Ireland by Tim Vicary

(Graded Reader)

            After Kings and Queens of Britain, this is another book by the same author, in the same series.  It’s a slightly more advanced level, but most of the same things I said about Kings and Queens of Britain are true of this book as well.  It confused my students more than anything, but if it at least made them aware that the island of Ireland existed, I’m happy with that for now.  If they continue to read widely in the future, hopefully gradually their picture of the world will become clearer.

Teaching Materials

[This book contained a glossary at the back for words that might be problematic for students.  On the first day, I had the class read through the glossary, then on subsequent days I made matching exercises for the words in the glossary.  I know this is all terribly boring and uncreative, but my theory was something was better than nothing when it came to the vocabulary.]

army/armies,  battle, farm, fought, government, history, leader, leather, monasteries, monks

___________ people who live and work in monasteries

___________ the story of things that happened a long time ago

___________ a big fight between two armies

___________ the skin of a cow. Most shoes are made of this

___________ the important people who say what can happen in the country

___________ milk and apples come from there, and animals live there

___________ a lot of men, called soldiers, who fight

___________ churches where men called monks live and work

___________ the past tense of "to fight"

___________ a person who tells other people what to do

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parliament, peace, play, poetry, Pope, post office, president, prison, pub, set

__________ a bar

___________special writing in beautiful language

__________an important building where postmen work

__________a place where bad people have to live for a number of months or years

___________ the place where important people in the government talk

__________the most important man in the Catholic church

__________a story that is told by people in the theatre

__________the most important person in a government

___________when there is no fighting

___________I first ____ my eyes on: I could see her for the first time

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thought, took, vote, welcome

_______the past tense of "to take"

_______Hello, we are happy to see you

_______past tense of "to think"

_______to say who you want to be in the government

Link of the Day

Chomsky explains Cold War in 5 min
And from Tom Tomorrow: Year in Crazy part one and two