Shakespeare's Globe: The groundlings

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Shakespeare's Globe mini-series, episode 237) is a short documentary about the audience of Shakespeare's Globe. A narrator opens on the first Globe, built in 1599 beside the River Thames, then looks closer at the roof: on play days the theatre raised a flag that people could see from the other side of the river. The cheapest tickets, one penny, were for the open yard, and the people who stood there, sometimes for three hours, were called groundlings. They were close enough to touch the actors, and they shouted, laughed and sometimes threw things. Richer people sat on benches in the galleries, under a roof, so only the groundlings got wet when it rained. Archaeologists who dug at the site of the old Globe found a layer of nutshells in the yard, because people ate during the play. At the new Globe, the standing tickets are still the cheapest.

The narration uses the present simple and the past simple, with passives (were performed, were called); no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (penny, groundling, galleries). The closing question (Would you prefer to stand in the yard or sit in the galleries?) opens a short class discussion.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions. The folder also holds a one-page pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. Learners should know the present simple and the past simple of common verbs. The script explains its new words as it goes.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-languages-and-communication ("Langages") and c4-encountering-others ("Rencontres avec d'autres cultures"), Cycle 4. The episode targets CEFR level B1-.