PRIMULA: Graded readers in the EFL classroom – the example of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Abstract

Graded readers allow pupils in an EFL classroom to engage with literary texts which would usually be too difficult for them. Yet at what price does this engagement come? The linguistic analysis which was performed to compare different graded readers of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the original revealed major simplifications on the lexical and syntactic levels. This has an impact on the meaning of this fascinating literary text. Amongst other things, the characters’ emotions are less distinctly represented in the graded readers. Aiming to recover this loss in literary meaning, a classroom project following the principles of task-based language teaching was developed.