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    Amazing Writers: B1
    Amazing Writers: B1
    Amazing Writers: B1
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Amazing Writers: B1

    By HarperCollins UK

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    About this ebook

    The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history.

    Contents:
    Geoffrey Chaucer, writer of the first great works of English Literature
    William Shakespeare, writer of the greatest plays in history
    Charles Dickens who wanted to make England a better place
    Victor Hugo, the French writer who cared about the poor
    Leo Tolstoy, the man who wrote War and Peace
    Rudyard Kipling who wrote The Jungle Book and won a Nobel Prize

    BRITISH ENGLISH
    Word count: 12,886
    Headword count: 1,039

    PLUS: visit www.collinselt.com/readers for videos, teacher resources and self-study materials.

    This book is Level 3 in the Collins ELT Readers series.
    Level 3 is equivalent to CEF level B1.

    About the Amazing People series:
    A unique opportunity for learners of English to read about the exceptional lives and incredible abilities of some of the most insightful people the world has seen.

    Each book contains six short stories, told by the characters themselves, as if in their own words. The stories explain the most significant parts of each character’s life, giving an insight into how they came to be such an important historic figure.

    After each story, a timeline presents the most major events in their life in a clear and succinct fashion. The timeline is ideal for checking comprehension or as a basis for project work or further research.

    Created in association with The Amazing People Club.

    About Collins ELT Readers:
    Collins ELT Readers are divided into four levels:
    Level 1 – elementary (A2)
    Level 2 – pre-intermediate (A2-B1)
    Level 3 – intermediate (B1)
    Level 4 – upper intermediate (B2)
    Each level is carefully graded to ensure that the learner both enjoys and benefits from their reading experience.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateFeb 27, 2014
    ISBN9780007556946
    Amazing Writers: B1

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      Book preview

      Amazing Writers - HarperCollins UK

         CONTENTS   

      Cover

      Title Page

      Introduction

      The Grading Scheme

      Geoffrey Chaucer

      William Shakespeare

      Charles Dickens

      Victor Hugo

      Leo Tolstoy

      Rudyard Kipling

      Glossary

      Keep Reading

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

         INTRODUCTION   

      Collins Amazing People Readers are collections of short stories. Each book presents the life story of five or six people whose lives and achievements have made a difference to our world today. The stories are carefully graded to ensure that you, the reader, will both enjoy and benefit from your reading experience.

      You can choose to enjoy the book from start to finish or to dip in to your favourite story straight away. Each story is entirely independent.

      After every story a short timeline brings together the most important events in each person’s life into one short report. The timeline is a useful tool for revision purposes.

      Words which are above the required reading level are underlined the first time they appear in each story. All underlined words are defined in the glossary at the back of the book. Levels 1 and 2 take their definitions from the Collins COBUILD Essential English Dictionary and levels 3 and 4 from the Collins COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary.

      To support both teachers and learners, additional materials are available online at www.collinselt.com/readers.

      The Amazing People Club®

      Collins Amazing People Readers are adaptations of original texts published by The Amazing People Club. The Amazing People Club is an educational publishing house. It was founded in 2006 by educational psychologist and management leader Dr Charles Margerison and publishes books, eBooks, audio books, iBooks and video content which bring readers ‘face to face’ with many of the world’s most inspiring and influential characters from the fields of art, science, music, politics, medicine and business.

         THE GRADING SCHEME   

      The Collins COBUILD Grading Scheme has been created using the most up-to-date language usage information available today. Each level is guided by a brand new comprehensive grammar and vocabulary framework, ensuring that the series will perfectly match readers’ abilities.

      For more information on the Collins COBUILD Grading Scheme, including a full list of the grammar structures found at each level, go to www.collinselt.com/readers/gradingscheme.

      Also available online: Make sure that you are reading at the right level by checking your level on our website (www.collinselt.com/readers/levelcheck).

      Geoffrey Chaucer

      c.1330/1340–1400

      the man who wrote the first great works of English Literature

      I could tell wonderful stories, and I was very good at describing people. I wrote some romantic poems, but I also wrote about people in ordinary English society. My greatest work is an entertaining record of life in medieval England.

      My name was Geoffrey Chaucer and I was born in London. During the centuries before my birth, different groups of people had attacked England, including the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans. England had become the permanent home of each of these groups. And they had tried to make the English people speak their language and live in the same way as them. As a result, people with a high social position no longer communicated with each other in English. Kings and queens, nobles and people who held important jobs in Court – the place where the King and Queen lived – usually spoke and wrote in French.

      But as I walked the streets of London, what language did I hear? Not French, or Latin, or Scandinavian. People in the streets and at the markets were speaking English in their daily lives. Of course, English had taken in some words from other languages too. There was ‘justice’ which came from Latin, ‘speech’ from Anglo-Saxon, ‘outlaw’ from the Vikings and ‘parliament’ from French. But ordinary people were using English to communicate. They were a free people, who shared their hopes and problems in their own language. As I listened, I decided that I was going to use English to write stories about the daily lives of English people.

      There was a huge difference between the lives of rich people and poor people in England. The poor had to work very hard, and their lives were very difficult. If you became ill or were injured, you had to depend on your family or friends to help you. In addition, people were afraid of becoming sick from the plague, or other terrible illnesses. There were no good doctors, and people didn’t understand much about medicine. I was very lucky because my family was quite wealthy. My father and grandfather were in the business of making wine,

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