TailorMadeTeaching Newsletter November 2020
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Category Archives: Word creation
TailorMadeTeaching Newsletter 8 August 2020
English Novels Every Proficiency Student Should Read No. 4
British Novels Which Have Added To The English Language
No. 4 Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carol
This 1865 fantasy novel was written by an Oxford don, it is a children’s classic and a must-read if you are visiting Oxford. Alice is a little girl who follows a white rabbit and falls down a rabbit hole into a Wonderland of nonsense. The book is filled with nonsense characters, figures from English nursery rhymes, riddles and wordplay. Although written for children, it was reportedly one of Queen Victoria’s favourite books and everyone knows something of it.
Words & Phrases:
A Cheshire Cat smile/ To smile like a Cheshire Cat /ˌtʃeʃə(r) ˈkæt smaɪl/ (idiom) To smile very broadly, to grin.
English Novels Every Proficiency Student Should Read No. 3
British Novels Which Have Added To The English Language
No. 3 A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle wrote 60 Sherlock Holmes stories. It doesn’t really matter which one you read as neither of the phrases these books have given the language actually appeared in his writing. You may as well start with the first: A Study in Scarlet. Written between 1887 and 1927, the stories are set in Victorian and Edwardian England and provide an interesting portrait of the manners and mores of the time – a time from which, arguably, many British stereotypes originated. Holmes is a great detective who solves many overcomplicated crimes with his partner, Dr Watson.
Themes Crime, detection, justice
English Novels Every Proficiency Student Should Read No. 2
British Novels Which Have Added To The English Language
No. 2 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Most of Dickens’s novels are considered classics. A Christmas Carol is the shortest and has always been the most popular. Set in Victorian London it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an awful miser, who is financially rich but spiritually and emotionally poor and his path to redemption via three ghosts.
Themes: Poverty, inequality, injustice, friendship, family, ghosts. Dickens was a social campaigner whose novels highlighted the terrible poverty in Victorian London and brought it to the attention of the wider public. This book also had a great influence on shaping the traditional English Christmas.
English Novels Every Proficiency Student Should Read No. 1
British Novels Which Have Added To The English Language
Fiction or factual, poetry, newspapers or magazines, lengthy books or short stories – they can all help improve vocabulary, grammar, writing and, ultimately, speech. However, while all books may be equal in this respect, some books are more equal than others!*
Here is the first of my top ten books which have contributed to the English language. While it isn’t strictly necessary to read the books to understand the meaning of the words or phrases they have given English, you’ll probably find them easier to remember and use if you do (and, who knows, you might even enjoy the books!).
No. 1 Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
Intro: Orwell wrote this in 1948 after becoming disillusioned with the Communist regime in Russia. The novel is set in a future dystopia in which people’s lives are almost wholly controlled by The Party. It is regarded as a classic and its themes are as relevant today as they were in 1948. So relevant, in fact, that this book has given more words and phrases to everyday English than any other work of fiction I can think of. Continue reading
My web-log on this international network
Designing my first website this week, discussing blogs and the netiquette of cyberspace, got me thinking about how adaptable languages are. English offers so many ways to create new words. Continue reading