Groundhog day!

I bet that whenever someone hears the sentence "Groundhog Day!" thinks of Bill Murray smashing the alarm clock while listening to "I Got you Babe".

It's snowing today in Thessaloniki. A perfect day for a Groundhog Day lesson. Perhaps some colleagues would say that I should stick to the usual Exam Practice Tests books and have students wondering and "wandering" over multiple choice questions exercises or reading texts and "translate" them in Greek... Some others would even ask what is Groundhog Day and why should I or any other teacher in Greece teach anything about this day. "Who cares!?" they think....I am fed up with these practices and I believe today is the day when I will finally place the sign ( like the 'No Smoking' ones)I've always wanted on my class door:"No Translation!"

I had never heard of Groundhog Day, until one day a lot of years ago I saw the 1993 Groundhog Day film. So today, I decided to start my Senior classes with segments of the film and other pieces of information so as to introduce the country, town and celebration. Finally, I'll make sure they take a little break from their Facebooking activities and inform me tomorrow what Punxatawney Phil had to communicate on 6 more weeks of winter or not!

Some useful links I'm going to use and very thankful to all the creators:

http://www.groundhog.org/
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/01/29/groundhog-day-is-coming-up/
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/01/31/groundhog-day-explained/
http://www.elcivics.com/groundhog-day-1.html
http://ethemes.missouri.edu/themes/1461
http://www.michellehenry.fr/ground.htm
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/holidays/ss/groundhogprint.htm?nl=1
http://www.5minuteenglish.com/feb7.htm
http://www.elcivics.com/esl_powerpoint_lessons.html
http://pittsburgh.about.com/cs/punxsutawney/a/groundhog_day.htm
http://www.everythingesl.net/lessons/ground_hog_day_69710.php

1993 Groundhog Day Film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NHCy13ZLk
http://www.eslnotes.com/movies/pdf/groundhog-day.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bd1hqHrUPU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWmbuKSWLDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Y1xLKHECQ
http://www.slideshare.net/DavidMainwood/groundhog-day-pt1film-for-efl
http://teflchina.org/teach/general/groundhogDay.htm