Stories (Upper-intermediate)
Stories (Upper-intermediate) ::: https://urlgoal.com/2tKqNj
These short stories will also introduce your students to authors that remain discussed in universities and at coffee tables around the world. They will build confidence from these intermediate level short stories, becoming thirsty for more of the good stuff. Once your students are familiar with a particular author, attempting one of their full-length novels becomes much more doable.
The themes and topics from these stories lend themselves nicely to a variety of classroom activities. You can harness discussion using group or pair activities, highlight debate topics within a short story, or open up the classroom for group discussion as well.
With challenge comes discussion, the cornerstone to intermediate lesson plans. Your upper level ESL students have already mastered the grammar, so most yearn for more practical language skills. These five short stories can be coupled with discussion-minded ESL activities in a variety of ways, as you will see below.
Let the literary masters of history come to life within your ESL classroom by developing discussion-based lesson plans around short stories. Beyond the five listed here, there is a wealth of short stories available online to draw from. You can easily transform delightful short stories of multiple lengths and plots into activities your eager intermediate English students will enjoy and learn from.
Let them unlock new ways to express themselves, explore literature, debate and share their opinions with others through short stories. You students will undoubtedly obtain the ESL discussion skills vital for communicating in real-life situations.
Short stories must be your own © originalwork, be set in an English-speaking environment, and be appropriate forteenagers or young adult readers.Linguapressis also interested in publishing good short stories by establishedwriters whose works are in the public domain, and welcomes suggestions.To be in the public domain, works must be by a writer who died over 70years ago.
I remember reading about the Aral Sea a long time ago. I think it was one of the first stories about the environment that affected me. Since I first read about it, the story of the Aral Sea has continued. These three short news items from the National Geographic news page explain.
One Sunday afternoon in Kazakhstan last August, a group of fishermen met for a celebration. They were on the shore of the North Aral Sea. They brought food to eat, and they had races and throwing contests. Afterwards, they relaxed, telling stories and singing songs about the Aral Sea and fishing and how much they loved both of these things.
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl was one of my favourite authors growing up. His stories are funny and usually end in an unexpected way. Fantastic Mr. Fox is recommended for students in grade 2. Other well-known books by Dahl include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda
There are more books I am thinking of adding to the list, short story books and the books I read by Shakespeare in high school. However, this list is a good starting point for English learners. These books are classics and will not only help you improve you English but you will read the most important stories from English, American and Canadian culture.
Hi Irene,Anne Dunn (with the illustrator Moira Hanrahan) books are also well worth a consideration. They have books in various levels and some also have audio CDs as well. Most (if not all) have an exercise page at the end. What I like about these books the most is that they are either based on true stories (eg. Phar Lap) or are real-like stories (Eg. The Wedding) which often cater well for adult learners.
Read my review of Hotel Borbollón, a story-based Spanish learning program with exercises, dialogues, stories, historical notes, videos, and comics. Each lesson takes about 15 minutes, making it easy to squeeze daily practice into a busy schedule.Special offer: One month free trial
Reviewed work:Short Stories for Creative Language Classrooms. (1993). Joanne Collie and Stephen Slater. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 107. ISBN: 052140653. $15.00Reviewed byMoana RosaMt. Hood Community CollegeShort Stories for Creative Language Classrooms, by Collie and Slater, provides English language learners with eleven authentic and captivating short stories and accompanying creative activities that address all four skill areas: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The stories and activities are all designed not only to educate students, but also to inspire, involve, and intrigue them. The collection differs from other textbooks by providing exercises for the practice of specific grammar or literary points, as well as offering tasks and creative activities that allow the learner to become involved in the story itself, rather than focused solely on language acquisition. The book consists of eleven sections, each with its own short story and accompanying activities, including pre-reading warm-up activities, during-reading activities, and post-reading "creative development" exercises. All the sections are self-contained. Students or teachers can choose the stories, as well as the various tasks and exercises in any order.The collection provides a wide variety of themes and styles, which are interesting and relevant to all levels of students. The short stories are complete, unabridged, authentic stories from around the world, with broad themes ranging from loneliness to tolerance, from escapism to family relations. The tasks and activities are excellent, for example asking students to write an "interior monologue" of one of the characters, or to discuss and illustrate the themes of the story (pp. 33-36). There is a wide variety of tasks and ideas, some more structured than others, although all are creative. Students are able to relate the stories to their own lives and background knowledge with a variety of pre-reading and post-reading tasks that have the students fill out diagrams, charts, or checklists about the general theme. There are group work and pair work suggestions that further promote discussion. Also while some linguistic elements, e.g., grammar exercises, are not emphasized, students are able to work directly with the text on activities that focus on new vocabulary or reading comprehension as well as other strategies, such as listening or reading for specific information and inferring information. Finally, there are creative activities that promote production of the students' own language, both written and spoken (e.g., writing a different ending, discussing what the author may be like, or re-titling the story). Upper intermediate and advanced learners will get the most out of this book, although the tasks and stories are accessible enough for even lower intermediate (as well as native English speakers) to benefit from the wide variety of tasks and activities. The authors provide these tasks without burdening the student with too much background knowledge or specific "lessons". The themes are broad and general enough for most students to understand without the need to deal explicitly with specific information or lengthy introductions. This is another strength of the book. By not demanding a lot of assumed knowledge about the cultures or literary backgrounds to each story, the book lets the student use their own understandings of the setting and culture as the basis for interpretation. The book therefore stimulates students' involvement, motivation, and creativity. This reinforces the idea that the book is, in fact, interactive and the students must be involved in their learning. Furthermore, the activities specifically prompt the students to relate their reading experiences to their experiences, further strengthening the interactive and student-centered approach. The tasks are also creative and easy to develop or adapt to the specific needs of any student group. The instructions and layout of the book are very clear and easy to follow, with an attractive layout and excellent use of diagrams and pictures. A cassette tape is also available with recordings of all the stories as well as listening activities. The teacher is provided with 17 pages of notes on each particular story as well as comments on the format, style, and applications. The materials could also be used by the student in a self-access style, with a key provided to some activities and a description of the aims and concepts of the theme. The only drawback to self-access use would be the lack of student interaction and discussion. With respect to competing titles, there are few textbooks that deal with short stories in a similar interactive and creative manner. For example, Distant thunder (Scalone, 1999) provides ten sections with increasingly difficult short stories and poems. However, very little student interaction is encouraged, with most exercises being fairly similar and standard in their style. English, yes!: Learning English through literature, (Goodman, 1996) provides the learner with a set of short stories and very traditional grammar and vocabulary activities, which provide little opportunity for student involvement. Short Stories is an excellent and exciting textbook for any student. The material is creative, intriguing, and involves the learners in their own learning. The book promotes the enjoyment of reading and motivates the learner to apply and interpret the material to their own lives. All four basic skill areas are covered, while no overwhelming focus is given to any specific language point. The students learn through doing. If there are any challenges or drawbacks in using this book, I have yet to experience them. I would whole-heartedly recommend this book as an excellent and motivating textbook for all learners and teachers.ReferencesGoodman, B. (1996). English, yes!: Learning English through literature. Lincolnwood, IL: Jamestown Publishers. 781b155fdc