Educating elementary using silent comedy (Mr.Bean)

[wbrutus22]

I've taught elementary in Jeju for a full year now. I've done a great job at avoiding the "move teacher tag" and focused mainly on conversational grammar, vocabulary, and physical/online games that supplement the lesson plans.

It's always great, however, to include visual stimulation with teaching. So, short animation films and other "short" clips can work wonders with vocabulary, especially when you're teaching animals.

My Korean students LOVE Mr.Bean. A great way to teach adjectives and action verbs is to show a Mr.Bean film. It's silent and students can easily interpret the actions, which allows the teacher to fill in the rest. Students also love comedy...it's another form of discipline. If they act good, we continue the fun visual activities.

The clip below is 24mins long...great for winter camp and can definitely be used for regular class time. (you'll obviously have to view it several times yourself to see how you can incorporate it into a lesson plan) For the most part, it's funny, silly, and entertaining and it also loosens the class up a little...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftkbTpopYMY

[thankQ]

Mr. Bean is awesome to use with story telling.

[Amy Rodulfo]

There are some Mr Bean Bomb lessons on the middle school board. Most are easy enough for elementary school too: http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,7902.msg126597.html#msg126597

[Amy Rodulfo]

A 40 minute lesson based around the episode where Mr. Bean goes shopping. It can be used with all elementary grades.

I used it to teach the following vocabulary: department store, wallet, credit card, towel, toothbrush, knife, frying pan, use, buy, pay and try on. The lesson is very easy and is geared mainly towards having fun at the end of the semester, while learning or revising a little basic vocabulary along the way. It isn't very academic and is probably best for special occasions, camp, end of term or maybe for a very light after-school lesson.

IMPORTANT:
*** To play the Mr. Bean themed "pass the ball game" you need to download the avi file too and save it in the same folder.***

[kyema]

@Amy

That bomb game made me chuckle. Thanks for your work.

[FeurigHeld88]

My kids love Mr. Bean and it's great because EVERYBODY, high or low level can get something out of his videos. Thanks for making this, I think it'll go over smashingly!

[a49wong]

Although amusing, How does a show with no talking a good influence on the students, who we are trying to teach english to. Any show on youtube with english would be better. The kids like just about anything.  might as well show them this if you like Mr Bean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvpikUEIaLI

[jkgingrich]

Mr. Bean is perfect for a motivation at the beginning of class and the shopping lesson is perfect for a camp I'm doing.  Thanks guys

[kyema]

I think silent/muted clips have quite a bit of potential.
One idea is to use comiclife http://plasq.com/downloads/mac to turn the story into a comic strip. After watching the video students fill in the word balloons and interpret the story in their own way.

It's been done a few times with the Pixar short films: http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,3270.0.html

[CozySchool]

@a49wong

I get what you're saying about a show with no talking not helping so much; but the kids absolutely love him (for some strange reason) and if I find something the kids love, I'm gonna milk it for all it's worth and use it to my advantage.  So yes, it's not the most ideal teaching material, but it definitely works quite well. 

[mafb11]

I created a worksheet for a 5th grade class I have with just 2 students to help them learn verbs, their conjugations, and different grammar tenses. To help them actually learn and practice using the verbs and making grammatically correct sentences, we watched one Mr. Bean clip per lesson (I taught them once a week).  I would ask questions using the different tenses. Examples: "What did he do?" "What is he doing?" "What does he want to do?" etc. They would then answer with the correct grammar tense. By the end of the semester they could ask each other questions about the clips and answer them. The students love Mr. Bean and even though there is very little speaking I find it effective to use to practice verbs.

[Danish]

Usually it's too difficult to find a video with the target language being spoken.
It's really good to use videos as output sources for the students -they can either call out or write down vocabulary etc. Videos are also good for pausing to let students make predictions, or as primers to get the class interested in the topic. Lots of other ways too..the language content isn't really very important.
Saw a good activity for "Mr Bean Goes to the dentist" (?) at last year's KOTESOL
Students are split into pairs. One student has a list of present progressive sentences that Mr.Bean will do during the video. This student sits facing away from the screen. Their partner is facing the screen and narrates, as well as they can, what Mr.Bean is doing -the student with the list numbers the sentences. Students can switch places half way through. The video can then be shown again with all students watching and the teacher calling out the correct sentences. Good for a vid which is 5 or 6 minutes long.

[jenny26]

It's a time killer.

[jenny26]

It's a time killer.