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Post by momo black on Sept 15, 2016 10:59:57 GMT 9
My supervisor wants me to do a two-to-three session English book club. I had said I wanted to do events based around books and reading, so I'm pretty psyched for this, but there's one significant stumbling block.
Namely, I can't think of any short English stories that would be readable in two to three weeks, but would also be enjoyable for adults. My supervisor mentioned The Little Prince, but we are probably not going to use that book because there's a CIR in the prefecture from France and it would feel a little weird doing an English translation of a French book for an English oriented event when there's a French person around.
Does anyone have any short story authors they could recommend? Or short story collections? If you know of any with simple writing styles, that would probably also be helpful.
Thank you!
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 15, 2016 11:14:35 GMT 9
I'm currently away from a computer, but you could take a look through this website: americanliterature.com/high-school-short-storiesAlso, maybe look into having them read short stories translated into English by Japanese authors (Akutagawa, Murakamai) if the sole aim is for English learning (rather than culture)? I know tons of people who practice Japanese by reading the translated versions of books they love (like Harry Potter). |
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Post by Sparkles on Sept 15, 2016 14:56:06 GMT 9
^ definitely seconding both of Quail's suggestions. Out of the ones on the list she posted, I particularly love "The Story of an Hour," but the ones I've read on it were all good. You may also want to do a series of short stories done by a well-known author (like Edgar Allen Poe), one per week, so you have a theme going. I think if you do go the short story route, some kind of theme (season, author, genre, time period, country) would pull things together nicely. I'm trying to think of short books for an adult audience and I'm just coming up with things like "Ethan Frome" (by Edith Martin) and (though I did not enjoy the book when I read it) "The Old Man and the Sea" (Hemingway), but I feel like these types of books could go over people's heads in their second language (aka I don't think I would've gotten the point of something like "Ethan Frome" if I had read it in Japanese so mad respect to those who can). One shorter book that came to mind as a middle-school level of language but content adults could enjoy is "The Giver" (Lois Lowry) -- you've most likely heard of/read it, but in case you haven't, it's kind of the original dystopian YA novel from the 90s, and it's very good. This article goes over suggestions for running a book club/discussion and ends with suggestions of authors and short stories appropriate for adult ESL learners. In addition to this list, you may want to look into more genre fiction such as sci-fi short stories by someone like Ray Bradbury (I remember reading "There Will Come Soft Rains" when I was 12 and it definitely left an impression). If I think of anything else, I'll post it. Hmmm.... |
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Post by momo black on Sept 15, 2016 15:10:50 GMT 9
Both of you, thanks very much for your advice!! It's really helpful.
If my supervisor will be OK with 3 weeks, then I could maybe do one famous author and 3 works of theirs, or pick a theme. I feel like 2 weeks might just be short to try to do an ongoing theme, since I would only really be showing two stories, but I'll keep thinking it over.
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Post by momo black on Sept 29, 2016 14:18:32 GMT 9
My supervisor ended up approving Gift of the Magi and the Monkey's Paw as the stories I'll do.
Now I'm making a vocab list for Monkey's Paw -- my question is, do you think I should also add footnotes re-writing difficult to understand sentences into simpler English? There are some places where the syntax and old language make sentences considerably challenging.
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Post by CaptainSeery on Sept 29, 2016 14:25:13 GMT 9
I think that wouldn't be a bad idea. Like you say, old-timey language can be really confusing if you're not used to it.
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