"... that from time to time you can use Mr Bean...as vehicles for learning how-to-speak-English. " Really? Surely the whole point of Mr Bean, and the reason the series has a following in many countries, is the use of visual rather than verbal humour?

It does indeed have that following. In China you often see it on the buses-you can watch as you stand up for an hour to get there. Anyway, as Sludge and Beth indicate- the students want to see it and there's a lot of English learning mileage in what would have Mr Bean said if he had of actually said something other than an occasional grunt- et cetera.