Chita Rivera, a Broadway icon, has died age 91. Her first major role was originating the character of Anita in the original stage production of West Side Story in 1957. She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in Washington, D.C., in 1993 to a Puerto Rican father and a mother with Scottish-Irish origins. (Not … Continue reading “West Side Story Legend Dies”
Our resource for Shine Bright 2de accompanies File 4: “Mysteries in the Countryside”. You can find the illustrated map “Spooky Britain” in the textbook. This A2+-B1-level resource will guide your pupils to find out more about the locations on the map from a promotional text. A group activity aimed at enriching pupils’ vocabulary to help … Continue reading “Spooky Britain”
Netflix has released its own version of Poe’s famous Fall of the House of Usher in which gothic becomes horror in a modern-world setting with a whirlwind of characters and action. This is a perfect occasion for LLCER students to not only work on the short story itself but also compare it to the mini-series and … Continue reading “The Fall of the House of Usher TV Series”
New Zealand is a unique country, so it’s not surprising that its national day is unique too! New Zealand’s nearest big neighbour, Australia, is more than 4000 kilometres away. Because it is so isolated, it has some unique plants and animals, like the kiwi, a bird that can’t fly. People from New Zealand are often … Continue reading “Waitangi Day in New Zealand”
Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Color Purple was extremely unusual for having an almost entirely African-American cast. (Alice Walker, whose 1982 novel it is based on, was the first ever African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.) The film is an enduring classic, and the musical-theatre version of the story is now hitting … Continue reading “The Color Purple Returns”
While the Cartoon Museum in London is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the classic Aardman Animations film The Wrong Trousers, starring the inimitable Wallace and Gromit, a sequel to Chicken Run was released by Netflix on 15 December. A good opportunity for teachers to work on stop-motion animation films and familiar characters. Vocabulary and grammar … Continue reading “Wallace, Gromit and Chicken Run 2”
Bristol-based Aardman Animations made their reputation with short films and adverts using plasticine models brought to life with stop-motion animation. In 2000, they released Chicken Run, their first full feature-length film, a gargantuan task and a huge success. Twenty-three years later, they made a sequel! Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget picks up where the … Continue reading “Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget”
Poor Things, adapted into an award-winning film from the novel by Alasdair Gray, imagines a female Frankenstein’s monster who is fundamentally human, and her creator, who much like Dr Frankenstein, is perhaps more monstrous himself. Yorgos Lanthimos’s previous films such as The Lobster and The Favourite were far from mainstream, even if The Favourite won … Continue reading “Poor Things: Frankenstein Revisited”
In the first of our monthly videos in partnership with Streamglish, this 2-minute news report is about driverless taxis in San Francisco, California. It fits well into a sequence on Innovations scientifiques et responsabilité. Like each of the videos, it will be available on our site for a month, along with the downloadable activity sheet. Vocabulary … Continue reading “Video Resource: Who is in the Driving Seat?”
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his leadership of the African American civil-rights movement. The Nobel committee has published a series of videos and a lesson plan for using them in class. Perfect for Martin Luther King Day, 17 January this year. You can download the lesson … Continue reading “Videos for Martin Luther King Day”