My kids used to be dumb-founded I could watch a movie, suggest it to them, then watch it again.
Fortunately, this ability to never get sick of the moving image has served me well this week, as I have watched, “The Princess Bride” about 8 times. (some classes were cancelled for I.Q. testing) My co-teacher, however, doesn’t have this ability, as she was falling asleep during her second viewing.
“The Princess Bride” is, btw, a perfect movie (in conjunction with English subtitles) to show to Freshman High School ESL students. The pacing is perfect. Just when the action gets too slow, they change scenes. Just when you start to lose faith in the movie, they cut to Fred Savage protesting his skepticism. The dialogue is spoken slowly, and the humor seems like an introduction to dry sophisticated humor for adolescents. My Korean students got much of it, and it was absolutely amazing – I had OVER half of the students actually watching! I know this doesn’t seem like something to crow about, but believe me, this movie was interesting to them.
OK. Only two more showings to go…I can do this…
Hello Korea ! 
How often do you rewatch movies? (Just in general)
i watched the first 45 mins of Wall-E 14 times this week. they LOVED it. also, there’s like 4 lines of dialogue in the first half :)
I would fall asleep like your co-teacher. The only movies I can watch several times are animation movies, but I have to wait few weeks between them. The only movie I watched 3 times in a same week is Forrest Gump.
You are like my husband. He doesn’t only like rewatching movies, he also rewinds several times when if he finds something interesting or funny. He hits my nerves when he doest that.
Whatever, I’ve probably seen the Labyrinth fourty or fifty times. Maybe I inherited this trait from you? Mark and I should make you a list of school-appropriate movies to show in your class. I’ll add it to my to-do list… Finally got to catch up on your blog in the half hour of battery life I have on the minicomputer at the coffee shop down the street from my house. Hang in there. I love you and I can’t wait to see you
My kids were always busy with their own lives, so if there was a movie I wanted to share with them, I would have to do it with them individually. That usually meant one or two viewings on my own, then one with each of them, for a total of three or four…not that I WANTED to watch them that many times. But it’s fun to see other people enjoy something you enjoyed.
You’ve seen Labyrinth more than Never Ending Story?
Don’t bother with the movie list – It’s too hard to show a movie – there’s only time for half of it, and showing it in episodes means two weeks without a lesson. And then there’s no time to discuss the movie.
Add to that, is worrying about the American image and fantasy life vs. reality and clear and natural dialogue (this is why I don’t show cartoons) and also there has to be enough action that those who are low level won’t totally switch it off.
I’m looking for t.v. episodes, but those are hard to find, and even The Princess Bride was full of colloquialisms lost on Koreans. So if I were a really good teacher, I would have watched the movie several times before hand, written down all the expressions and taught them ahead of time. But there was no time for this: It’s really impossible to impart much of anything important when you only see a student once a week for 45 minutes, and they are 1 of 40 to manage.
Fresh Prince of Bel Air
good idea!