View Content #1615
| Contentid | 1615 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Novels for ESL classes |
| Body | One of our instructors is experimenting with novel pitched at the 9 to 12 age group. She is using it in the second half of a 16 week low-intermediate class. The engaging story is about a boy trying to deal with his family tradition of very bad luck. He gets sentenced to a "camp" for juvenile delinquents where the boys are forced to dig holes in the desert. The story line cuts back and forth between past and present as Stanley works off the family curse. The film features Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson, and Henry Winkler as some of the adults. One of the things I especially like about using the book is that it has a good website: http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/liveaction/holes/main.html where students can go to see pictures of the characters and the setting so that they have a visual image of the action as they read the book. The website also includes lesson plans for educators. They are pitched at 4th - 6th grade classes and look pretty lame for adults. Some of the book's themes -- poverty and racial injustice -- are far from lame, and the vocabulary presented is a good stretch for students as they prepare to move up to the next class level. Snoke, J. (14 Apr. 2004). Novels for ESL Classes. Teachers of English to speakers of other languages electronic list. TESL-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (20 May 2004). I had great success teaching Girl With A Pearl Earring to an intermediate-level ESL reading class a couple of years ago. Paintings by Vermeer are woven into the story, so it is possible to have students do close readings of sections that describe the paintings and then find each painting (laminated copies of the relevant paintings and posted them throughout the room). Students also made a camera obscura - directions are on the web - and e-mailed questions to the author, who was quite good about responding. They really enjoyed all of these activities. Manning, J. (15 Apr. 2004). Re: Novels for ESL Classes. Teachers of English to speakers of other languages electronic list. TESL-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (20 May 2004). |
| Source | TESL-L listserv |
| Inputdate | 2004-05-20 20:21:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2004-05-20 20:21:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | Not set |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
