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    Heart: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)
    Heart: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)
    Heart: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)
    Ebook157 pages1 hour

    Heart: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)

    By Qiliang Feng and Edmondo de Amicis

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    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This is Book 7, Collection III, of the Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) readers. It is suitable for learners with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words.
    Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a reading project for ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words). In two years, for about fifteen minutes each day, an ESL/EFL learner can read one million words, and reach the upper-intermediate level, gaining a vocabulary of about 3,500 words and a large number of expressions.

    [Text Information]
    Readability | 81.03
    Total word count | 29697
    Words beyond 1500 | 1195
    Unknown word percentage (%) | 4.02
    Unknown headword occurrence | 2.62
    Unknown words that occur 5 times or more | 70
    Unknown words that occur 2 times or more | 223

    [Synopsis]
    This book is rewritten from the children’s novel “Cuore (Heart) ” written by the Italian author Edmondo De Amicis. It is a novel written in a diary form as told by Enrico Bottini, a 10-year-old primary school student in Italy with an upper class background. It describes what he sees and hears and how he feel during the third school year from the first day at school in October to the next June. These stories are about the teachers, his classmates and their parents and many other people. These people are from different backgrounds and vary in character.
    This book also includes Month Stories, which are about noble deeds done by boys. These stories teach children moral values, helping those in need, respect for parents, love for family and friends, and love of their country.
    This book has been translanted into over 100 languages and have been made into films, TV series, radio adaptations, plays and comic books.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherQiliang Feng
    Release dateDec 24, 2015
    ISBN9781310507656
    Heart: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal (ESL/EFL Version with Audio)
    Author

    Qiliang Feng

    Qiliang Feng has been a teacher of English in senior high schools since 1983. He is a keen supporter of reading in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and is expert at rewriting graded/simplified ESL(English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) readers. He has published several series of English reading course books and is promoting a reading project called Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP), in which ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words) are expected to read one million words within two or three years, and reach the upper-intermediate level easily.

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      Book preview

      Heart - Qiliang Feng

      About This Book

      This is Book 7, Collection III, of the Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) readers. It is suitable for learners with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words.

      Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a reading project for ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words). In two years, for about fifteen minutes each day, an ESL/EFL learner can read one million words, and reach the upper-intermediate level, gaining a vocabulary of about 3,500 words and a large number of expressions.

      Text Information

      Readability | 81

      Total word count | 29697

      Words beyond 1500 | 1195

      Unknown word percentage (%) | 4.02

      Unknown headword occurrence | 2.62

      Unknown words that occur 5 times or more | 70

      Unknown words that occur 2 times or more | 223

      Notes:

      1. About readability: This is Flesch Reading Ease Readability calculated with MS WORD. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read.

      Score | Level

      0-29 | Very difficult

      30-49 | Difficult

      50-59 | Fairly difficult

      60-69 | Standard

      70-79 | Fairly easy

      80-89 | Easy

      90-100 | Very easy

      2. This e-version does not give the meanings of unknown words. You can look them up with the dictionary on your e-reader. For words with different meanings and some expressions, we give their meanings at the end of the passages. We also provide some necessary background information.

      3. To get the audio or video of this book, GO>>>

      Synopsis

      This book is rewritten from the children’s novel "Cuore (Heart) " written by the Italian author Edmondo De Amicis. It is a novel written in a diary form as told by Enrico Bottini, a 10-year-old primary school student in Italy with an upper class background. It describes what he sees and hears and how he feel during the third school year from the first day at school in October to the next June. These stories are about the teachers, his classmates and their parents and many other people. These people are from different backgrounds and vary in character.

      This book also includes Month Stories, which are about noble deeds done by boys. These stories teach children moral values, helping those in need, respect for parents, love for family and friends, and love of their country.

      This book has been translanted into over 100 languages and have been made into films, TV series, radio adaptations, plays and comic books.

      OCTOBER

      First Day of School

      Monday, 17th

      Today is the first day of school. These three months of vacation in the country have passed like a dream. This morning my mother took me to the schoolhouse. I was going to enter for the third elementary course. All the streets were filled with boys. The two book-shops were crowded with fathers and mothers who were buying bags, and copybooks. Many people had gathered in front of the school. Near the door, I felt myself touched on the shoulder. It was my master of the second grade. He was cheerful, as usual, and he said to me:

      So we are separated forever, Enrico?

      I knew it perfectly well, yet these words made me sad. We made our way in with difficulty. People filled the stairs, making so much noise that it seemed as if one were entering a theatre. I saw again with pleasure that large room on the ground floor, with the doors leading to the seven classes. I had passed it nearly every day for three years. There was a crowd; the teachers were going and coming. My schoolmistress of the first grade greeted me from the door of the classroom, and said sadly:

      Enrico, you are going to the floor above this year. I shall never see you pass by any more! and she looked sadly at me.

      The director was surrounded by some women because there was no room for their sons, and I saw that his beard was a little whiter than it had been last year.

      I found the boys had grown taller and stronger. On the ground floor, there were little children of the first grade, who did not want to enter the classrooms, and who resisted like donkeys. It was necessary to drag them in by force. Some escaped from the benches; others, when they saw their parents leave, began to cry, and the parents had to go back and comfort and scold them, and the teachers were in despair.

      My little brother was placed in the class of Mistress Delcati and I was put with Master Perboni, upstairs on the first floor. At ten o’clock we were all in our classes: fifty-four of us. There were only fifteen or sixteen of my friends of the second grade, among them, Derossi, the one who always gets the first prize. The school seemed to me so small when I thought of the woods and the mountains where I had passed the summer! I thought again, too, of my master in the second grade. He was so good, and always smiled at us, and was so small that he seemed to be one of us. I was sad because I should no longer see him there.

      Our teacher is tall; he has no beard; his hair is gray and long; and he has a wrinkle on his forehead. He looked at us, one after the other, as though he were reading our thoughts; and he never smiled. I said to myself: This is my first day. There are nine months more. What hard work, what monthly examinations, how tiresome! I really needed to see my mother when I came out, and I ran to kiss her hand. She said to me:

      Courage, Enrico! We will study together. And I was glad to return home. I no longer have my master, with his kind, merry smile, and school does not seem pleasant to me as it did before.

      Our Master

      Tuesday, 18th

      My new teacher pleases me also, since this morning. While we were coming in, and when he was already seated, some of his students of last year peeped in at the door every now and then to salute him; they would greet him:

      Good morning, sir! Good morning, Mr. Perboni! Some entered, touched his hand, and ran away. It was clear that they liked him. He replied, Good morning, and shook the hands which were put out to him. Then he studied us attentively, one after the other.

      While he was dictating, he came down and walked among the benches. Then he caught sight of a boy whose face was all red. He stopped dictating, took the boy’s face between his hands and examined it. Then he asked him what was the matter with him, and laid his hand on his forehead, to feel if it was hot. Meanwhile, a boy behind him got up on the bench, and began to make faces. The teacher turned round suddenly. The boy sat down in his seat at once, and remained there, with head hanging, expecting to be punished. The master placed one hand on his head and said to him:

      Don’t do so again. Nothing more.

      Then he returned to his table and finished the dictation. When he had finished dictating, he looked at us a moment in silence; then he said, very, very slowly, with his big but kind voice:

      Listen. We have a year to pass together; let us see that we pass it well. Study and be good. I have no family; you are my family. Last year I had still a mother: she is dead. I am left alone. I have no one but you in all the world. You must be my sons. I wish you well, and you must like me too. I do not wish to punish anyone. Show me that you are boys of heart: our school shall be a family, and you shall be my comfort and my pride. I do not ask you to give me a promise. I am sure that in your hearts you have already answered me ‘yes,’ and I thank you.

      At that moment the bell rang to announce the close of school. We all left our seats very, very quietly. The boy who had stood up on the bench approached the master, and said to him, in a trembling voice:

      Forgive me, sir.

      The master kissed him on the forehead, and said, Go, my son.

      An Accident

      Friday, 21st

      The year has begun with an accident. On my way to school this morning I was repeating to my father these words of our teacher, when we noticed that the street was full of people. They were pressing close to the door of the schoolhouse. Suddenly my father said: An accident! The year is beginning badly!

      We entered with great difficulty. The big hall was crowded with parents and children. We heard the words, Poor boy! Poor Robetti!

      Then a gentleman with a tall hat entered, and all said, That is the doctor. My father asked a master, What has happened?

      A wheel has passed over his foot, replied the master. His foot has been crushed, said another.

      He was a boy belonging to the second grade. On his way to school through the street, he saw a little child of the lowest grade fall down in the middle of the street, a few paces from a coming omnibus. He hurried bravely forward, caught up the child, and placed it in safety. But, as he had not withdrawn his own foot quickly enough,

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