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Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Anyone care to try building an ESL/EFL class around Groundhog Day? Is this uniquely Canadian/American?

Sometime in the late nineties, they found Wiarton Willy dead a few days before the big event. Cause of death? He was frozen solid. How's that for a prediction of the arrival of spring?

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

In Japan I planned a whole series of ten classes based each on ten mins of the film Groundhog Day. I did it with every single one of my adult classes grading it for different levels. As a result, I know almost every line of the film...

... get up and check that hog out... what is this MI-A-MI BEACH???

Not hardly.... Laughing

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Speaking of the very fine actor Bill Murray, how was Lost in Translation taken over there in Japan?

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

Never would try to build a lesson around Groundhog's Day but never miss the chance to share the concept with my classes. Usually involves me attempting to draw a groundhog, a hole and telling them if said hog sees its shadow spring is near. I tell them we have that and they throw beans around the house.

Haven't seen Lost in Translation, yet.

distiller · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 249

I think it would be much more intersting to design a lesson around Bill Murray, Groundhog Day the movie, Lost in Translation or the common cold than about the rather odd pratice of predicting the weather based on whether an overgrown rat sees his shadow or not. Although designing your own senseless holiday might be an interesting activity. How about Waffle Appreciation Day?

Cardinal Synn · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 586

In the UK, where few people had heard of Groundhog Day prior to the movie, it is used as an expression to describe repetition.

ntropy · Joined: 11 Oct 2003 Posts: 671 Location: ghurba

Yummm. Groundhog. In Japan, I prepared it with soy sauce.

Homer

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Ben Round de Bloc · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1946

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

Hey guys don�t you think that Groundhog Day is eerily the most appropriate movie in an EFL class? Here's a guy who's stuck in a Nietzschean eternal return as he repeats the same mistake over and over again until he learns the true meaning of grammar... I mean life.

Don't you often feel like Bill Murrey, a sense of deja vue in class?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Nice pic Ben. I've always wondered what those critters look like BEFORE the golf ball knocks them unconscious.

XXX · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject:

Phil saw his shadow and the folks in Pa. will have 6 more weeks of winter. I remember having an interesting time explaining the custom to my Korean and Russian students. Most of them thought I had taken leave of my senses. But then again, using a large ground dwelling rat to predict the weather does sound a bit odd.