Describing Scenes Using Mr. Bean

Darren Hamilton Tonami SHS Multimedia Describing scenes using Mr. Bean Target Audience: Low-intermediate English level and above for Oral Communication Objective: We are always inundating our students with new grammar and expressions left and right, but their overall opportunities to use and reinforce the English they already know seems limited. This can make it difficult for students to build a strong speaking foundation. This lesson encourages students to rely on their existing English skills to explain a scene or situation that they observe to other students in order to improve speaking skills. Materials: Projector or TV; DVD player; Video clips; Key vocabulary handout Procedure: Preparation Decide on the scene(s) you would like to use. Obviously, what you choose will have an impact on their ability to explain, so make sure you choose carefully. I used skits from Mr. Bean (for reasons stated below), but there are certainly other effective scenes that could be used.

Organize your scenes - Decide how you would like to show your video clips. I suggest using a long scene with a complete narrative that can be segmented. If using shorter scenes, it is helpful if they have a relation to each other so students can have some kind of context for each scene. Regardless, make sure that each clip you show the students isn’t more than 1-3 minutes so they won’t feel too overwhelmed when they explain them. For a 50 minute class 15 minutes worth of scenes should be more than enough, and ensures that students have plenty of time to speak. Also, make sure you watch your clip a few times and make note of words you think students will have to know to adequately explain the scene

The plan If necessary, hand out a print with any key vocabulary that you feel would be absolutely necessary for explaining your scenes, and spend five minutes or so having them memorize the words. In principle, you want to avoid giving your students too much new material for this type of activity. Have your class make groups of four or five people, and then split each group into pairs of A students and B students. When you show each clip, take turns and have one set of students - either A or B - leave the room (if this is not possible have them turn their chairs to face the wall). The remaining students will stay and watch the clip. When the clip has finished, call the students back to the room and have the students who viewed the clip explain what they saw to their group. Explain to the students that when doing this, they do not need to explain every detail, but rather the main things that took place. Students will take different amounts of time to do this but it probably shouldn’t take most more than three minutes for a short scene depending on the level of your class. Continue the above procedure until you have shown all of your clips.

Additional Information: During the lesson It may help if you allow some students to take notes about what they’re watching. However, do not let them write a script. The whole point is for them to think and develop their raw speaking skills as much as possible, so a script is counter-productive. Also, make it clear that their goal is not fluency but communication. In this respect, if they can’t communicate an action or idea, encourage them to use gestures. At the end of the lesson, if time permits, show all the scenes in fast-motion (un-pausing at the most amusing scenes for great effect!) and try to give your own explanation of each scene as you do so.

Mr. Bean My recommendation is showing them the video skits from Mr. Bean (a British sketch-comedy show) for the following reasons: It is situational comedy with almost no dialogue that can be completely understood without speaking a word of English. Dialogue scenes may improve listening, but most students aren’t trained to hear English at native speeds, let alone the tons of idioms and witty dialogue that can be found in most Western entertainment. While such scenes may be good for another lesson, they seem like a distraction from the goal presented here. If you must use a scene that has a lot of dialogue, see if the scene can’t be explained without it, and consider muting the volume.

Final This lesson was repeated with different Mr. Bean skits several times throughout the fall semester. It was a welcome break for the students and gave them repeated opportunity to practice and enhance their English in a way that is not only fun, but real and useful. They also got to enjoy the quirkiness of British humor, so it provided a unique look into a form of western entertainment that they may not have regular access to.