Assignment 6

Meeting Criteria for This Task / Intended Learners

The following assignment seeks to meet the criteria for a (pre-/during-/post-) reading task by concerning itself with

meaning, not mechanical manipulation of grammatical constructions, such as changing verbs from one tense to

another. While vocabulary is important, students aren’t concerned with correcting spelling. Their task is to adapt

ideas from the text in order to fill various information gaps. The text and task are appropriate for these learners

because IELTS is under study, and there are often associated summaries and graphic organizers (concept maps) to be

completed in IELTS exams. The students are ten Emirati men who seek a Band 5.0, which reflects the level of a

modest user of English. Basic communication is fine for them, especially for listening and speaking. Their challenge is

reading and writing, neither of which they do much of even in Arabic.

While these students are motivated to achieve the desired exam band, knowing that they need experience in

organizing ideas pictorially, they also need scaffolding: being introduced to the topic, predicting content, and having

meanings of many words explained. Although students’ output in this task is mostly one-way, closed, convergent,

and focused, it requires problem-solving and critical thinking. These students decode words slowly, and too much

mental energy is taken up with translation. Coherence of the text easily breaks down for them. Also, new question

types result in giving up. Where there are ones of the multiple choice or true/false/not given nature, students often

simply answer ‘A, A, A, T, T’ by guessing. For this reason, this text is to be used twice: once via tasks that I’ve

constructed for them…and later in the manner in which an IELTS reading exam would be conducted. I’ve glossed 30

items, and written clear student instructions in each part of the actual materials below.

Pre-reading Task

Look at the four following sets of images and text. Make predictions about them as a class.

During-reading Task

Read the following IELTS text. 30 words/phrases have been glossed to help you understand the ideas. After reading,

complete the timeline, the other graphic organizers, and the summary. You may work with a partner. In a couple of

days, you will read the same text again. That time, you will try to answer the regular kinds of IELTS reading questions.

The Power of Cinema (adapted from Test 3 Reading Passage 1, Cambridge IELTS 6)

A: The Lumière Brothers opened their Cinématographe, at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, to 100 paying

customers over 100 years ago, on December 8, 1895. Before the eyes of the stunned, thrilled audience, photographs

came to life and moved across a flat screen.

stunned, thrilled audience: people watching the movie who are surprised and excited

B: So ordinary and routine has this become to us that it takes a determined leap of the imagination to grasp the

impact of those first moving images. But it is worth trying, for to understand the initial shock of those images is to

understand the extraordinary power and magic of cinema, the unique, hypnotic quality that has made film the most

dynamic, effective art form of the 20th century.

a determined leap of the imagination: a focused attempt to understand something difficult

to grasp the impact of: to understand the effect of

initial shock: introductory surprise

extraordinary: unusual

hypnotic: fascinating

C: One of the Lumière Brothers' earliest films was a 30-second piece which showed a section of a railway platform

flooded with sunshine. A train appears and heads straight for the camera. And that is all that happens. Yet the

Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, one of the greatest of all film artists, described the film as a 'work of genius'. 'As

the train approached,' wrote Tarkovsky, 'panic started in the theatre: people jumped and ran away. That was the

moment when cinema was born. The frightened audience could not accept that they were watching a mere picture.

Pictures were still, only reality moved; this must, therefore, be reality. In their confusion, they feared that a real train

was about to crush them.'

railway platform: place where passengers get on/off a train

work of genius: intelligent achievement

a mere picture: just a picture

D: Early cinema audiences often experienced the same confusion. In time, the idea of film became familiar, the

magic was accepted -but it never stopped being magic. Film has never lost its unique power to embrace its

audiences and transport them to a different world. For Tarkovsky, the key to that magic was the way in which

cinema created a dynamic image of the real flow of events. A still picture could only imply the existence of time,

while time in a novel passed at the whim of the reader. But in cinema, the real, objective flow of time was captured.

familiar: normal

to embrace its audiences: to charm the people watching the movie

a dynamic image: a moving picture

imply the existence of time: hint at the passing of time

at the whim of the reader: in the imagination of the reader

E: One effect of this realism was to educate the world about itself. For cinema makes the world smaller. Long before

people travelled to America or anywhere else, they knew what other places looked like; they knew how other people

worked and lived. Overwhelmingly, the lives recorded - at least in film fiction — have been American. From the

earliest days of the industry, Hollywood has dominated the world film market. American imagery - the cars, the

cities, the cowboys - became the primary imagery of film. Film carried American life and values around the globe.

Overwhelmingly: Amazingly

dominated: controlled

F: And, thanks to film, future generations will know the 20th century more intimately than any other period. We can

only imagine what life was like in the 14th century or in classical Greece. But the life of the modern world has been

recorded on film in massive, encyclopaedic detail. We shall be known better than any preceding generations.

intimately: personally

encyclopedic: complete

preceding: previous

G: The 'star' was another natural consequence of cinema. The cinema star was effectively born in 1910. Film

personalities have such an immediate presence that, inevitably, they become super-real. Because we watch them so

closely and because everybody in the world seems to know who they are, they appear more real to us than we do

ourselves. The star as magnified human self is one of cinema's most strange and enduring legacies.

effectively: completely

magnified: blown up

enduring legacies: permanent traditions

H: Cinema has also given a new lease of life to the idea of the story. When the Lumière Brothers and other pioneers

began showing off this new invention, it was by no means obvious how it would be used. All that mattered at first

was the wonder of movement. Indeed, some said that, once this novelty had worn off, cinema would fade away. It

was no more than a passing gimmick, a fairground attraction.

a new lease of life to: renewed energy to

novelty: originality

a passing gimmick, a fairground attraction: a temporary trick, something amusing to attract people

I: Cinema might, for example, have become primarily a documentary form. Or it might have developed like television

- as a strange, noisy transfer of music, information and narrative. But what happened was that it became,

overwhelmingly, a medium for telling stories. Originally these were conceived as short stories - early producers

doubted the ability of audiences to concentrate for more than the length of a reel. Then, in 1912, an Italian 2-hour

film was hugely successful, and Hollywood settled upon the novel-length narrative that remains the dominant

cinematic convention of today.

a medium for telling stories: a way to explain events

conceived: designed

cinematic convention: way to make movies

J: And it has all happened so quickly. Almost unbelievably, it is a mere 100 years since that train arrived and the

audience screamed and fled, convinced by the dangerous reality of what they saw, and, perhaps, suddenly aware

that the world could never be the same again - that, maybe, it could be better, brighter, more astonishing, more real

than reality.

fled: ran away

astonishing: incredible

In Paris, 100 people paid to watch the Lumière Brothers’ early movies in

______________ . We think movies are ______________ and routine, but they were

initially shocking. They seemed like magic. A film director named Andrei Tarkovsky

described how the film of a train ______________ the audience who panicked and

ran away. People still get transported to other worlds while watching films. This is

because their dynamic images show the ______________ of time and events. Mostly

the culture of ______________ was learned about by people all over the world

because of the dominance of Hollywood. In the future, people will know a lot about

the ______________ century since the modern world’s details are recorded in so

much detail. Film personalities or ______________ are known by many people as

they’re watched so closely in films. Early movies were short, and they only showed

scenes that featured the wonder of ______________. Some people thought films

wouldn’t stay popular because they were only gimmicks. Since 1912, movies have

mostly remained 2-hour-long narratives or ______________. Film developed very

______________ over just 100 years.

Post-reading Task

With a new partner, choose one of the five following topics to learn about. Make a PowerPoint Presentation with

keywords and related imagery. Present your findings to the class.

A. Find out about Emirati films like 2007's Al-Hilm, 2008's Arabian Sands, 2009's Al Dayra, Henna, and City of Life,

and/or 2011's Sea Shadow.

B. Show images of these four old UAE cinemas to your parents and grandparents. Write down any memories that

they might have.

C. Explore the recent history of annual film festivals in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

D. Research Dubai's film studio, Studio City, which promotes Emirati filmmaking.

E. Besides American Hollywood films, non-Western movies shown in the UAE often come from India, Egypt,

Lebanon, and other countries. Which of these 9 currently-showing movies interest you or your friends?

***Starting on the next page appears the same IELTS text again, but in its original exam format. Note, also,

the standard IELTS questions. Students should find these easier to answer having done the previous tasks.