Awesome.

I did one with 'The Monkey's Paw' in a theme on fables and wishes. I forget the season (3?) and episode number, but Google is our friend! Oh year, it's a Halloween 'Treehouse of Horror' episode. Homer gets a magic monkey paw in the far east and makes 3 wishes, but they all backfire - Ned Flanders makes 3 wishes and they work out well.

Also, there's a wonderful Skittles commercial on Youtube called The Skittles Touch or something similar. It is like King Midas, but touching objects turns them into skittles, not gold. This could work with myth/fable themes.

- cheers!

Awesome lesson, but where do you download the episodes and/or subtitles from?  THanks!

Do you download torrents? I got it from here: http://torrents.to/search/btjunkie/simpsons%20season%206... but you have to know how to download torrents. Subtitles are a bit trickier. I find them by doing a simple google search (in this case, I searched for "bart of darkness english subtitles"). The problem is that not all of them will line up properly with the video so you might have to go to a couple different sites until you find the right one.

To "apply" the subtitles to a video, all you have to do is put the subtitle file (usually it's a .srt or .txt file) into the same folder as the video and make their file names the same. For example, if the video is called "Bart of Darkness.avi", change the subtitle file's name to "Bart of Darkness.srt". For this particular episode, I have subtitles that I modified slightly that I can email to anyone that wants them. I added some extra information when I didn't think the students would understand a word/phrase that I didn't cover with my vocabulary worksheet. So, for example, at one point during this episode Bart uses the word "snatched" and I added [stole] next to it in the subtitles.

Where can I find the episodes with Korean subs? I've found some but would like to pick some specific episodes..

I haven't been very successful with downloading Korean subtitles. My guess is that they're much easier to find on Korean websites.

Thanks for taking the time and giving me the info!  I'm going to give it a try.  I don't download torrents, but need to learn how to do it.  Embarassing as that may be to admit.  ;-)  Thanks again!

I just so happens that I've taught many people how to download torrents and have written up a set of very clear instructions on how to do it. I sent you a private message with the instructions. I'll post it here, as well, for anyone else that's interested.

How to access any file you want (music, movies, tv shows, software, etc.):

1.  First, you need to download torrent software. I recommend uTorrent, which you can download here:  http://www.filehippo.com/download_utorrent/

2.  Once you’ve installed uTorrent, you’re ready to start downloading. To find files, do a search on one of the various torrent websites. The best one, in my opinion, is http://btjunkie.org; some others include http://isohunt.com/, http://eztv.it, and http://www.kickasstorrents.com/

3.  When you do a search on BTJunkie, it automatically sorts the list by highest number of “seeders” (S) and “leechers” (L) to lowest number of S and L. “Seeders” are the number of people that have the FULL file and “leechers” are the number of people that have part of the file. So, basically, the higher the S and the L numbers are, the faster the download will be. Files closer to the top of the list on BTJunkie are always the more reliable files, as well.

Also on BTJunkie, you’ll often see three possible small boxes to the right of the file name: one white, one green, and one red (and it’s important to know what these mean). The white one means the number of comments that other people have made about that file. The green one is the number of people that confirm it’s a good file and the red one is the number of people that claim it’s a bad file. So, stay away from any files that have the red box (with any number) next to it.

4. Once you've found the file you want among the search results, just click on the "Torrent Name" and it will load a new page with detailed information about that file. If you scroll down towards the bottom of this screen, you’ll see comments that people have left about it. When you're ready to download, click on "Download Torrent".

5. When you click on "Download Torrent", a window will pop up asking you if you want to "Open" or "Save" the file. Leave it set to "open", check the box that says "Do this automatically for files like this from now on", and then click "OK". Then, your torrent software (i.e. uTorrent) will automatically load and you'll see another pop-up window that's confirming that you want to download those files. Click "OK".

6. Now, you'll see your file downloading in the top pane of the uTorrent window (including all of the information about the download - how fast it's downloading, how much you've downloaded, etc., etc.). When the file gets to 100%, it's (obviously) finished downloading. To access the files, you can probably find them on your computer in your "Downloads" folder. If, for some reason, you can't figure out where the files are on your computer, in uTorrent, go to Options > Preferences. Click on the "Directories" tab and the first field should tell you where your downloaded files are going (i.e. "Put new downloads in: __________").

Been looking for ways to make The Simpsons educational, thanx

This looks great! I'm definitely going to give this a try with my afterschool class! Thanks for the great lesson!

I know lots of people show The Simpsons when they have some time to waste, but I found an episode that I thought would go well for my high school boys, and it did, and made a worksheet and a specific listening out of it. 

The lesson didn't quite take 50 minutes, so definitely feel free to add more listening or questions.  My students all diligently did the worksheet while they watched (answering the questions in English!) and all were answering during feedback.  I felt as though I had hidden a dog's medicine in its food.  They were getting English practice without even realizing it.

I did show the video with Korean subtitles, which I've uploaded.  I've also uploaded a torrent of the episode (sorry if that's not appropriate).  It's Season 22, Episode 03, "MoneyBART". 

Everything is in the .ZIP file, as this site prevented uploading the .smi.  Unzip, download the video, and enjoy!
Regarding the subtitles: Make sure the .avi (video) file and the .smi (subtitle file) have the EXACT SAME NAME and are in the EXACT SAME FOLDER.  Gom should load them automatically.

I turned the subtitles off for the fill-in-the-blank listening, obviously. 

I don't get to this site frequently, so for any issues/questions, shoot me an email at nstick13 at gmail dot com.

Enjoy!

The worksheet only, for those who will be OK acquiring the video elsewhere, or can't unzip.

The lesson didn't quite take 50 minutes, so definitely feel free to add more listening or questions.  My students all diligently did the worksheet while they watched (answering the questions in English!) and all were answering during feedback.  I felt as though I had hidden a dog's medicine in its food.  They were getting English practice without even realizing it.

I did show the video with Korean subtitles, which I've uploaded.  I've also uploaded a torrent of the episode (sorry if that's not appropriate).  It's Season 22, Episode 03, "MoneyBART". 
Enjoy!

I have been doing this lesson fairly successfully all week. I have actually only managed part one of the worksheet in basically every class, save one. A suggestion that has helped with the listening worksheet is add the words that are being said to the sheet so students know what they are listening for. My students are academic but their english is probably in the mid-range. To drag out the activity a bit also, I have the student help me write the beginning of the sentences for all the answers. It's good practice for them, since they rarely have to write in English. By the time we watch it (I stopped for them to answer each question as it takes place in the episode- it helped to keep them focused/gave me a chance to make sure they were answering the questions), there was usually just enough time to go over the answers for the questions. In the case of one or two classes, we had time for the listening exercise, too.