The dialogues are pretty straightforward, the story is undoubtedly hilarious and the underlying messages constitute a springboard for thought-provoking classroom discussions.
Of course, ‘entertainment’ comes with a price, this being the blogging missions students have to carry out at home or in the computer room, having watched parts of the film or all of it. The missions can be done in a separate post on the class blog or answered as a comment under the current post.
This is the official trailer to jog the memory, first!
For students of D’ and E’ Class (A2+/ B1 level):
A) Answer one of the two questions.
Humans are not supposed to be able to visit Hotel Transylvania. It’s supposed to be an escape for monsters only. If you could visit Hotel Transylvania, would you keep the secrets of the monsters living there? Why or why not? (From teachhub.com)
What is your opinion of the staff, food and accommodation in Hotel Transylvania? Write a short review.
B) You can now play the following games. (From Scholastic.com)
For students of FCE/ ECCE class and CPE/ ECPE class (B2 and C2 level):
Write a short essay answering these questions:
How is difference illustrated in the film and what is so unexpected about it?
Is it justified to be prejudiced against and afraid of those who are different from us?
How is irrational prejudice created?
In this film there is an unusual prejudice….Monsters are afraid of humans!Two different sides are met in this film, dracula's daughter and a teenager human…The unexpected of this film is that these two teens manage to overcome this prejudice by learn more one for the other.We shouldn't be prejudiced for something or sb we dont know about because thats probably wrong.We should first learn about something and then we can express our opinion
After watching the film, we were left with a different perspective, as far as discrimination is concerned. Take monsters, for example, not only do they not try to scare people, but they are also scared of them themselves. The same kind of situation exists in the human world. Both sides are not fond of each other, although neither have something to worry about. That is a fairly simple example of discrimination within our kind.
It is quite common, especially for older people, to be prejudiced against certain groups of people. However, such a behaviour cannot be justified nowaadays, as there are plenty of organisations, or even simply some people, that fight and protest for equality and justice. How a person, or a group of people, is treated should not be decided based on their gender, ther nationality, etc, but on the way they treat others. Furtheromore, it is not our right to judge other people with criteria WE have set. Everyone should be entitled to be different from other, as nobody is exactly the same as somebody else.
As was very nicely illustrated in the film, false prejudice is created in various ways. As I see it, the most important of all is misinformation. Spreading rumours or your personal opinion about a person or a group is the most usual way to do that, particularly if the people you adress yourlself to have not received a proper education and/or are easily influenced by a certain person's utterances. This usually happens in rural or enclosed societies, the people in which do not communicate with the outside world often or at all. Furthemore, parents play an essential role in the conduct of their child towards these people later on. From a very young age, children with prejudiced parents learn to consider such people inferior or to be afraid of them, because their parents have taught them to do so.
In a nutshell, I believe it is absolutely wrong to behave badly to others, whatever their gender or nationality. Everybody should be and considered equal and be treated that way!
Well done, Konstantinos and Nassia, for expressing such wonderful thoughts! I am not going to make any corrections; the point of this activity was to make us all think!
Here is Hercules' comment on the Literature Blog:
In the film hotel transylvania monsters dreaded people and they thought that people would treat them cruelly and inhumane as a result Dracula built a castle in which only monsters could have access. He also deceived his daughter as to stay away from people. However a young man found out that place by chance, when the monsters first met him they believed he was one of their kind.While the monsters realized that he was a human they got surprised and they changed their minds, they stopped the prejudices against human.An extraoridinary and strange part of the movie is that Dracula's daughter and the young man fell in love.
I reckon that being prejudiced against different people is rational if we dont know anything for them. Nevertheless if we come in contact with different people it's abnormal to be afraid and scared of them.
D' Class comments on 'Bits and Pieces' (http://bitsandpieces-english.blogspot.gr)
Marinos Varverakis
My favorite scene in this film is that Dracula was bat and flew in the morning with the rays of sun burn him, to tryed to come back the love of his daughter who left with a plane. Dracula climbing in the window which Jonathan can see and with psychic talked to Jonathan and pleased he to come back. This scene was very thrilling!
Eva Chrisostomaki
1)If I could visit hotel Transylvania I would keep the secrets of monsters living there because it is a different place-a different experience.I think many people will visit it if they knew that the hotel exist because as we saw in the film people liked the monsters and they helped them.Anyway I will keep the secrets!
John Mat
1. If I could visit Hotel Transylvania I would keep the secrets of monsters living there because it is a strange and scary place. Also the hotel is only for monsters and not for people so I would like to live my life away from the monsters but I will help them !!! 🙂
Marinos Panagiotakis
If I could visit hotel transilvania , I would keep the secrets of the monsters living here because I understand how difficult it is to be different and how scary it is to see different and strange people . Also I would respect the monsters desires because it's rude to reveal them if they don't want to .
George Kalogerakis
If I could visit 'Hotel Transylvania' and the monsters behaved to me as well as they did to Jonathan, I would keep their secret .However,I think that even if people knew the secret of the monsters, they wouldn't touch a hair of the monsters. Nevertheless,if the monsters didn't want their secret to be known ,I wouldn't betray them.
While we were watching the film we noticed that there was an abnormal prejudice… Monsters (f.ex the Dracula ,the Frankenstein ,the Werewolf e.t.c) were afraid of humans.However, these monsters are justified to be afraid of humans because humnas had been procecuting them for a long time.It has to be mentioned, that the Dracula's zinged with a human traveler who arrived in the hotel and the Dracula wants to drive him away from the hotel because he believes that the young traveler wants to harm her as he is a human being…Fortunately, the Dracula undertstands that he should have trusted the young traveler, as he had felt in love with his daughter.The movie gives as a final message that before we criticise a person we have to learn the person's character
The difference in the film is demonstrated by making monsters afraid of humans and not the other way around.The part that took us all by surprise was when Dracula not only approved, but did his best to bring Dracula's daughter and the young man back together, overcoming his prejudice against humans.In my viewpoint, being prejudiced against the unusual is either justified or it isn't, it all comes down to the up-brought of the individual and the living conditions he has gone through.
In this movie we can see the easiest and the funniest way to understand that we shouldn’t be afraid of difference. None of us knows exactly what our world is. Hotel of Transylvania is a hotel in which monsters have a great time & simultaneously hide from humans. Monsters hide from humans, isn’t it silly? The reason of hiding is that in old times some humans attacked them and they killed Dracula’s wife. But it wasn’t all the population; there were some unruly and stringent people. In our world difference is something temporary; everybody has their personality, has their characteristics. However, sometimes because of difference some people criticize us for our congenital features; our hair, our sex, our religion, our nationality, and ignore from our education, our politeness, our dignity, or our philanthropy. Do you believe that our characteristics should be the basic criteria to join in a company or to make friends or to do what we want? Moreover considering that a prejudice leads to racism, we can see the reasons for World War 2. Why was it s made? Of course, because of some people’s conviction that some people do not have the same rights as the others have .To sum up, should we contemplate on our daily life, the world may change a lot.