Education

‘The Scariest Way in the World to Learn English’

By Mary Ann Zehr — February 18, 2009 1 min read
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Kathie Dior of Dior Publishing in Lafayette, Ind., sent me a teacher’s edition to a grammar book for teaching English as a second language. Each chapter starts with an installment of a mystery story, and the lessons about English verb tenses, vocabulary, or how to improve listening comprehension are loosely built around that mystery segment. Here’s an excerpt of the mystery:

Suddenly, I hear something behind the door. Thud! My goodness! I'm so scared that I can feel my heart pounding in my chest! What could possibly be behind the door?

The story’s literary quality pales against classics such as “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allen Poe, but The Twisted Doors: The Scariest Way in the World to Learn English! might help some English-language learners to get hooked on learning grammar.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.