Story Time
Objectives
** Use past simple and past simple continuous to tell a story ** Use prepositions of time to describe sequence of eventsReading
Once upon a time in the deep forest of Cambodia, there lived a magic teacher, who was intelligent and powerful. He had two students, a goddess and a giant, who were studying with him. The goddess’s name was Moni Mekhala. She was very beautiful and clever. The giant’s name was Ream Eyso. He was very strong and hard-working. They were both outstanding students and were nearly finished with their studies. To finish their studies, the teacher wanted to test them to see whom the best student was. One late afternoon, he announced to the students that whomever won the test would receive a magic ball. The ball was very powerful, and both students really wanted to get it. The test was to collect morning dew. Whichever one of them could collect a glassful of this liquid first would be the winner.
Ream Eyso, the giant, loved the ball so much because it possessed strong power. He worked very hard, but not so intelligently. Early the next morning, Ream Eyso took a glass and ran to gather the liquid from as many leaves as he could. He collected the dew carefully drop by drop, but the result was not very good and took a very long time.
Moni Mekhala, however, was very smart. At night, she spread handkerchiefs on the grass. By morning, the handkerchiefs were all wet. In the early morning, she walked to collect all her handkerchiefs and squeezed the dew out of them into the glass. In a short time, the glass was full, so she flew to meet her teacher.
The teacher was waiting happily to see the result of the test. Moni Mekhala arrived first and presented her full cup of dew to her teacher. As a reward for her intelligence and ability, the teacher happily awarded Moni Mekhala the glittering ball. She was very happy with her success and her award, so she said goodbye to her teacher and travelled back to her city to meet her parents.
Ream Eyso rushed to see the teacher hoping to win and receive the ball. When he arrived, the teacher was waiting for him. Ream Eyso was very happy and presented the full glass to the teacher. Sadly, the teacher told him that Moni Mekhala came first and had already gotten the ball. Ream Eyso was very angry and didn’t accept his failure. When the teacher saw his sad face, he felt pity on his student. He decided to give a magic axe as a reward for his hard work. The teacher told him that the axe possessed similar power to the ball, so it would make him as strong as Mekhala. Ream Eyso took the axe from the teacher and thanked him. He left immediately and flew wildly into the sky.
However, Ream Eyso was a greedy giant. He still wanted to get the ball, so he flew quickly to catch up with Mekhala. After a while, he saw Mekhala and asked her to give the ball to him; otherwise, he would kill her. Mekhala argued with him and refused to give it to him. As a result, they started fighting. The power from the ball and the axe fighting created a bolt of lightning. The light was si strong that the giant couldn’t see anything. Taking the chance to run away, Mekhala flew quickly into the sky.
Retrieved and adapted from: https://seap.einaudi.cornell.edu/cambodian-folktales (as
retold by:Toni Shapiro)
