ESL Literacy Readers (Bow Valley Readers)
This collection of 40 theme-based readers features adult ESL learners engaging in everyday work and life activities. These readers, along with an instructor’s guide, were developed to help ESL teachers create comprehensive, theme-based lessons for adult ESL learners. The themes were carefully chosen and are both of high interest to learners, and more importantly, relevant to their lives. Every effort was made to ensure the stories would authentically represent learners themselves as well as events and issues that a typical learner may experience.
For learners:
The learner page provides ESL students with access to seven levels of stories written specifically for adults. Each story focuses on a different learner and has an accompanying listening track so learners can listen as well as read the story.
For instructors:
The instructor page (linked from the blue ESL Literacy Readers button on the homepage) offers free PDFs so teachers can print off the books for their classrooms, as well as an instructor guide with ideas for before, during, and after reading activities to help teachers create lessons based around the themes of the stories.
A note about levels:
The collection was developed by experienced ESL instructors from Bow Valley College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They are organized by three Canadian Literacy Benchmark or CLB Phases:
- CLB I (Initial, Developing, and Adequate) is similar to Low/High Beginning ESL
- CLB II is similar to Low/High Intermediate ESL
- CLB III is similar to Advanced ESL