Kindness Boomerang

I came across Kindness Boomerang through Larry Ferlazzo in late December. Larry already warned us of the oversentimentality of the video, but he considered it was full of learning opportunities for the English student. He suggested two: Describing the everyday actions the clip portraits, something which language students of all levels find really demanding, and discussing the message in the video.



I think Kindness Boomerang gives us the chance of revising/learning conditional sentences of all kinds.

I would suggest the following steps in the lesson:

• Students watch the video and make a note of the chain of actions in it: the builder helps the skateboarder to get up > the skateboarder helps the old woman cross the street > the old woman gives the girl change for the parking meter > The girl picks up the envelope the man in the suit has inadvertently dropped > The man in the suit helps a man unload the luggage from the car boot > The car man buys a hot dog for the beggar > The vendor gives the beggar water > The beggar gives the girl the mobile she had forgotten > The mobile phone girl buys some flowers for the woman sitting at the cafe > The woman at the flower stall gives a flower to the mobile phone girl > The woman sitting at the cafe leaves a generous tip > The waitress gives a drink of water to the builder.

From here, students repeat the chain of events

• First conditional: If the builder helps the skateboarder to get up, the skateboarder will help the old woman cross the street > If the skateboarder helps the old woman, she will give the girl change for the parking meter > ...

• Second conditional: If the parking meter girl picked up the envelope, the man in a suit would help the man unload the car > If the man in a suit helped the man unload, the car man would buy a hotdog for the beggar > ...

• Third conditional: If the beggar had given the mobile to the girl, she would have bought flowers for the woman > If the mobile phone girl had bought flowers for the woman at the cafe, the woman would have left a generous tip > ...