9 great novels to help improve your English

Pearson Languages
a hand reaching for a book from a bookshelf

Reading is one of the most fun and effective ways to help improve your English language skills. It can help to expand your vocabulary and expose you to different sentence structures, all while you enjoy some wonderful stories.

E-readers and tablets make learning English even easier because if you don’t know a word, you can click on it to read its definition. On the Kindle, you can even add new words you’ve learnt to its Vocabulary Builder feature, which is stored on the device. Others recommend listening to and reading text at the same time as an excellent way to enhance the learning process. Kindle’s Whispersync for Voice is designed for just this purpose and includes audio with selected books, so you can listen and follow the text as you read.

9 great novels to help improve your English

Below, we reveal nine novels, including William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and George Orwell’s Animal Farm, to help improve your English.

1. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

This classic tale takes place in the English countryside and shares the adventures of the animals that live by the river. Grahame’s simple use of language with imaginative stories makes this a pleasurable read for adults and children.

2. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

This book is a modern classic and a popular study text for schools all over the world. When a group of boys are isolated on a desert island, the society they create descends into ruthless behavior. Golding uses dramatic and descriptive language, almost like poetry, making you feel like you’re in the scenes yourself.

3. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway is well-known for his clear, straightforward writing style and short sentence structure, which is great for English language learners and many people have read it in school. It’s the courageous tale of a Cuban fisherman and his battle to land a giant marlin and it’s a perfect introduction to Hemingway as an author.

4. Animal Farm – George Orwell

This short, allegorical novel tells the story of animals rebelling against their human masters, and is a satire of the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Orwell uses simple English to appeal to all reading levels with a ‘less is more’ approach, and the animals speak in short, clear sentences.

5. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom

When Mitch Albom reconnects with Morrie Schwartz, his former college professor, he learns valuable life lessons and shares with readers all the funny, insightful wisdom that Morrie reveals in the last months of his life. It’s a great book to pick up a more conversational reading and writing style. It’s also a great book to read aloud.

6. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

A must-read for any music lover, this modern story uses a casual language style. It is written from the point of view of the main character, Rob, a heartbroken vinyl record store owner living in north London. It has a quick-pace feel with short, funny conversations between characters that really keep the story moving.

7. The Giver – Lois Lowry

Lowry uses short sentences and simple grammar to create an attention-grabbing story from the start. It’s about a boy called Jonas and his community – where freedom, individuality and choice don’t exist.

8. Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl is one of the greatest children’s authors and very popular with adults too. Beginning with a children’s book is an excellent way to begin reading English novels, as they often have exciting plots and fun dialogue.

9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

This is the story about the adventures of a young boy with autism, Christopher. When he discovers the murder of his neighbor’s dog, he decides to investigate it. As it’s told from Christopher’s point of view, his matter-of-fact explanations for everything he sees are clear and easy to understand and take you on an intriguing journey.

More of a sci-fi and fantasy fan? check out our post Books to improve your English: Sci-fi and fantasy edition

Need more reading ideas? We have a wide range of English Readers for all ages and interests.

Check out our English Readers here

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  • Children sat outdoors reading a book together

    Why should you use storytelling to teach English?

    By Richard Cleeve
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Stories can make us laugh, cry or tremble with fear. They can teach us valuable life lessons and transport us to other worlds. They've been around since the beginning of language itself, but can they actually help us learn a language?

    Stories are one of the most useful tools when teaching children English. Not only do they help with listening and reading skills, but they can also support speaking and writing skills by providing context, language and structure. 

    Very young learners may already be familiar with stories – they may hear them in daycare, school or at home with their parents. Therefore, incorporating these into their language classes may help them to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. And if children feel comfortable, they are more likely to be receptive to learning. 

    Storytelling usually happens as part of a group in the classroom. This means that it becomes a bonding activity for children where they can communicate and subconsciously pick up the key language. While having fun listening and interacting with the story, they soak up information without even realizing they’re learning.

    So, what storytelling activities can we use with young learners? Let’s find out. 

    Practical activities for storytelling with young learners

    Often, we think of storytelling simply as reading a book aloud to children. Yet, there are other activities you can do. These include:

    1. Choral repetition

    To get young children interacting with the story, first read out a sentence alone. Then, have the children repeat the line with you as a group. Repeat as many times as necessary, until the children feel confident with the language. 

    2. Individual repetition

    If your learners are happy to, ask them individually to repeat the sentence after you. Make sure each one has a turn and praise them for being brave and trying to use the language. 

    3. Play acting

    An activity that works well with children is to act out the story’s characters. For example, there may be animals, fairies, monsters or other exciting characters that they can each act. 

    Ask them to make the noises of the animals, the wind, or the scenery to create an atmosphere while you read. This gets them interacting with the story and the rest of the group, which will help their communication and listening comprehension skills. 

    4. Use puppets or dolls

    Young learners react particularly well to visual aids and realia. Why not use puppets or dolls to act out the characters, or even ask students to have a go with them? They will engage more with the story and the language.  

    5. Dive into the pictures

    Children’s story books are usually quite visual with illustrations and pictures. Make the most of these while telling the story. Try asking students questions about the images to get them using the vocabulary. 

    You could ask them, “what can you see?”, “what’s he wearing?” or “can you find an apple?”. This is another great way to reinforce the vocabulary they’re learning in class. 

    Use these activities individually or incorporate a mix into your lessons. Either way, storytelling will help your learners with more than just developing their English language skills. 

    Storytelling with adult language learners

    While we often think of storytelling as a pastime for children, it can also be a useful language learning activity for adults. 

    Stories are part of our daily lives, from news to social media to books and movies. Therefore, they can be extremely beneficial tools for English language learning. 

    Yet, the way we approach storytelling as a class activity for adults differs to that of young learners. While we typically read fairy tales to young children, we can bring in a much wider range of content for adults, such as:

    • News stories – There may be a current news story that learners are interested in. Ask them to bring in an article to retell in class.  
    • Traditional folk stories – Ask learners what traditional folk tales or ghost stories they were told as children growing up in their hometowns. This can be really interesting for both language and cultural awareness.  
    • Personal life stories – Our lives are a series of short stories that can make for very interesting reading. You can either ask students to share stories in class orally or have them write up a “chapter” from their lives to tell the class. It could be something funny that happened to them or an anecdote from their childhood, for example. 
    • Movie plots – Ask students what their favorite movies are and have them either tell the group the summary of the plot or write it up to share at the end of the lesson.
    • Advertisements – There are some fantastic advertisements which tell mini stories in under three minutes. Have students choose one, show it to the class and discuss it as a group. 

    Storytelling can be a wonderful language learning tool for both children and adults. If you’re looking for a new way to engage, inspire and motivate your learners, why not try it in your next class?