The Freedom Bird (World Folktales Graded Readers) expédition by Burns, Walton NEUF

A hunter tries to kill a beautiful but annoying bird, but learns that you cannot kill freedom! This graded reader for Elementary level ESL or EFL students is fun to read and especially to read out loud. A glossary, comprehension and discussion questions, and a writing prompt round out this adaptation of a folk tale with an important lesson about freedom.The World Folktales Graded Readers bring stories from around the world into the ESL classroom. Traditional tales interest people of all ages who love folk stories, as well as learning and sharing wisdom from around the world. Inspire students to share stories from their own culture as they improve reading speed and fluency.

As a teacherI am a teacher and materials writer from Connecticut. I fell in love with teaching English in the Peace Corps in Vanuatu, an island chain in the South Pacific which was the basis for Bali Hai in South Pacific. I had the most amazing class of Francophone Melanesian students who were working to complete their high school degrees. They inspired me and led me to love teaching.Since then Ive worked around the world and taught a diverse range of students from Russian oil executives who needed to improve their English for business, to Kazakh scholarship recipients off to study in American universities, to Afghani high school students on the FLEX exchange program and middle-school children taking an extra-curricular speaking class. As a writerI began selling lesson plans and activities on my blog in 2007. There appeared to be an actual and growing demand for my work. So I began seeking out some small professional gigs, mostly helping fellow teachers develop lessons for their classes. My school began using me for more and more lesson plan development and editing. After winning a few lesson plan contests, I came to the attention of the Nick Robinson Agency and was very successful there. I continue to work with Nick and ELTJam, as well as independently.I publish my own books and lesson plans, write for publishers, copy-edit, and design activities and lesson plans for language schools, including online lessons as well as face to face classes. Clients for writing and editing have included Oxford University Press, Macmillan, Pearson, Compass Publishing, 2LTI Testing and New Horizons Language Schools.Since 2015, I have been part of the leadership team of the Materials Writing Interest Section of the TESOL Association, the international association for English language professionals.