I love the Minions. And so does the rest of the world, including China. Here, the name "Minions" has been blandly translated as "Little Yellow People." So when the topic of the Minions comes up, I tell the older kids to look up the word "minion" in their smart phone dictionaries so that they can understand that the humor of the name. Minion means: "a follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one."
The third movie featuring the Minions came out this past summer. But not in China. In China, the government suggested* that the movie theaters refrain from showing Western blockbusters to give a boost to the Chinese feature film industry. The government wanted the kids to go see the adorable little monsters in the domestic movie "Monster Hunt" instead. And they did.
Regardless, the McDonald restaurants in China rolled out the tie-in campaign -- little Minion toys -- with their Happy Meals in the summer, but the Chinese kids had to wait til late September to see the movie.
A cosmetics and personal care chain, Watsons, also offered Minion memorabilia. I got some Minion fans. I mean fans that have Minions on them, not fans of the Minions.
Regardless, the McDonald restaurants in China rolled out the tie-in campaign -- little Minion toys -- with their Happy Meals in the summer, but the Chinese kids had to wait til late September to see the movie.
A cosmetics and personal care chain, Watsons, also offered Minion memorabilia. I got some Minion fans. I mean fans that have Minions on them, not fans of the Minions.
Although my main job is teaching college age kids, my college also sponsors a school for younger children and I'm scheduled to teach there now and then. Parents here want their children to have English lessons from a real foreigner.
Since the kids all love the Minions, I've used them in lessons. First and foremost, It's an instant rapport-builder with the kids. And, because some of the Minions have only one eye, it's a great way to review body parts and numbers. Who has one eye? Who has two eyes? Where are your ears? Do little yellow people have ears?
For a class of young beginners, I needed to photocopy and cut up lots of little yellow and blue Minion parts. And in fact I dragooned my Applied English girls to cut everything out. Well, most of them are planning to go on to become kindergarten and primary school teachers, so it's a practical activity for them. Sure.
For a class of young beginners, I needed to photocopy and cut up lots of little yellow and blue Minion parts. And in fact I dragooned my Applied English girls to cut everything out. Well, most of them are planning to go on to become kindergarten and primary school teachers, so it's a practical activity for them. Sure.
For the lesson, we reviewed body parts vocabulary, then showed the kids a finished Minion, gave each of them a yellow body and a glue stick, and we handed out the bits of Minions step-by-step. Who needs an eye? Who needs an arm? Would you like one eye or two eyes? The kids had to answer I need a right arm, I need a right leg, etc. to get their Minion part.
Speaking of reviewing vocabulary, with kids, its useful to check their comprehension by choosing the wrong body body part, like grabbing your ear and asking, is this my eye? If you can ham it up, you can get them laughing.
Then we did the Hokey Pokey dance (you put your right leg in, you take your right leg out) with them, which always cracks them up. I think I'm the Hokey Pokey queen of Zibo. The kids all had finished Minions to take home.
Speaking of reviewing vocabulary, with kids, its useful to check their comprehension by choosing the wrong body body part, like grabbing your ear and asking, is this my eye? If you can ham it up, you can get them laughing.
Then we did the Hokey Pokey dance (you put your right leg in, you take your right leg out) with them, which always cracks them up. I think I'm the Hokey Pokey queen of Zibo. The kids all had finished Minions to take home.
As for the movie "Frozen," oy, don't get me started. The little girls here will start belting out 'Let it Go" at the drop of a hat. We used the "Frozen" characters in a simple game of picture bingo for a Christmas party. I remember I had to arrange the little pictures randomly on each Bingo card myself, for a class of 50 kids, because I couldn't find a good custom picture bingo generator online. But talking about "Elsa" and "Anna" and 'Olaf" made a lot more sense than teaching Chinese second-graders to say 'mistletoe" and "wreath."
I would be very remiss if I didn't mention the role played by my husband, Ross, who was Santa Claus at the party. After the party, each of the kids drew a picture for us.
I would be very remiss if I didn't mention the role played by my husband, Ross, who was Santa Claus at the party. After the party, each of the kids drew a picture for us.
I should mention that the Tom & Jerry cartoons are well known here and very popular with kids, even teenagers. The older cartoons must be out of copyright, and some of them are dialogue-free. I always meant to use Tom and Jerry in a lesson involving positional words -- around, under, beside, through -- if I could collect enough chase scene pictures.
And "Big Hero" is very popular although I haven't yet seen the movie and haven't used him in a lesson.
And "Big Hero" is very popular although I haven't yet seen the movie and haven't used him in a lesson.
I found children's jigsaw puzzles at YiWu market, including Frozen, Hello Kitty, (also ubiquitous here in China) Tom & Jerry puzzles. Things like this are so cheap that I have no problem buying them for the class myself and it was a small enough class so that I could get a different puzzle for each kid.
They were 16 piece puzzles per puzzle. I wrote the numbers 1 to 16 on the back of each puzzle piece, and 1 to 16 on the corresponding space on the puzzle board. Then for the class I gave each kid half of their puzzle pieces. The rest I had in yogurt cups, so all of the number 10 pieces were in one cup, the number 11s in another cup, etc. I asked them, what do you need? Here's number 10. I dumped all the number 10's on the table and enjoyed watching them go bezerk finding their own piece. Looks like you need a piece that is pink. Can you find a pink piece? Now, what number do you need next? They ran across the classroom to find the right yogurt cup and bring it back to the table. And remember that this is in the evening, after they've been to a full day of school. Their energy and enthusiasm is amazing. And so on, through the numbers. Deeply educational? Maybe not. But these kids deserve to have some fun, kids absolutely love completing things and putting things together.
They were 16 piece puzzles per puzzle. I wrote the numbers 1 to 16 on the back of each puzzle piece, and 1 to 16 on the corresponding space on the puzzle board. Then for the class I gave each kid half of their puzzle pieces. The rest I had in yogurt cups, so all of the number 10 pieces were in one cup, the number 11s in another cup, etc. I asked them, what do you need? Here's number 10. I dumped all the number 10's on the table and enjoyed watching them go bezerk finding their own piece. Looks like you need a piece that is pink. Can you find a pink piece? Now, what number do you need next? They ran across the classroom to find the right yogurt cup and bring it back to the table. And remember that this is in the evening, after they've been to a full day of school. Their energy and enthusiasm is amazing. And so on, through the numbers. Deeply educational? Maybe not. But these kids deserve to have some fun, kids absolutely love completing things and putting things together.
If you're looking for other lesson theme ideas, Aesop's Fables are also well-known here, particularly the fable of the boy who cried wolf. Maybe that would be good for a lesson on the difference between "over here" and "over there." The villagers all have to run there to the boy, then run back there to the village.
I think my lessons with the kids tend to be a lot more, uh, kinetic, than their usual lessons are. (Calling movement "kinetic" gives it more of a pedagogical gloss, doesn't it?) Chinese kids spend an inconceivable amount of time sitting, listening and doing rote learning. So I like to get them up and moving on any pretext. In a future blog post, I'll talk about getting kids out of their seats in the college classroom, where keeping the attention of sleep-deprived kids who sleep six to a dormitory room is a real challenge, especially right after lunch.
So to reiterate, when you walk into a classroom, take the Minions with you. Everybody's face lights up and and if your class is relaxed and receptive, you're halfway there. Bonus link: here is a link to a Minions game power point made by another China-based ESL teacher.
*Suggested = nice theater you have here. Would be a shame if something happened to it.
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