I salute Cumbria Libraries

I heard today from the Cumbria County Library Reader Development and Stock Manager that she had been responsible for the purchase of 12 sets of Cambridge English Readers now available throughout the country. She says that 'whilst they are clearly written for ESOL students, I felt that they also had a purpose to serve in relation to the wider basic skills agenda ... The series fills a very important gap in our provision.' 


So good for her! for realising that the series can be used in support of literacy and Life Skills programmes. And good for us that all our efforts are appreciated by our own UK libraries, as well as language schools all over the world. 


Cambridge English Readers have never included the kind of exercises that make controlled language fiction so obviously part of a school curriculum. The idea has always been that they are simply novels that can be read in the same way as novels in the reader's first language. What with that, their genre specific stories, and their full-colour covers, they are easy and attractive, even to people who are not habitual readers.