Technical data: The stories' vocabulary and grammar is based on the Croatian elementary school English language program for the 5th grade (book: "Building Bridges 5" by B. Lubina et al., Profil, Zagreb, 2008.).License/copyright: The stories from the series "The Taylors" (by Ana T.) are free to use as a teaching/learning resource (copy/paste allowed, printing/copying allowed, etc.). However, using these stories in a commercial book (e.g. an English textbook) is not allowed without the consent of the author. Feel free to contact me through EnglishClub. Thank you.SERIES: The TaylorsSTORY #1: The Taylor FamilyGRAMMAR: Present SimpleJohn lives in a small town in Colorado with his mother Amy, sisters Jane and Emma, and brother Michael. They have a house with a big garden, a dog named Bella and a hamster named Tikky. John and Emma are both eleven, while Jane and Michael are eight. They are two sets of identical twins, and sometimes they like to pretend to be the other twin, confusing their friends and relatives. Only their mother is able to recognize them anytime and anywhere. The children have very different hobbies. John likes science and he wants to become an astronomer, Emma likes to write stories, Jane plays a piano and dreams of becoming a famous musician, and Michael likes animals and wants to become a veterinarian. Their mother is a hardworking woman who raises four children all by herself, but her niece Tessa, who lives nearby, helps her out as a sitter.
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As a private tutor, I've been looking for texts written in Present Simple and/or Present Continuous, since that's my students' level of knowledge. They're in the 5th and the 6th grade (the same school), and the program is really slow - after five and six years of learning English they use and learn only Present Simple and Present Continuous.The problem for me lies in finding texts (stories) written in present tense, which I could use for my classes. Even those labeled as "basic English" or "beginner's" are often written in Past tense, and the vocabulary is more suitable for a native speaker than a young ESL learner. So, I've decided to write my own short stories, and I'll be posting them here in this blog, one by one, as they're being created.
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Once upon a time (not too long ago) I was pretty sure my future was in teaching English. But after more than 16 years of active learning (in school and with my "private" tutor of 15 years) I switched English for science. I did some tutoring of my own for a couple of years, but then the science studies kidnapped all of my free time.Recently, thanks to the infamous recession, I've returned to tutoring a couple of neighbourhood kids and rediscovered the joys of TESL. After almost 10 years of working with children (my grad studies are partially aimed at teaching science) I now have much more teaching experience and confidence in general. I'm also thinking of taking the CPE exam sometime in the near future; not just to prove to myself that I can do it, but also to get some official proof that I've actually learned something over the years.I'm not going to leave the science for English, but one-on-one tutoring is challenging, fun and rewarding, and it's also an excellent way to go (again) through all of those grammar rules and definitions that got a little bit rusty over time.So...*goes to poke around the place*...I don't have much time to spend in these parts, but I'll be seeing you around :)
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