ESL Lessons: True Stories

ESL Courses and Materials

"True Story" worksheets for English teachers and students

These "True Story" lessons provide an interesting reading passage for students to discuss. They are mostly focused on reading and conversation. You can use these lessons in any order.

The following CEFR level labels are used to show the difficulty:

A1: Beginner,  A2: Elementary,  B1: Intermediate,  B2: Upper Intermediate,  C1: Advanced,  C2: Proficient

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• B1 -  The island without cars
• B1 -  The man who could play piano after a head injury
• B1 -  The teenager who built a submarine
• B1 -  The teacher who tastes words like food
• B1 -  The man who draws cities from memory
• B1 -  The Centre Pompidou: A colorful icon of Paris
• B1 -  The six boys that survived on an island
• B1 -  The man who sold the Eiffel Tower
• B1 -  The man who broke into Buckingham Palace
• B1 -  McDonald's and the pizza experiment
• B1 -  The man who cycled from Sweden to climb Mt. Everest
• B1 -  The boy who built a windmill
• B1 -  Family found in Siberian wilderness after 40 years
• B1 -  A mistake leads to World War I
• B1 -  The Great Stink of London
• B1 -  The dancing plague of 1518
• B1 -  The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie
• B1 -  The New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square
• B1 -  How Coca-Cola created the modern Santa Claus
• B1 -  Singapore's journey to success
• B1 -  Battle of the sexes tennis match
• B1 -  The river that caught fire
• B1 -  The 'Iceman' who was shot 5,000 years ago
• B1 -  Housewife taken by aliens in Manhattan
• B1 -  Pumpkin mystery at Cornell University
• B1 -  The strongest woman in the world
• B1 -  Shoe-fitting fluoroscope: A risky business
• B1 -  The miners who survived 69 days underground
• B1 -  The woman who lived in a tree for 738 days
• B1 -  London Bridge moves to America
• B1 -  Hungarian family proves geniuses can be made
• B1 -  The island that changes nationality twice a year
• B1 -  The woman who learned 28 languages
• B1 -  Iranian man lived in airport for 18 years
• B1 -  Forest man of India plants huge forest alone
• B1 -  When Niagara Falls stopped flowing
• B1 -  The interesting history of Bubble Wrap
• B1 -  The fake moon rock in a Dutch museum
• B1 -  Denmark's surprise win at Euro '92
• B1 -  The story of the Hollywood Bandit
• B1 -  How French fries got their name
• B1 -  The film that flopped but became a classic
• B1 -  The amazing art of Vladimir Aniskin
• B1 -  The monk who created a $250 million app
• B1 -  The invisible fire at the 1981 Indy 500
• B1 -  The tale of Britain's travelling post office trains
• B1 -  The city that was lost and rediscovered
• B1 -  The exercise programme that united Japan
• B1 -  Boji, the street dog who rides public transport
• B1 -  Three times the US lost a nuclear bomb
• B1 -  The rats on trial in 16th century France
• B1 -  The inspiring story of an Australian bank robber in India
• B1 -  The great traffic jam in China
• B1 -  The Cadbury chocolate spies
• B1 -  The stones that move by themselves in Death Valley
• B1 -  The woman who survived three shipwrecks
• B1 -  How two ice dancers amazed the world
• B1 -  The youngest person to sail solo around the world
• B1 -  The racehorse that became a painter
• B1 -  The woman who remembers every day
• A2 -  Piano found on the UK's tallest mountain
• B1 -  Indian village plants 111 trees for every girl born
• B1 -  Europe's largest 'lost and found' warehouse
• B1 -  The Spanish town that celebrates New Year's Eve in August
• A2 -  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's origin story
• B1 -  The unexpected creation of Play-Doh
• B1 -  The man who ate for free at an airport for a year
• A2 -  The woodpecker that really loved acorns
• B1 -  Athlete mails himself home in a crate
• A2 -  The lottery winner who shot her ex-husband
• A2 -  The sweet syrup disaster of 1919
• A2 -  When French children could drink wine at school
• A2 -  Pringles and the potato chip tax
• A2 -  Scientist tests insect stings on himself
• A2 -  The Halloween radio show that scared a nation
• A2 -  The railway worker and the monkey
• A2 -  Man spends his days giving massages to lions
• B1 -  A journey to safety from Afghanistan to Italy
• A2 -  Motorcycle explorer, Shinji Kazama
• A2 -  The Symphony of the Seas luxury cruise ship
• A2 -  The only human to be hit by a space rock
• A2 -  The first woman to run the Boston Marathon
• A2 -  The James Bond stuntman who ran across crocodiles
• B1 -  The man who didn't eat for 382 days
• A2 -  The creation of Nike's swoosh logo
• B1 -  The professor and the madman
• A2 -  The mouse-man who made famous furniture
• B1 -  The Australians who lost a war to emus
• A2 -  The quiet life of Huguette Clark
• B1 -  How Ray Kroc turned McDonald's into a global brand
• A2 -  The mysterious green children of Woolpit