Oxford Bookworms Library: Eat Pray Love (Level 4)

14th February is Valentine’s Day. That’s traditionally the day when boyfriends and girlfriends
(or husbands and wives) go for romantic candle-lit dinners, or exchange presents –
chocolates, perfume, red roses – and Valentine’s cards. Sometimes the cards are romantic,
showing Cupid, the Roman love god, sometimes they’re humorous. Sometimes the cards are
signed with a name (or a ‘pet name’, like ‘Piglet’ for example, used in private by two people
who are emotionally close). Sometimes, especially if you ‘fancy’ someone but haven’t dared
tell them, the cards can be anonymous, signed ‘Your Valentine’, followed by question marks
(?????) and kisses (xxxxx).
This tradition continues today, but recently, especially in America, it’s become
broader. Children give Valentine’s card to their classmates, teacher, and family members.
Parents give Valentine’s cards to their children. Adults give Valentine’s cards to special
friends or close work colleagues. Valentine’s Day is no longer just about romantic love. It’s
about family and friendly love, too.
If you want to conduct an informal survey about what ‘Valentine’s Day’ means for
your students, you can use Valentine’s pictures. (See the downloadable Valentine’s picture
cards. You can add or change some pictures if you want.) You can get individual class
members to rank these from ‘most connected with Valentine’s day’ to ‘least connected with
Valentine’s day’. Or ask each student to choose their top three Valentine’s Day images.
These activities could make for fun discussions on, or around, Valentine’s day. (It’s on
Thursday this year!)
All of this makes me think of the ‘Human Interest’ graded readers category that
different ELT publishers use. ‘Human Interest’ covers many things: family relationships,
friendship, love and marriage, even divorce!
With younger learners, it’s best to stick to Human Interest stories focusing on
friends, family, or innocent first love. Stories like Heidi, Pollyanna, The Little Princess, Anne
of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, or Little Lord Fauntleroy fit this profile.
With older teenagers, or adult learners, your students may be open to an
autobiographical Human Interest story of a divorced and depressed American woman trying
to find herself. During this story, Elizabeth Gilbert experiments with different friends, lovers,
medicine men and gurus, and ends up deciding what she really wants from life (food,
spiritual things, or a love relationship). If the sound of that book appeals to you, I’d heartily
recommend ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. (See the downloadable first chapter.) It was made into a
movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem in 2010.
For teachers planning to use ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, I’d recommend activating key words
from the first chapter before getting learners to dive into the book. There’s nothing worse,
when reading a gripping story in a foreign language, than having to look up words you don’t
understand.
One tool you can use for this is a card game. (See downloadable ‘Key word &
definition’ cards.) This is easy to prepare when your graded reader contains a glossary of
above level words (as Bookworms and Dominoes do).
To play the ‘Word and Definition Pairs’ game, I suggest putting learners into small
groups, each with a set of cards. Here’s one way to play: lay the definition cards face down
in a pile on the table between players. Lay the word cards face up in rows for all players to
see. The dealer takes the top card from the definition pile and reads it aloud. The first player
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to grab the matching word card and lay it in front of the dealer, wins the card pair. (You can
have a secret reference sheet of uncut cards for the dealer’s use, to check matchups if he or
she is unsure.) The player who wins the card pair becomes the next dealer and repeats the
above steps. The player with the most card pairs when the game ends is the winner.
To make the game easier, let players look through the definition cards before
shuffling them and laying them face down in a pile. To make the game more challenging,
learners play it without any chance to prepare beforehand.
If players don’t know the correct word to match a definition card, they can take a
guess. If no one can guess correctly, the definition card is placed at the bottom of the pile of
face down definition cards, to be paired with its match later.
If you use the sample chapter of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ with your students, they can have
fun playing this game with the downloadable cards. If you use another ‘Human Interest’
Dominoes or Bookworms reader (maybe one of those suggested above), use the glossary to
prepare new cards, and follow the game rules described earlier. Either way, I hope that you
and your students have a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Follow-up task: If your students read the whole of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, ask them to look out for
the ‘pet name’ for Liz that Richard, her friend at the Ashram in India, uses in the story!

https://elt.oup.com/catalogue/items/global/graded_readers/oxford_bookworms_library/stage_4/9780194786164?cc=us&selLanguage=en&mode=hub

February is the month of love… И ведь, действительно, сложно найти в календаре большинства современных стран более романтичного праздника, чем День Святого Валентина, отмечаемый 14 февраля. Сегодня у нас отрывок из очень популярной книги, которая издана в Oxford Bookworms Library. Книга эта называется «Eat, Pray, Love», на русском языке известная как «Есть, молиться, любить».

Oxford Bookworms Library Level 4: Eat Pray Love
Elizabeth Gilbert

CEFR B1/B2

• Word count 18,805

One Woman’s Search for Everything
Stage 4 (1400 headwords)

OX F O R D B O O K WO R M S L I B R A RY
True Stories

Retold by
Rachel Bladon
Illustrated by
Kali Ciesemier

Ешь, молись, люби

Всегда хотел посетить Италию и изучить прекрасный язык и еду? Когда-либо

Вообразите, как бродите по улицам Индии и посещаете ашрам? Когда-либо мечтал

исследовать Индонезию и ее тропические пляжи? Одна женщина исследует мир, чтобы найти то, что она хочет от жизни.

«В жизни каждого человека наступает момент, когда тебя интересуют большие вопросы. Кто я? Что я сделал со своей жизнью до сих пор? Чего я хочу? В возрасте тридцати одного года Элизабет Гилберт понимает, что она не знает, чего она хочет от жизни. И вот она начинает свои поиски … »

Eat, Pray, Love

Ever wanted to visit Italy and explore the beautiful language and food? Ever

imagined wandering the streets of India and visiting an ashram? Ever dreamt

of exploring Indonesia and it’s tropical beaches? One woman explores the world to find what she wants from life.

“There comes a time in everybody’s life when the big questions hit you. Who am I? What have I done with my life so far? What do I want? At the age of thirty-one Elizabeth Gilbert realises she doesn’t know what she wants from life. So she begins her search…»

P.s. Не забывайте, «Ешь, молись, люби» стал популярным фильмом, почему бы не использовать некоторые из клипов в классе со своими учениками !?