Teaching "The Golden Girls"

Now that we've saying goodbye to another one of the Golden Girls (RIP Rue McClanahan), it occurred to me that it would be a fantastic show to teach.  While they did live in a multi-generational arrangement, as Dorothy's mother came to live with them, it also shows a different kind of life for senior citizens than is experienced in China - they have lives beyond minding the grandkids, they're still very independent.

Has anyone ever used this show in their classes before? 

If your class is full of English majors: a possibility, but I'd bet they are bored by it and cannot understand the social dynamic if they are undergraduates.

If you are teaching non-English majors I imagine the class would be bored to death. Similar reasoning as the undergraduate English majors, but without the desire to try and watch it simply to try and practice their English.

I found episodes from the early seasons of The Simpsons to be effective. Everybody Loves Raymond is a show I don't particularly enjoy, but the social dynamic between Raymond, his bother, his wife and his family seemed to get the kids talking. Everybody Hates Chris was also pretty well received. I wish I could find quality, thirty minute dramas to share with my students but those are more difficult to come by.

Yeah, I'm not sure it would go over that well. My students (who are a bit younger than college students, but not by much, my seniors are 17-19) like shows about pretty young people, unfortunately. I don't think they'd really get what is going on in Golden Girls or why certain characters are supposed to be funny.

In my classes Friends is a huge favorite, as is Gossip Girl (which is much too dirty and innuendo-filled to use in class, but they watch it on their own). Our Chinese English teacher shows them episodes of Felicity which is about college life and they really like that. Overall they prefer shows that they can relate to on some level or that show a sort of alternate reality version of their own lives.

I've also shown reality TV occasionally, like The Amazing Race. It is fast paced and doesn't require a huge English vocabulary to understand (they can watch it without subtitles and still get it), it has the contest element that makes it exciting, and the world travel gives them some interesting cultural lessons. I've thought of showing them Survivor too because I think they'd get a kick out of people eating rats and sleeping in shacks getting rained on and stuff trying to win a million.

TLD- Did you download The Amazing Race or find DVDs?  I can never figure out how to download things, but I would love to show it in class.  I bet there are some really great spin off activities.

I downloaded it using torrents, there's one private tracker in particular that I go to for TV shows. I think they have several seasons of TAR for download. PM me with your e-mail address if you want an invite to the site. You can also find episodes online on Chinese sites like Youku but they'll have subtitles and the resolution won't be as high.

TAR is definitely a good one to show in class, like you said, you can do a lot of spin off activities based on the challenges.