French university launches comedy videos to teach English

Université Paris-Saclay has created a web-series of humorous sketches for learning English called “Crazy Grammar”.

Each episode illustrates typical mistakes made by non-native English speakers by using humour in a situation such as a date or a job interview. They demonstrate that a tiny error in tense, structure, expression, or pronunciation can have unexpected, embarrassing or even disastrous consequences.

In the short videos, Krishna Bagadiya, a comedian, film-maker and English teacher, aims to marry humour with grammar à la Monty Python.

“When the mouth is open for laughter, it’s easier to stuff in some grammar,” he says.

Each video has an option to activate subtitles and is designed to improve communication skills.

Université Paris-Saclay places a high priority on language learning, multilingualism and interculturality. The videos are part of a set of learning resources for languages, 14 of which are taught on the insitution’s various campuses.

The first video, called “The Candidate”, follows a job interview where the accent becomes the focus, rather than the candidate’s skills.