Listen to a Good Book

Reading a variety of texts from fiction to non-fiction is great for developing your vocabulary, broadening your knowledge and of course developing your English. Much as I like to read, one of the great pleasures from my childhood was having someone read to me, so in today's activity you can share that pleasure using a website called PodioBooks.

This site has a wide selection of books which have been recorded. The recordings are clear and very high quality and you can listen without having to download them, or you can register on the site and get installments sent to you.

For this task I'm going to suggest two books, one for younger readers and another for teenagers or older, but you could also browse the site and make you own choice.

Task: For younger readers or the young at heart.

• Go to: http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz
• Here you will see some brief information about the 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'.
  

• As the information says, the book is very different from the film. You may well have seen the film, and so as a listening task, try to spot differences between the book and the film.
• If you haven't seen the film, the perhaps you would like to watch this clip and get some idea of the story.
  

Task: For teenage readers and older

• Go to: http://www.podiobooks.com/title/how-to-succeed-in-evil---volume-one
• Here you will see some brief information about 'How to Succeed in Evil'. The book is described as,
  'Alternately dark and funny, this is a satire on corporate culture as well as the traditional comic book villain.'
  
• As you listen to the book, try to make some notes about any examples of corporate greed or evil which are referred to.
  

I hope you enjoy these books and find the time to listen to many more. I also hope you enjoy the experience of having someone read to you.

Come back soon for more EFL ESL activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Prompting reading speeds
• Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials
• Fantastic Free E-Books for EFL and ELT
• Free ebooks on elearning
• Writing Project Community
• Free Web Publishing Community

Best

Nik Peachey