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Using Movie Lesson Plans on Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three men in boat”

 

Movies will be the future literature classes. Schools will still have literature classes in the coming years, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there isn’t some future educational course treating movies as books are treated in literature classes today.

     Video also stimulates cross-cultural awareness  which can help students at later stage to operate successful in a foreign community. It is very important for the students to compare and become aware of the similarities and the differences in the behavior if their own friends or relatives and the characters on the screen.

     Some literature is difficult for modern readers. Movie renditions can introduce and help students comprehend these works. For example, many teachers contend that watching films based on Jane Austen novels enables their students to better understanding, appreciate and enjoy the books. Pride and Prejudice. Showing the film before reading he book can help poor readers comprehend challenging texts using them to a higher level of critical thinking an language analyses.

·                     Teachers of foreign languages treasure these films for their ability to introduce students to the culture and attitudes of foreign countries. More over, the accent and inflection of native speakers will also be presented by films. To focus students on the foreign language while they watch the film, teachers can ask them to spell and obtain the definitions often or twenty words used in the film.

·                     English as a Second Language: Students studying English as a second language can be assigned a number of films with themes relating  to words they are expected to learn. This will broaden their understanding of the words. They will also hear contemporary English and its inflection.

This thought does not refer to movies adapted from books being studied instead of the book, though that happens in some classrooms already. Teachers often show "book" movies, not so much is a substitute, but as a hope the movie adaptation will draw students into the book. For example, a literature class may view the Gregory Peck movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird" while the class re) as Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Today's students are n ore accustomed to processing entertainment and ideas through the pre made images of movies, television and the Internet rather than creating images in their own minds; s they would through reading. So, it doesn't seem too far-fetched that future generations of school children will study movies s as current and past generations have studied literature. Students may still watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" but on its merits as a movie rather than as a supplement to studying Harper Lee's book. It is a great move after all.

And that's just it. With more than 100 years of movies, there are great films deserving of study, Films that should not be forgotten to the passing of time.

So at some point, this tack of knowledge will be deemed unacceptable, and movies will become part of the educational curriculum. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, nor would movies courses replace the traditional literature class, but I'll bet we see the concept of movie classes in the next 20 or 30 years. It could actually be a bad thing for movies. As with books in literature classes, few students will probably enjoy being forced to watch certain movies and will like even less being told what the movie is supposed to mean. Movie classes could suck the joy right out of movies for future generations.

      Using movies on literature classes is an excellent approach for educative purposes. For example, "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome is full of irony.

     The importance of irony in modern art and literature and, more latterly, in the intellectual sciences and in culture generally, can hardly be overestimated. For some writers, the cultivation of irony is the most essential qualification for any thought, any art or literature or social or political theory to be truly modern. Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an or discordance between what a speaker or writer says and what he or she means, or what is generally understood. "A perception of inconsistency, [usually but not always humorous], in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance.

Human failings described in the screen have a great influences on learners. In this way we can use irony as powerful tool in upbringing of human being. In “Three Men in a Boat”, Jerome crafted an idyll of idleness whose humor derived from the misadventures of the late-Victorian Everyman.

     “Three Men in a Boat" is a hilarious adventurous novel by Jerome K. Jerome. It is about three men and their dog, at times lazily and at other times energetically puling up the River Thames, experiencing timeless adventures. The narration is light and comic that involves harmless escapism and lashings of good humor. The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and real-life friends, George Wingrave (who went on to become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional, but "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog”[2].

What I consider as the merits of this book:

1. It's a short easy-to-read (but not so easy to fully comprehend) book having just 19
short chapters, all told 150 pages, in readable print easy on the eyes.

2.       Funny situations in and a clever, brilliant presentation of the story .

3.       In some limited measure, It helps us to gain the knowledge of and insight into
human nature, follies and foibles and absurdities and ironies of life.

4.Above all, the book is available.

5.Some chapters are simply superb first and top-most: The Way Uncle Podger

Hangs a picture' finds me at my        laughing best ! b) The Cheese in the Train

Episode (Chapter IV)c) Dog's Encounter with a Large Catd) The Vanishing Friend in the Field.

6.Characterization: (All the three, Personification of attractive Laziness) George, Harris & Jerome are the laziest young men of the despicable Victorian Era, each endowed with wits & a 'genteel ruthlessness'. The characters are well-defined, unique and distinct. They have a great depth for no use in the story. The fictional dog is also equally lazy and 'world-weary' but pugnacious at times.

Besides,    Jerome's    personal    style    gives    the    book    its    true    character.

7. Style: slow-paced and circumlocutory as of the leisurely class with no sense of urgency.

Some glimpses into ironic chapters:

a)'Uncle Podger Hangs A Picture:' Podger is all thumbs, a poor workman but great in

ranting and raving, complaining, cursing and swearing. He believes that in getting

some work done there are two options: either he must do it himself or hire someone

to do it. Thank God! He doesn't know of the third: forbidding his kids from doing it as the sure way of getting it done! He prefers the first one and readily takes upon himself the burden of hanging the picture on the wall and put it on the back of other people in the family. (Harris is his replica) He makes a big fuss and there was a lot of commotion in the house. He keeps them all on their toes to fetch things he needed, to hold the chair, lift the picture, search for his hanky in his coat etc. [1]At last, he manages to hang the picture up 'in a very crooked and insecure way' and surveys the mess with evident pride'! 'Everybody in the family was dead beat and wretched.

     So, I suggest to use the storytelling power of Hollywood to motivate, inspire, and educate students. Movie Lesson Plans in history classes bring the past to life. In English classes lesson plans based a movie can serve as reward after having read a book and offer new insights into the story. Movies are a form of literature and lesson plans explicating literary forms can be developed from a film. I hope, Movie Lesson Plans formed by me won’t be less helpful in this educative way. Each activity based on literature and have their own tasks and significances.

According  to movie lesson plans I reveal the following tasks as:

 

·        To analyze the general idea of the film;

·        To message learners moral-ethical emphasis;

·        To show the human errors through irony;

·        To call them to clear, cultured, high-educated society;

·        To improve skills (speaking, reading, writing, listening)

 

Aim

Procedure

Home task

Activity 1

Reading skills development

·        Good reading of  the

special parts in a classroom;

·        Before the presentation

of the movie, learners should read the literature at home (home reading);

·        Working out at  the

new words, author’s stylistic devises;

·        Checking and correcting

 a pronunciation;

·        Grammar exercises.

·                    Reading the novel till the end;

·                    Grammatical exercises.

Activity 2

Listening skills development

(presenting the film)

·        Perception of sound and voice;

·        Procedure is joyful itself  and memorable.

Significance:

·        Moving images present literature more realistically;

·        Learners have spontaneous logics and creative thinking to guess the next episode.

·                    To work at pronunciation, to compare the movie with the plot of the story, to write an essay on the themes:

“Am I idle or boasting?”

“How people should correct self-reassessment?”

Activity 3

Speaking skills and creative thinking development

 

·        (The new vocabulary is

 written on the blackboard. A part of video material is played). Asking the students to use the new words and to retell what they watched;

·        Describing a situation/

setting/character/event etc;

·        Expressing learners’

personal opinion about event/scene/character etc;

·        Asking the cultural

differences in the film;

·        Paying attention to the

feelings/behavior of the characters and describing them.

·        Making an alternative

ending to the scene;

·        Asking the students:

Have they had a similar problem and how have they solved it?

To learn by heart the new words, correction of pronunciation.

Activity 4

Writing skills development

Tasks for students:

·        Writing down the new words that you heard dividing them into parts of speech;

·        After watching the clip, give the definitions to the following words.

·                    Write down a summary of the scene.

·                    To write

down grammatical exercises;

·                    To write a

composition:  

“Our perfect future society”

“Our behavior”

 

 

 

     Classes taught with Movie Lesson Plans garner outstanding results. Films engage students to use their higher level thinking skills. Teachers can relate lessons to the outside world and supplement curriculum. Teach With Movies is also excellent for promoting character education. Many classics of literature have been made into movies. After the class has read the book, you can ask students to watch the film at home, individually or in groups, and then write an essay on the differences between the film and the book, what new understanding of the story they came to after watching the film.

 

Literature:

 

1.     Lewis, Jeremy. Jerome K. Jerome: Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the
      Dog! and Three Men on the Bummel. Penguin classics. London: 1999.

2.            Äæåðîì Ê. Äæåðîì: Òðîå â îäíîé ëîäêå. Ðàññêàçû (Ïåðåâîä Ì.Äîíñêîãî, Ý.Ëèíåöêîé). Àëìà-Àòà «Æàçóøû»: 1985.   

3.            The Oxford Russian Dictionary. Oxford-Moscow 1999.