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A university TEFL-course on „Kinder- und Jugendliteratur“ – why, there are textbooks galore?!? Well, the narrative mode of thinking is (according to Jerome Bruner, one of the most prolific and influential scholars in psychology, language aquisition and educational theory) the primary mode of cognition, by which the human mind processes language- (or discourse-) bound social experience and interaction. Telling stories to children (and vice versa, listening to tales and other fictional genres as a child) entails pre-forms of literacy, by which both first language acquisition of pre-school kids and primary school learners’ mastery of literate techniques are given a significant boost. „Good“ first language learners tend to be successful second or foreign language learners. Thus it stands to reason that EFL teachers should exploit the huge potential of children’s and young adult learners’ literature written in English (each year about 5.000 new works get published and new genres develop: eg. graphic or multimodal novels) – both in regular primary schools and at the junior or senior secondary school level as well as in bilingual / immersion and/or CLIL classes. After all, these texts do not only appeal to the child’s or adolescent’s general interests in life, but they attract their imagination, their sense of verbal humour and creativity too. They also enhance intercultural learning. And not to forget: Usually they are carefully composed; that is, in linguistic and visual terms they are scripted (and drawn) in a way which holds their attention and promotes the acquisition of the language at all its systemic levels. Fictional texts of this kind offer the EFL classroom a valuable blend of interesting authentic material and of carefully graded linguistic-discursive input (esp. a rich vocabulary plus natural, idiomatic language use). There is a vast generic range of fictional texts: think of humour and comic relief, ads and commercials, satire and crime plus, of course, the works of „the Bard“ himself (ie. William Shakespeare).
Recommended pre-reading:
Andrew Wright (1995): Storytelling with Children. Oxford Univ. Press. – dto. (1997): Creating Stories with Children. Oxford Univ. Press. – J. Morgan / Mario Rinvolucri (1983): Once upon a Time: Using Stories in the Language Classroom. Cambridge Univ. Press. – J. Bland / Chr. Lütge (Hg.) (2013): Children’s Literature in Second Language Education. Bloomsbury. – Heide Niemann (2002): Mit Bilderbüchern Englisch lernen. Kall-meyer. – D. Tierney / P. Dobson (1995): Are you sitting comfortably? Telling Stories to Young Language Learners. London: CILT [Young Pathfinder 3]. – „Telling Stories“ = Themenheft Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht: Englisch 47 (2013), Heft 121/122 – W. Hallet (2016): Genres im fremdsprachlichen und bilingualen Unterricht. Klett-Kallmeyer.
You are expected to attend regularly, use English in class, prepare an oral presentation, upload your slides on the Moodle platform (Moodle code: Child Teen YA Lit 2016f) and hand in a written assignment by, preferably, mid-April 2017 (if you decide to write it in this area). Please, register with „Agnes“. |
