Reading activities for students and teachers of English

This part of elteaching.com contains information, activity ideas and exercises about books that can be read in the English class. Up to intermediate level, books have been written especially with students in mind. They are known as "graded readers", because they are designed so that they can be understood by students with a specific level.

Publishing houses usually offer downloadable pdf files with activities about the book. Most activities are tests, while some others include group discussions or suggestions for writing activities.

Upper-Intermediate and advanced students are often invited to read unabridged books. This is challenging because the language level needed to understand them is high. However, it is an excellent opportunity to read "real English" and to get into the culture of English-speaking countries.

The information on this page is, therefore, organized into two main categories: graded readers and unabridged books.

Graded readers

Bad Company

This is a graded reader published by Cambridge University Press and written by Richard MacAndrew. The title is a wordplay, because "company" refers both to an organization where people work and to the people you are with.

Plot

An early morning call wakes up police inspector Helen Shepherd: her new sergeant, Brian Webb, tells her that a young woman lies dead on a beach in a nearby town. The dead lady was one of the workers of MMI, a London-based music company which is staying at a hotel to discuss some important issues. Shepherd and Webb question the boss and the employees and soon find out that the relationship between this team were not very good. Some details help them find who the assassin was.

Activities

There is a downloadable worksheet for teachers who sign up for an account on Cambridge ELT website. Apart from the activities mentioned there, it may be worth carrying out the following ones:

1) Character identification. We may search the web for pictures that match -approximately- the description of the characters in the book. We can then project these pictures and ask students to identify the characters and the job they do. If they guess correctly, we can show them the second slide with the correct answer. If they need help, a mouse click will display some help. See example slides here.

Unabridged books

©2011 Fernando Romeu