Native language materials - suggestions for graduating students

[Taurus]

I'm putting together a fact sheet for my 3rd years in case any of them want to continue learning English after they leave. It's just a list of movies, music, books, websites, videogames etc. that are in English.

Anybody got any suggestions for stuff to include? I'm really struggling with books at the moment; my students are pretty low-level and while I would love to include books that I think are great (eg. Waterland, A History of Love, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers etc.), I don't want to overwhelm them with books that are impossibly difficult.

Are there any good books that contain simple English and content that might appeal to graduating students? I'm thinking of including Harry Potter and His Dark Materials, but I hate them both and they're actually still full of pretty complicated English.

Oh, and is there a list of Japanese games with English language menus/audios etc? They're unlikely to import, I think.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

[Kouhatsu]

Are there any good books that contain simple English and content that might appeal to graduating students?

The only one I can think of off the top of my head would be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. It's written from the point of view of an autistic child, so the sentence structures are relatively basic; it's not verbose; There are pictures that can help them with understanding, but not so many that it's patronizing; he doesn't use very many colloquialisms, idioms, aphorisms, etc. Also, it's a fairly short book (just a little over 200 pages).

In general, I'd suggest thinking back to some of the books you had to read in your pre-high school English classes. Although you should probably avoid the ones about WWII.

There are also a lot of websites where you can find short stories and some are specifically designed with ESL learners in mind:

• English Club
• Reading Matrix

[NinjaPenguin]

It may seem childish, but Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. It's kinda cheesy but fitting for students who are graduating. Also, The Little Prince, A Bear Called Paddington, Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and I'd guess anything by Ronald Dahl. They may seem childish to us since we read them when we were like 10 but that doesn't stop them from being good books. I know it's expensive and really hard to find here in Japan, but English versions of manga series are really good for English practice since the kids know the story already.

As for games, I know that the Japanese version of Phoenix Wright (the first 3 games) can be played in English.

[Taurus]

Roald Dahl! Excellent! Thank you.

[violetessence]

The re-release of Chrono Trigger for the DS can be played in English also.

[Zara]

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