Exploring English: Shakespeare

I have been enjoying this BBC Course on Shakespearean English thoroughly. There are many reasons but I will mention only a few here.

Firstly, I was telling my daughter, a Shakespeare fan and programming trainee by profession last night how I wished I had access to this course when I was teaching Shakespeare to my high school students in Bhutan. I talked to them about The Great Bard, his birthplace, Stratford-on -Avon, the Trinity Church, his school and family in the introductory lesson. But things could have taken a whole new meaning for them had they been shown the bubbly town as it stands today, the real church, the normal school where he studied, through the videos.

Secondly, I couldn't study the original version of one of the greatest love stories ever written, i.e, Romeo and Juliet. Whatever I learnt of the play was through a reading of the story from "Tales from Shakespeare" by the famous Lamb siblings, Charles and Mary. But when I studied the summaries, watched the videos, took part in the quizzes, I had the feeling that I learnt in a day about the play more than what I could have learnt in a lifetime!

Finally, I learnt that so many idioms and phrases and expressions I use in my daily conversations, writings and so on - have all originated from the greatest playwright ever. I got so engrossed in the activities that I finished what is meant to be finished in 3-weeks' time, in a day and a half.

My heartfelt gratitude to BBC, FL and the resource teachers and actors and actresses involved in the course for making this experience truly a memorable one.

God bless you all.

Great course! Here are some pros and cons:

Pros:
- Even though English is the only language I speak fluently, the clarity of the course was helpful in getting me to understand what was going on and I'm sure it was clear for English learners.
- Captions on videos were great and I quite liked how there was no music in the background of the videos because it made it clearer and I could play my own music if I wanted.
- Taught me very important things, such as the fact that Shakespeare was known more for how he crafted his words and phrases, rather than coming up with original plots - something I think teachers at school should say.
-Great range of plays and explanations around them were so good.
-All the educators and actors seemed very friendly and positive.

Cons:
- I started this course after it had 'begun' and so if I interacted with any learners, they likely wouldn't see it, and educators had stopped responding by then. Also, I don't have facebook and obviously wasn't in time for the lives and they were over and hour, so I didn't join in with that. Felt a bit left out here, but it's not a big problem. This may be an issue with Futurelearn in general, rather than this course specifically.
- Was Shakespeare the first to make up words? Was he the first to use such beautiful language? What has made him so popular that other playwrights at the time didn't do? What were other playwrights at the time writing like? I feel like this is very important and I still don't know.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this course and I have been looking for other ones similar.
Thank you!

This course is amazing! I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I only wish I had done this before I finished writing the exam for the paper on British Drama in my English Literature course. I have learnt so much about Shakespeare, his life and times and his works. It is wonderful that Anthony guides us through each step in the lessons and the educators give amazing insights as well. There's so much discussion happening with participants from all over the world. The questions at the end of each lesson make us think and express our opinions and thoughts. What I also loved the most is that we get to hear the experiences of real actors who have performed the roles of the various characters on stage in different productions. It is a unique and exciting way to learn about Shakespeare's plays as we get to hear different perspectives and viewpoints from actors who have learnt the plays, practiced for hours and delivered their lines in front of varied audiences. Thanks to this course and the inspiring Jade Anouka, I had the courage to record two lines and also listen to others' recordings. Even though this course is online, it feels almost like a live classroom with all the activities (reading, watching, listening, quiz) and discussions through comments. I hope to join other courses after completing this course and to keep learning and gaining more knowledge.

In my opinion, this course is fantastic! We have access to different contents, like videos, quizzes, texts... Everything is very well-prepared, we can see the purpose of the material, and the questions proposed make us want to interact with the other students and with the educator, who often comments too. I'm learning English, I'm in level B1 and I can understand almost everything; usually, what I don't understand about vocabulary is explained in the material. I started this course more focus in learning English, but now I'm really interested about reading Shakespeare. Finally, another thing that pleased me about this course was the opportunity to learn with people from different countries, and see similarities and differences between our cultures (and also see how Shakespeare ideas spread all around the world). I enthusiastically recommend this course! Thank you for the educators, for the British Council and for the other students that keep the conversations alive.

This was a very informative course set at an easy entry level, with quizzes which helped me and others no doubt to understand the elements of the four plays studied. I like the links to other resources which I can follow up at my leisure once access to this course expires.

I realize that many participants are from distant lands and many will not have seen Shakespeare before, but I do think you could have had more quotations from Shakespeare with their modern translations. From my own experience, I found Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night almost incomprehensible the first time (aged 15 or so) in a London theatre. I’m sure tore novice viewers had the same feelings. So anything to help “translate” his language would be helpful. Although I must admit you did demystify many words and phrases during the course.

I have read Shakespeare at school. As I was going through the number of courses, I came across this course which took all of my attention. It is a nostalgia to read and see Shakespeare's various plays once again. I felt like being at school again and enjoying reading and knowing about these plays without the fear of scoring well to make my result better. It was like somebody is reading out the stories to you in the most beautiful way. The people involved with this course have really done good justice with the course in explaining their learners from all over the world. The mentioning of various words along with some idioms, their usage, the themes of the plays and everything has been explained very well.
I really would like to thank all of you for this constructive session on Shakespeare's life and an insight into his most famous plays.

I found the content of this course very interesting. But as is my previous experience with Future Learn courses I have not been able to watch the videos operating on an Apple Mac with the latest system updates completed.

Not everybody has unlimited data for download.

I do not have this problem with the other MOOCs that I have done as they often have a little button to click to watch at standard definition not HD. I realise I can download these videos but I have limited data.

I have reported the problem (also on previous FL MOOCs) but have yet to receive a response.

I think the course would be very helpful for a non-English speaker learning the language as is evidenced by other students' comments but I would not recommend it for somebody for whom English is their first language.

As someone who knew really nothing of Shakespeare’s work I am really enjoying the course.

Personally I think the story you tell that is a short summary of the story of each piece of work is too short.

I have been watching some of the full length productions from the globe theatre website. At the moment during the current crisis they are screening a number of his works for free, you can rent them also. It would be good to have suggestions on here as to how people globally can watch his full work if they would like to do so.

I have found watching the full engagement piece of work then doing the unit on the course have given me a better in-depth understanding of each play, and has also helped me to see if I’ve understood his story correctly.

This course has been most insightful and goes to prove that you can always learn something new about the great man and/or his plays. Although I am not new to Shakespeare and his literary genius, this course is well structured, particularly as an introduction to his work. I would certainly recommend it to newcomers and people who have felt that Shakespeare is beyond them for whatever reason.
The interactive resources have been enlightening and I found the actors’ personal points of view, quite revealing, thought provoking and informative. I have also enjoyed the cross-cultural aspects of this course and now aim to see more alternative productions set in different countries, languages or medium. What does transpire from reading the comments is that people can fall in love with Shakespeare no matter how young or old and are able to take from his work, truths that fit into their everyday lives or wider understanding of the world.
What saddens me most, as I write this review, is that we are now in living in unprecedented times when the future of the arts is sadly at risk. Only recently in the media, there was talk of Shakespeare’s Globe in London being in danger of permanently closing, if it does not receive the necessary emergency funding needed to make up for lost revenue due to the coronavirus lockdown. This would be a calamity if an indelible part of our culture was lost forever...
In the words of Shakespeare “we know what we are, but not what we may be.” Without an appreciation of his language the world will hold less joy and empathy.
Maybe the course leaders may consider future programmes covering different plays which are targeted from beginners to advance level? Thank you team for your professionalism and passion.

This course has been most insightful and goes to prove that you can always learn something new about the great man and/or his plays. Although I am not new to Shakespeare and his literary genius, this course is well structured, particularly as an introduction to his work. I would certainly recommend it to newcomers and people who have felt that Shakespeare is beyond them for whatever reason.
The interactive resources have been enlightening and I found the actors’ personal points of view, quite revealing, thought provoking and informative. I have also enjoyed the cross-cultural aspects of this course and now aim to see more alternative productions set in different countries, languages or medium. What does transpire from reading the comments is that people can fall in love with Shakespeare no matter how young or old and are able to take from his work, truths that fit into their everyday lives or wider understanding of the world.
What saddens me most, as I write this review, is that we are now in living in unprecedented times when the future of the arts is sadly at risk. Only recently in the media, there was talk of Shakespeare’s Globe, in London being in danger of permanently closing, if it does not receive the necessary emergency funding needed to make up for lost revenue due to the coronavirus lockdown. This would be a calamity if an indelible part of our culture was lost forever.
In the words of Shakespeare “we know what we are, but not what we may be.” Without an appreciation of his language the world will hold less joy and empathy.
Maybe the course leaders may consider future programmes covering different plays which are targeted from beginners to advance level? Thank you team for your professionalism and passion.