to self-assess their work by completing a learning diary  with which they can reflect on how well they are  doing.

Peer evaluation.  Throughout the project, students will be able to assess their classmates' work with an assessment sheet with the items that they consider as relevant. This assessing tool can enrich the learning process since students are required to take on a critical point of view and so they can contribute to improve their classmates' outputs.

At the end of the process

Summative evaluation. Considering that the final challenge of the project must gather the main contents that students have learnt and practiced, this OER  includes a final project rubric containing  the necessary items so that teachers check to what extent students are able to cope with the learning situation suggested in the last stage: the production and promotion of a short film.

Tips for teachers

As a teacher, you may feel free to use the entire resource or just the sections that best match your teaching demands and the real conditions of your class group. Notwithstanding, if you decide to use this resource in its totality, we recommend that you consider the guidelines below before your students start working on the contents.

Info about structure & contents

Each section features the learning objectives, the contents and the activities that students must do to eventually be able to perform a task. Make sure your students know about the nature of the different tasks and of the final challenge they will be carrying out. You can devote one or two lessons to clarify the different stages throughout the resource and the tools and apps which students are required to use to produce and promote their work.

Assessment info

Raise students' awareness about how and what you will consider to evaluate their work. Focus their attention on the rubrics of the different tasks and of the final challenge so that they get to know about the way their performance will be assessed.

Encourage students to use their learnig diary so that they can reflect on how well they are performing in their learning process.This learning diary may help students themselves  detect some learning difficulties that can be overcome with reinforcement activities facilitated by the teacher.

Within this resource, students can become teachers for a while and assess their classmates' outputs by designing and completing an assessment sheet with items that provide them with some feedback about their peers' performance. After completing this assessment sheet, you can have a class discussion with your students to analize the most common errors and the main difficulties that your class group has detected while analizing their peers' work.

Info about tools

Clearly, this resource fosters the use of digital devices and includes a wide range of apps to produce and share the students' outputs. However, in case that your students or school suffer from a digital divide, we encourage you to use this resource as a guide and  make students work in an analogic way by using cardboards instead of digital posters, notebooks for writing tasks and usable as learning diaries or your classroom notice board, which can be used to publish and share your pupils' work.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Credits and download -

Title | Becoming a cinema director | What a digital world!
Coordination | Centro Nacional de Desarrollo Curricular en Sistemas no Propietarios (Cedec)
Authorship | María José Alcaina Fort
License | Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0

This content was created with eXeLearning, your free and open source editor to create educational resources.

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Information on licensing and use

This open educational resource has got a CC BY-SA license and therefore it can be used, downloaded, modified and adapted, as long as the name of the creator is provided, and in case of being transformed and publishing a new version, it must be done under the same CC BY-SA license as the original.

The following text can be used to acknowledge authorship in case of modification of the resource:

This material is an adaptation of the original resource "Becoming a cinema director from Cedec's  EDIA project.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Resource feedback -

Help us improve this resource and take the EDIA Project questionnaire on this OER. Thanks for contributing.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)