This activity was taken from an unforgettable classic. It is a wonderful movie with a brilliant story and saga. It’s one of my all times favorite. I took advantage of the scene that shows New York in the beginning of the century to practice USED TO in a contextualized way.
Watch the video segment and observe how different New York used to be in the beginning of the century. Pay close attention to the following people and objects.
Clocks – Police Officers – Buildings – Clothes – Kids
Read the examples and write down your own sentences, using the given cues. Make sure you choose a suitable verb to complete the sentences.
Ex:
Cars/ uncomfortable. The cars used to be uncomfortable.
Street vendors/ bread. Street vendors used to sell bread.
Talk to a partner. Discuss the following questions:
1 – How do you compare the New York depicted in the segment and the city nowadays?
MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD – ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
How to prepare your own video segment:
• Select a movie segment that takes place in the past.
• Costumes, childhood memories, last century towns, historical moments are perfect to assess this grammar goal .
• Ask students to observe specific features in the passage .
• Prepare an exercise with cues that will help students write sentences with the structures/verbs you want to assess.
• Students write sentences, using “used to” .
