I promised that my next post would be about the new Book Club reading books – but only the pdf versions are ready (there’s been a hold-up with the printing of the library readers). However, I’ve decided to announce them now, before the end of the year, so that if you’re working with Intermediate learners next year, you can at least take a look at the sample chapters…
The titles are The English Chip, Blood Kind, and A Lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. (The first two are original fiction, while the third title is an adaptation of an original best-seller from the 1850s!) They were originally e-books and I wanted to put them into print, but with a focus on Extensive Reading rather than offering lots of workbook activities.
Then I found out about librarian Rosalie Foss’s ESL Reading Circle initiative: an introduction to the Book Club concept for our learners. She inspired me to create ‘Book Club readers’, with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. These aren’t generally language-based questions, but questions to engage learners and get them discussing the story.
I have to send a huge thanks to all the teachers and students who trialled these, and now I hope more learners will enjoy reading and discussing them. (More about the benefits of Extensive Reading here.)
Of course, if they never join a mainstream book club in their life, that’s fine. But for some, it might give a taste of what their friends are doing or local libraries are offering – or allow them to do something in English that they’ve done previously in their first language.
So what’s available now? The pdf (printable, sharable) version – you can download sample chapters and licence info on my Payhip page. There’s also audio, though not all learners will need it.
What’s still to come? The A5 library paperback readers (same content exactly, with audio accessible via a website link).
I’ll write a little more about each book in another post, when I’ll hopefully have news of the paperbacks!
