The New Boy Is Lost! is more than a dramatic story with a picture for every sentence. Lavishly illustrated with 300 full-color pictures by Loretta Lustig.
Woven throughout this dramatic novel based on a real-life story are:
- Essential first year vocabulary
- Basic sentence structures: affirmative, negative, question; simple past, present, future
- Survival skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Themes of courage, persistence, and multi-cultural cooperation
ESL students of all ages will identify with a 12-year-old newcomer who worries about making friends and learning English in an American school. The new boy, Taro, meets Ramon, Jae Han, Lee, and Susan, but no one speaks his language. After school, Taro takes the wrong bus home and gets lost. He knows only five words of English and that his new home is near a big white gas station. A rainstorm, and then the dark of night, add difficulty. Parents, students, and the police conduct a city-wide search for Taro, fearing the worst. Taro draws on his inner reserves of courage to get through the ordeal, and on his parents’ counsel to keep himself safe.
Students
Entry-level ESL students
The New Boy is Lost! is a 15-week ESL program. Each chapter has a week’s worth of vocabulary, discussion, and language practice and extension activities. Beginning English language learners (even pre-literate students) will easily follow the story through the pictures.
While students are focusing on "What happens next?" they will be learning:
- Greetings
- Introductions
- Crucial aspects of street safety
500 basic words for:
- Family members
- Colors
- Numbers
- Time
- Weather
- Transportation
- Clothing
- School subjects
- Emotions
- Descriptive adjectives
- Action verbs
High-beginners and intermediate ESL students
The New Boy is Lost! is a reader that stimulates cathartic conversations about their own personal experiences when they entered the United States. Students will make comparisons of language and culture, interview each other, and be guided to library research and creative writing activities. Grammar-through-discovery is supported by the text written in short sentences with simple, natural language patterns. Using this novel as a model, beginning students can write their own picture stories of their trip to the United States and their first days here. The New Boy Is Lost! will provide much of the language and sentence structure they’ll need in order to be successful, and can "publish" their books for classmates to read.
Advanced ESL students
The New Boy Is Lost! illustrates the common elements of a novel:
- Character
- Conflict
- Theme
- Plot
- Setting
- Foreshadowing
- Values
- Suspense
- Complications
- Scene-shifting
- Climax
- resolution
You'll find much for your advanced ESL students to grow on whether it's writing their first book report, writing the script for a drama to act out, or creating their own sequel to The New Boy Is Lost!
