Category: EL Book introductions　EL本棚の紹介

Dec 15

EL本棚紹介(86) Kiki’s Delivery Service, by Eiko Kadono

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ Like the My Neighbor Totoro and Castle in the Sky comic books I introduced before, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a great way to “learn what you already know.” In other words, it is much easier to read a book you already …

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Dec 15

EL本棚紹介(85) Extensive Reading (多読) Series Global Issues Narratives

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ Global Issues Narratives is a really interesting idea. These books have three main features. First, they are stories about young people around the world. Second, the stories are about important social problems, like those connected to SDGs. Finally, they are written …

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Dec 05

EL本棚紹介(84) Extensive Reading (多読) Series from I Talk You Talk Press

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ I Talk You Talk Press is a small company that makes books for Extensive Reading (多読). Their books are not classic literature or non-fiction. Instead, they are mostly new stories about young people, mostly in Japan. Here are a few of …

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Nov 17

EL本棚紹介(83) Motel of the Mysteries, by David Macaulay

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ This is a weird, weird picture book. The story takes place in the distant future, after North America is destroyed by an overflow of junk mail. Everything about American culture and history has been forgotten…until the archaeologist Howard Carson discovers a …

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Nov 01

EL本棚紹介(82) My Neighbor Totoro and Castle in the Sky, by Hayao Miyazaki

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ I am sure you have seen the movies My Neighbor Totoro and Castle in the Sky. I don’t need to write about the stories here. Almost everyone likes Studio Ghibli films, so you will probably like reading these full-olor manga versions …

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Oct 19

EL本棚紹介(81) The Big Wave, by Pearl S. Buck

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ The Big Wave is a very, very short book that I think is worth your time. It was written by Pearl S. Buck, a woman who lived in Japan and China before World War 2 and wrote stories about East Asian …

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Oct 05

EL本棚Column: Thoughts on choosing an Extensive Reading Book

（日本語はこちらです） When I was a student, I studied Japanese in a variety of ways. For as long as I have studied Japanese, however, I have consistently done what we call Extensive Reading (多読). Therefore, in this blog post I want to offer some thoughts about choosing books for reading in a second language, based on both my personal perspective and some research in the field of language pedagogy. The most important thing is finding books that you will continue reading. Research on Extensive Reading consistently emphasizes both the role of enjoyment in reading and ease of comprehension. When teachers recommend books for extensive reading, however, we often point to “Graded …

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Jul 27

EL本棚紹介(80) Animal Farm, by George Orwell

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ George Orwell’s most famous novel, 1984, is a masterpiece of modern fiction. It is a fictional story examining how a fascist society operates. The setting is a drab but realistic world in which individuality is stamped out by an oppressive government. …

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Jul 27

EL本棚紹介(79) Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ One of the reasons why comic books and graphic novels have become popular in the United States recently is that they are a creative “medium.” Instead of writing only with words, artists combine words and pictures to show how they feel. …

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Jul 21

EL本棚紹介(78) The Tempest: The Graphic Novel, by William Shakespeare, adapted by John McDonald

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.] _______ The Tempest is the last play that Shakespeare wrote by himself. If you have never read Shakespeare or never seen a movie or play by him, you will probably be surprised by this book. The story is full of magic, fairies, …

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