Saturday, May 10, 2014

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Deborah Tempest



            This is another graded reader that I used with my class of young learners.
            I think this book is based on Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory, because the introduction makes reference to Thomas Mallory.  But it’s not entirely clear.

            At any rate, I myself know very little about the legend of King Arthur.  (It’s always been one of those things I’ve been meaning to read up on someday, but have never got around to.)  So I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this book.

            The stories in the book are often very strange.  Someone will take a dislike to someone else for no apparent reason, and then a completely senseless fight will break out.
            I’m not sure if this strangeness is inherent in the source material, or if this is a problem with abridging and simplifying the work for beginning English students.  (The publishers, Penguin Readers, classify this book as level 2, which means that it has to be limited to a core vocabulary of only 600 words.)
            I suspect it is the latter.  (I don’t know much about King Arthur, but I do know enough to recognize that several sexual liaisons were being cut out from the book, which made the personality conflicts much more meaningless.  In this book, for example, King Arthur and Sir Lancelot fall out for no reason whatsoever.)

            Nevertheless, my students seemed to enjoy the book.  I suspect this is because the simple stories in the book had a type of fairy tale quality.  I think many of the childhood fairy tales we grow up with have a similar style—simple stories where people love each other or hate each other for no real reason.  And I suspect this may be universal, so that even in Cambodia  my students were easily able to recognize the genre. 

Classroom Materials
            [In common with other graded readers by the same publisher, there’s no glossary in this book.  Instead, the activities at the back of the book instruct students to look up certain words in their dictionaries.  I thought it would save time if I just created a list of all these words.  I took all the definitions from an electronic dictionary, and just copied and pasted them onto a vocabulary sheet that we went through on the first day.  Every class after that, I designed a vocabulary matching sheets that drilled the students on 5 words at time.  The materials are reproduced below.]

Archbishop: a bishop of the highest rank who is in charge of churches and other bishops in a particular large area

Bishop:  a priest of high rank who is in charge of the priests of lower rank in a particular area
Castle: a large strong building, built in the past by a ruler or important person to protect the people inside from attack

Cave: a dark place inside a mountain
Evil: very very bad
Gold: a valuable, shiny, yellow metal used to make coins and jewellery
Harp: a large, wooden musical instrument with many strings that you play with the fingers
Helmet: a strong hard hat that covers and protects the head
King: a male ruler of a country, who holds this position because of his royal birth
Knight: a man given a rank of honour by a British king or queen because of his special achievements, and who has the right to be called 'Sir', or (in the past) a man of high social position trained to fight as a soldier on a horse
Lady: a polite or old fashioned way of referring to or talking to a woman

Lake: a large area of water surrounded by land and not connected to the sea except by rivers or streams
Magic: the use of special powers to make things happen which would usually be impossible, such as in stories for children
Nun: a woman of the church
Poison: a substance that can make people or animals ill or kill them if they eat or drink it
Queen: a woman who rules a country because she has been born into a royal family, or a woman who is married to a king
Scabbard: a long thin cover for the blade of a  sword, which is usually fixed to a belt
Stone: the hard solid substance found in the ground which is often used for building, or a piece of this
Sword: a weapon with a long sharp metal blade and a handle, used especially in the past
Wound: to hurt somebody with a sword, knife, or gun

*****************************************************************
Archbishop, bishop, castle, cave, evil

Definitions



___________________ very very bad

___________________ a bishop of the highest rank who is in charge of churches and other bishops in a particular large area

___________________:  a priest of high rank who is in charge of the priests of lower rank in a particular area

___________________: a large strong building, built in the past by a ruler or important person to protect the people inside from attack

___________________ a dark place inside a mountain



Sentences:
When Arthur was a young man, Merlin went to London.  He visited the ___________________, the most important man in the Church
When evening came, King Arthur was not out of the wood.  The he saw a very big, beautiful ____________ in front of him.
The Archbishop is greater than many ___________________s .
A bad person is very ___________________.
Bats live in a ______________ inside a mountain.

************************************************

gold, harp, helmet, king, knight

Definitions:
___________a man of high social position trained to fight as a soldier on a horse
___________ a male ruler of a country, who holds this position because of his royal birth
___________ a strong hard hat that covers and protects the head
___________ a large, wooden musical instrument with many strings that you play with the fingers
___________ a valuable, shiny, yellow metal used to make coins and jewellery
Sentences:
This very old story begins with Uther, a great _______.
A lot of people wanted to be king, so the _____________ and great men began to fight.
Arthur took the ______________ from his head, so Pellinore could see his face.
She played beautiful music on the _________.
He is very rich.  He has a lot of ________.

********************************************

lady, lake, magic, nun, poison

Definitions

____________ a woman of the church

____________ a large area of water surrounded by land and not connected to the sea except by rivers or streams
____________ a polite or old fashioned way of referring to or talking to a woman

____________ the use of special powers to make things happen which would usually be impossible, such as in stories for children

____________ a substance that can make people or animals ill or kill them if they eat or drink it
Sentences
After a long time they came to an open place in the mountains. There were no trees, but Arthur saw a strange ____________ .  The water was very blue and there were flowers next to it.
A lovely young woman walked across the water and stood on the ground next to King Arthur.  "I am the ________ of the Lake."

Morgan le Fay was a queen, with a castle in the country of  Gorres. She was a very bad woman. She could do ___________, but she only used her __________ for bad things.

The ______s worked for the church and helped people.
He drank the _____________ and then he died.

*************************************************

queen, scabbard, stone, sword, wound

Definitions
_______________ the hard solid substance found in the ground which is often used for building, or a piece of this
_______________ a woman who rules a country because she has been born into a royal family, or a woman who is married to a king
_______________ a weapon with a long sharp metal blade and a handle, used especially in the past
_________________ (Verb) to hurt somebody with a sword, knife, or gun
__________________(Noun) a damaged area of the body, such as a cut or hole in the skin or flesh made by a weapon
_______________ a long thin cover for the blade of a  sword, which is usually fixed to a belt
Sentences
Only the next king can pull the sword out of the ______________.
I am the Lady of the Lake.  Your _____________, Excalibur, is waiting for you.
Morgan le Fay was a _____________, with a castle in the country of Gorres.
The sword was inside a _____________.
The knight ___________ed King Arthur, so he cannot go back to Camelot.
Nobody could make Sir Tristram's ___________ better.

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