You don’t like reading?

By Ben (Discover English Teacher)

Students often tell me this when I take them to the library. ‘Sorry, teacher,’ they say. ‘When I read, I feel sleepy.’

Warning: I’m now going to sound like your mother telling to eat your veggies, ‘You must eat, dear. You’re too thin! Have some more broccoli.’

There’s so much you can learn from books that you can’t learn from YouTube. And here’s the bonus – if you can read in English, it’s really good for your language learning.

Did you start off learning English super fast? You went from Elementary to Pre-Intermediate to Intermediate in a hop, skip and a jump? Then your progress slowed, and maybe you’ve even lost your mojo (confidence)? Now you’ve been stuck at Intermediate for more than 10 weeks? In the voice of mama: ‘You need to read more in English, darling!’

Don’t worry! Follow these steps to get back your English mojo with regular reading. Okay, the first thing you need to do is join the City Library.

See our guide to joining the City Library, here.

After you have joined, visit the city library and ask the librarian to show you the ESL Readers. They are levelled, with colour coding, especially for learners of English like you. That way, you won’t get frustrated by trying to read a book with too many words you don’t know.

Choose a book you are interested in. Look at any double page. If there are more than 10 words you don’t know on the double page, then the book is too difficult for you. You need to choose a lower level reader.

If you’re not sure what to read, try reading the book of a movie you like. For example, if you like James Bond movies, you could try reading Casino Royale at Pre-Intermediate level.

You can search the City Library catalogue of books here

Once you’ve read Casino Royale, you can try watching the movie, starring Daniel Craig, with English subtitles only, to see what you can understand. There are heaps of other movie-themed readers at the City Library.

Mummy knows best: ‘To improve your progress in English once again you need more English language input. Try to read, and watch TV and movies in English for at least an hour each day!’