‘If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all’.
‘I wrote when I didn’t know life. Now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write. Life cannot be written, life can only be lived’.
These great quotes were written by Oscar Wilde. He is very known worldwide for its main works such as: ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’; ‘De profundis’ where he shows that the fact of suffering gives a way to live; its masterpiece ‘The importance of being Ernest’ where describe and talks about marriage in an humorous way, or ‘The ballad of Reading Goal’ which was written after his release in Reading’s prison because Wilde was convicted of homosexual.
Apart from these works, the Irish writer published many stories that later editorials adapted to children such as: ‘The Happy Prince’, ‘The Canterville Ghost’, ‘The Model Millionaire’, ‘The Selfish Giant’, ‘The Star-child’… Through these stories the reader gets excited because perceives tenderness, friendship, love, mystical ideas, reality-fiction, all are mixed concepts that make the reader think and until one is moved to tears.
With all of this, I would like to say that the Oscar Wilde’s adaptations (the last ones I mentioned) are a very proper resource to use in the Language Classroom for children. They are touching, short and easy to read and to understand, perfect to perform in which students are part of the story and involved in the performance. I read these short stories in the 6th year of Primary School in English classroom, since then I was shocked about these stories and this author and then I grew up and I had the opportunity to read its works more complex (poems, theatre…).
When I was a child I loved reading. But what I liked the most was that my parents read me stories, tales, and all I had to read; As well, when reading time I used to read aloud so everyone (I mean to my parents) could hear me (but the roles have changed because now I love reading to children, and it is something that inspires me…). When reading aloud I thought (and think) that it was one strategy to understand better what I was reading. In fact, in the English Classroom at School the teacher recorded us when reading a book, and then the cassette was given to our parents in order to see what we used to do in class, I love this kind of activities. For this reason, when learning new languages is very useful to record oneself talking, I know it sounds quite embarrassing hearing your voice, but from my own experience it is totally effective and I have learnt that is an ideal activity to improve our Speaking and Reading skills. It is something which agrees all language teachers with I have had and they usually say to do this kind of activities.
And last but not least and for all these reasons, I decided this time to film a video recording myself reading ‘The Selfish Giant’, (The Oscar Wilde’s adaptations I mentioned before), a lovely story by the way. It is a didactic resource, or better called an ‘audio book’. The video would be a didactic example/proposal to do with students. I found many ‘audio book’ on the internet with drawings, images… in order to practice with our students.
You can watch it here, hope you like it. 
(If you have problems opening the video, you can update the web page again, and cross fingers)
Interesting information: Oscar Wilde studied at ‘The Trinity College’ (founded in 1592). Noted people such as Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Beckett studied at this relevant University, among others.
Trinity College (Dublin)
Bibliography:
- ‘The Canterville Ghost and Other stories’- Oscar Wilde. Oxford Progressive English Readers (2004)