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Hi, my name’s Jack Scholes.
I’m a teacher, I’m British.
I’m also a teacher trainer and an author.
I’d like to spend just a few minutes with you
briefly explaining
the fantastic range of new graded readers
from Helbling Languages.
This is the Helbling Languages 2011 catalogue.
These readers range from starter to upper intermediate level
and they’re very specially written for teenagers and young adults.
They’re divided as you could probably see from the table here
and from this page in the catalogue into two different kinds.
Basically, the “Red series” and the “Blue series”.
The Red series have various kinds of stories
to cater for every kind of reader.
For example you have classics like this one,
“The adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.
You also have original fiction like this one called “The Time Capsule”.
You also have graphic stories. So, as you can see in this one,
you have it in the form of a kind of cartoon.
So this makes it very easy to read, not too much text.
And you also have in this Red Series
for the younger teenagers, these short reads.
Some students have a little reluctance to read
and they don’t really want too much text
so these would be ideal for those students.
Now at the “Blue” level,
these are the intermediate to upper intermediate level,
you also have classic stories, like this one from Jack London
“The Call of the Wild”.
And I’d like to take this opportunity to show you
what I personally think is the best reader ever written.
It’s called “the Coconut Seller” and I’m the author.
I’m very modest also as you can see.
Now, the interesting thing about theses readers, all of them,
both the “Red Series” and the “Blue Series”,
they have some features that are absolutely unique.
Some of these just to show you for example,
you always have pre reading activities.
It’s very important that students are
prepared very well before hand. You don’t just through them a book
and expect that they’ll grab it and excitedly read it.
You need to prepare them.
So, all of the books have pre reading activities.
My story, by the way, takes place in Brazil.
So, for example one of the activities here is a quiz
which asks how much do you know about Brazil.
Answer the quiz and then you can listen to the answers on the CD.
By the way,
the CD comes with every single reader, with the reader in the pack,
with the story recorded,
and you can also access these on the Internet and download them to MP3.
So that’s very, very useful if you can listen and read at the same time.
Research shows that that will improve all your skills.
Ok, another thing very important, Let’s say.
You’ve got the students to read.
You found a subject that is of interest of them, they started to read.
But you as teacher also
must keep them interested, maintain the motivation,
and one way we can do this, is by reflection boxes.
Again, all of these books in the two series
have little boxes in the middle
that link the story to the student’s own life.
And this is very important because when the student
personalizes the information,
they kind of
own the language.
So if I’m talking about me,
is much more important
and I become much more involved in the story.
Just an example,
this story I wrote, called “The Coconut Seller”.
The coconut is a boy who lives in Rio, in a favela,
he’s very poor, and at a certain moment in his life,
he has the chance to solve all his problems.
But there is a catch, there is a problem.
He has to do something which is wrong.
And there is the dilemma. So in the reflection box
the question asks “What would you do if you were Bruno?”
In other words, these are principles which are very important.
The difference between right and wrong.
Can the end justify the means?
Other examples are very simple day to day
relevant kind of subject which is the girl in the story.
She’s very often at the beginning bad tempered,
she argues with her father, like many teenagers.
So again, reflection box in the middle of the story
asks the student about bad moods,
and it says, “Do you get into a bad mood?
When you get into a bad mood? Why?
How to take it out on? What you do about it?” etc.
So, you have during reading activities
and that at the end, which is very important,
after reading activities.
But the after reading activities which have been all prepared for you
are a variety. For example,
you have comprehension,
but the comprehension is not just simple answer the questions
to see if you understood the story.
One I wrote here, for example that I particularly like is the following;
“Write a 150 word summary of the story
but deliverable include three incorrect pieces of information.
And then exchange that with your partner”.
So you know the information is correct but you have to find out
which three pieces of information are incorrect.
You have comprehension questions. You have questions about the characters.
And also you have projects.
Suggestions of projects that the students can do.
There is a lot of information on the Internet,
for example about the projects.
There are links on the Internet to the projects.
And also in the Internet,
this is very, very important for teachers.
On the Web site www.helblinglanguages.com
go to the readers section.
There you have a booklet called “Reading Matters”
and this booklet will give you all the information you need,
all the advice you need, lots of very practical advice
on how you can start using readers with your students.
It’s free by the way.
All of this information on the Internet
on the Helbling website is free.
So you can download this booklet if you wish,
you can read it, you can copy it.
On the Internet,
you also have lots of extra information which is again free.
You have worksheets for each of the stories.
You have things like “speech bubbles” that you can
take from the Internet, download, photocopy, give to your students,
all for free.
And this all comes with these series of graded readers
from Helbling Languages.
Reading can be real fun. Reading should be a pleasure.
I hope your students and you
will enjoy reading these wonderful graded reading from Helbling Languages.
Thank you very much.