- Information about Jerome K. Jerome - A section focusing on background and context - A glossary of difficult words - Comprehension and grammar activities including A2 Key style exercises and 21st century skills activities - Final test
Stage 2 A2
Stage 2 A2
In this reader you will find:
THREE MEN IN A BOAT
Three friends, George, Harris and J., decide they need a holiday and plan to go on a trip on the river. J. tells the story of that two-week trip. He includes funny stories from past trips and stories he has heard. He also gives us historical and geographical information about the places they pass or stay in. Three Men in a Boat is a humorous book that will make you laugh while it gives you a view of Victorian England and the Thames.
Jerome K. Jerome
Jerome K. Jerome THREE MEN IN A BOAT
Jerome K. Jerome
THREE MEN IN A BOAT
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ELT A2
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Eli Readers is a beautifully illustrated series of timeless classics and speciallywritten stories for learners of English.
The pleasure of Reading
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STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3 STAGE 4 STAGE 5 STAGE 6
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Friends | Adventure | Everyday life
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MAIN CHARACTERS
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Chapter One
How it Began
2 The four of us were in my room. George, Harris and I were sitting,
discussing our health; Montmorency was lying on the floor. We all had some health problem or other. For me it was my liver*. I knew this because I had all the symptoms. I don’t often read about an illness without then finding I have the symptoms. Once I went to the British Museum. I wanted to read about a health problem that I thought I had. Without thinking, I then started turning the pages. I read about various other illnesses. To my horror, I had them all: some only a little, some more seriously. Now I wanted to know every illness I had. I turned back to the beginning of the book and read through in alphabetical order. There was only one I didn’t have. At first I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have that one too. Then I began to worry. How long did I have to live? I felt my pulse; it was very fast. Then I tried to check my heart but I couldn’t find it. I felt my front, sides and back but I could find nothing. It clearly was not beating. I tried to examine my tongue and closed one eye to see it better. The result: I was now sure that I was seriously ill. I entered the museum happy and healthy; I left a sick man. liver an organ of the body, situated on the right in the abdomen
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After-reading Activities
Stop and check 1
Put the events from Chapter Eight in order. a b c d e f g h i j
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
They left Oxford in the rain. George played the banjo. They had a good supper in a restaurant. A photographer took a photo of J. and George. They caught the train to London. They arrived in Oxford. They passed Wallingford and Dorchester. They gave the boatman their address. They went to a music hall. J. told the story of a boat he rented up the river.
Writing for KEY 2
Complete the note to the boatman. Write ONE word in each space. If we do not come for our boat tomorrow (1) .................... 9 o’clock, it means we have gone back (2) .................... town. Could you please send our hampers, rugs etc (3) .................... cab to the address (4) .................... the bottom? We rented (5) .................... boat at Kingston nearly two weeks (6) .................... Can you keep it? I will write to the boatman there. I (7) .................... ask him to come (8) .................... the boat (9) .................... Saturday. Thank (10) .................... J. K. Jerome
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Vocabulary 3a
Circle the odd one out. 1 2 3 4 5
3b
funny summer afternoon back row
happy rain day feet oar
angry wet evening dog lock
pleased umbrella morning nose train
Match the words that rhyme. A 1 ■ bread 2 ■ town 3 ■ feet 4 ■ meal 5 ■ oar 6 ■ toast 7 ■ day 8 ■ wood 9 ■ walk
B a b c d e f g h i
most could more talk said down meat feel way
Speaking 4
Work in pairs. Ask and answer these questions. 1 2 3 4
How many books have you read in English? What type of books do you prefer? Did you enjoy this book? Why / Why not? What did you like most about it?
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FOCUS ON...
Jerome’s Life Childhood Jerome K. Jerome did not have an easy childhood. He was born on 2nd May 1859 in Walsall, Staffordshire, and was the youngest of four children. His father was an architect, a man of the church and a businessman. The family lived quite comfortably until 1861 when his father’s business interests failed. The family then moved to Poplar in the East End of London where his father bought a shop. However, it failed too and they were now poor. The East End was not a nice area to live in, people were very poor and it could be dangerous. Jerome started school at the age of eleven. Sadly, his father died soon after Jerome was twelve. Jerome was now the man of the family and left school when he was fourteen to go to work in an office. His mother died when he was sixteen and he was then left alone in the world (one sister was married, the other took a job in the North of England and his brother died aged six).
Writer Jerome spent his free time with a theatre company where he was, among other things, an actor. In the end, he left his job and worked as an actor around the country for almost three years. Then, back in London, he had various jobs including working as a journalist and a teacher. However, he 88
really wanted to be a writer. He wrote various stories and finally one of them was published in a magazine. He used his experiences as an actor to write his first book, On the Stage – and Off, which was published in 1885. Another book followed the next year.
In 1889 Three Men in a Boat was published and he became rich and famous. Jerome wrote other books afterwards, including a sequel Three Men on the Bummel (1900). He also wrote for the theatre and became an editor. However, he remains most famous for his book about the three friends on a river trip.
Friends and family When he was working in London he shared a room with a young bank worker called George Wingrave. They became, and remained, very good friends. Jerome made another friend during that period: Carl Hentschel. His father introduced a way to print pictures in newspapers and books more easily and quickly. George, Carl and Jerome loved to take a boat out on the river at the weekend. The three friends went on various trips together. George, Carl and Jerome became George, Harris and J. in Three Men in a Boat. In 1888 Jerome married Georgina Stanley. They were both twenty-nine years old. She was already married with a five-yearold daughter, Elsie, when they met. They married soon after her divorce. Georgina told Jerome to leave his job so he could write. The result was Three Men in a Boat. In 1898 Georgina and Jerome had a daughter, Rowena.
Jerome travelled abroad to give talks and in 1900 the family moved to Germany for two years. During the First World War Jerome, aged 57, became an ambulance driver in France and saw some terrible things. He returned a different man. Jerome died on 14th June 1927 after two weeks in hospital.
From left to right: Carl Hentschel, George Wingrave and Jerome K Jerome 89