Agatha Christie to Teach English
What better way to learn the English than to learn it from The Queen of Crime herself?
20 of the best Agatha Christie novels are being re-written into simplified English in order to teach non-English speakers how to read and speak English. They will also be given notes to give the students a better perspective of the culture.
Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, believes his grandmother would have loved the idea. “My grandmother would have quite liked her books being used for the teaching of English she would have thought it a very good idea,” he said.
So which novels have been chosen to help teach new English speakers the language? There would be no better place to begin than Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple‘s first novels – The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder at The Vicarage, respectively.
Harper Collins representative Catherine Whitaker disagrees that this will lead to these students looking at Britain in a bloodthirsty manner.
“They’re quite genteel and they don’t go into gory details,” she said. “She has a huge international following, partly through TV adaptations.”
Harper Collins would also like to note that they have put a lot of effort into retaining the original flair of the stories. They are based on abridged adaptations for the radio that had been done by professionals.