As part of the course book I use in preparing my students for the CAE and CPE exams there is a section on the different ways families work in England and Greece. To make the rather dry exercise a little more interesting, I decided to use My Big, Fat Greek Wedding in class. Not having a DVD player in the school I used my ibook to show the movie.
Lesson Plan
1 Ask the class if anyone has seen the movie. Since it was a popular film here in Greece ask those who have seen it to explain the basic plot to those who haven't (see here for summary).
2 Now outline the background to the scene you're about to show (1hr 02 mins to 1hr 7 mins).
Ian Miller, the only son of a very WASPy family meet Toula's, Greek American one for the first time and much cultural confusion ensues.
3 Ask students to write down all the differences they can between the two families.
4 Students discuss their answers in pairs then as a class.
5 Ask them if they think that the film offers a realistic portrayal of Greek people.
6 Students post their answers in written form on the class blog or video them and post them via YouTube.
This exercise worked very well and we got a lot of very sophisticated analysis of the film's portrayal of Greeks and Americans.
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