Picture Books in the Early Secondary EFL Classroom

Picture Books in the Early Secondary EFL Classroom

A Case Study of Satoshi Kitamura’s Me and My Cat?

DIPLOMARBEIT

Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Mag.a.phil.

an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät

der Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg

Fachbereich Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Gutachter: Dr. Markus Oppolzer

eingereicht von

Alissa Aigner

Salzburg, Mai 2019

Table of Contents

Eidesstattliche Erklärung ................................................................................................... i

Danksagung ...................................................................................................................... ii

Abstract ............................................................................................................................ iii

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1

2. Literature in the EFL Classroom .............................................................................. 4

2.1. Literature in the National Curriculum – The Current State ............................... 8

3. Literature-based Lessons ........................................................................................ 10

3.1. Planning Task-based Literature Lessons ......................................................... 10

3.2. Planning Literature Lessons within a Communicative Approach ................... 12

3.3. Teaching Skills with Literature ........................................................................ 14

4. Shift towards a Student-centered Teaching ............................................................ 16

5. Teaching Visual Literacy........................................................................................ 20

6. Pictures in Class ..................................................................................................... 23

6.1. Pictures in the Literature Classroom ................................................................ 23

6.2. Production of Pictures in Class ........................................................................ 25

6.3. Looking at Pictures .......................................................................................... 27

6.4. Introducing Images to the EFL Classroom – Jamie Keddie ............................ 31

7. Picture Books .......................................................................................................... 35

7.1. Literature Lessons Based on Picture Books .................................................... 38

7.2. Skills Trained by Reading Picture Books ........................................................ 38

7.3. Introducing Picture Books to the EFL Classroom – Tim Stafford .................. 44

7.4. Further Teaching Ideas .................................................................................... 45

8. Picture Books and Drama ....................................................................................... 47

8.1. Using Pictures to Introduce Drama Work to Students ..................................... 49

8.2. Examples of Using Drama in Class ................................................................. 51

9. From Theory to Practice – Me and My Cat? .......................................................... 53

10. Lesson Plans and General Information ................................................................ 57

10.1. General Information ..................................................................................... 58

10.2. Learning Objectives ..................................................................................... 59

10.3. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ...................... 60

10.4. Information about Selected Tasks ................................................................ 63

10.5. Sequence of Lessons .................................................................................... 66

11. Overview of Lessons ........................................................................................... 77

11.1. Lesson One: Pets and Introduction of Me and My Cat? .............................. 77

11.1.1. Handout Lesson One ............................................................................. 77

11.1.2. Reflection .............................................................................................. 78

11.1.3. Example Drawings ................................................................................ 81

11.2. Lesson Two: Me and My Cat? ..................................................................... 84

11.2.1. Handout Lesson Two ............................................................................ 84

11.2.2. Story Cards ........................................................................................... 85

11.2.3. Reflection .............................................................................................. 88

11.3. Lesson Three: Me and My Cat?; Vocabulary Work .................................... 90

11.3.1. Handouts Lesson Three ........................................................................ 90

11.3.2. Group Work Sheets ............................................................................... 92

11.3.3. Vocabulary Posters – Furniture and Objects ........................................ 98

11.3.4. Homework Text .................................................................................. 106

11.3.5. Reflection ............................................................................................ 111

12. Cooperation with Teachers and Students .......................................................... 113

13. Conclusion and Outlook .................................................................................... 114

Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 117

List of Images ............................................................................................................... 122

i

Eidesstattliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre hiermit eidesstattlich [durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift], dass ich die

vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Quellen

und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder inhaltlich den

angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Die

vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht als Diplom-

arbeit eingereicht.

_________________________________ Datum, Unterschrift

ii

Danksagung

An dieser Stelle möchte ich mich bei allen bedanken, die mich während meines Studiums

und bei der Entstehung meiner Diplomarbeit begleitet und unterstützt haben.

Ein großes Dankeschön möchte ich an Herrn Dr. Oppolzer richten, der mit viel Geduld,

fachlichen und persönlichen Ratschlägen zur Entstehung dieser Arbeit beigetragen hat.

Herzlichen Dank, dass Sie mich mit zahlreichen Hinweisen und konstruktiven Feedbacks

bereits bei der Planung so tatkräftig unterstützt haben.

Außerdem möchte ich mich bei Judith Silberbauer BEd., Brigitte Offenhuber und ihren

Schülerinnen und Schülern der Klasse 2C (2017/ 2018) der NMS Altheim bedanken. Nur

mit deren Kooperation konnte diese Arbeit überhaupt entstehen.

In diesem Zusammenhang möchte ich mich auch bei meiner Mutter, MA BEd. Anita

Aigner, bedanken, die nicht nur während des Studiums immer hinter mir stand, sondern

mir als Direktorin der NMS Altheim diese Zusammenarbeit überhaupt erst ermöglicht

hat.

Des Weiteren möchte ich mich auch bei meiner restlichen Familie und meinen Freunden

bedanken, die nie den Glauben an mich verloren haben und mich auf meinem Weg immer

unterstützt haben. Auch meinem Verlobten, Alexander Mann, gilt ein besonderer Dank,

da er immer ein offenes Ohr für mich hatte und mir den Rücken freihielt.

iii

Abstract

In recent years, literature has experienced a loss of importance in the English as a foreign

language (EFL) classroom. Literature represents an endless resource of authentic

language and offers innumerable ways of how to introduce students to a language and its

culture. Mostly, literature is presented to EFL learners only at a later stage although they

could profit right from the beginning. Furthermore, the focus of English language

teaching predominantly lies on teaching language skills (reading, writing, listening and

speaking) while, for example, intercultural aspects are sometimes neglected. Teachers

often shy away from literature projects as they require a more elaborate and time-

consuming planning process than usual lessons following the students’ text book would.

Nevertheless, students show greater interest in unusual or new topics. With the

introduction of literature in the form of new books, teachers can arouse the students’

curiosity and, furthermore, engage them in experiencing a foreign language from a

different perspective.

This thesis concentrates on how EFL students can profit from literature at an early

stage. The first part, therefore, provides a general introduction to task-based lessons, the

communicative approach, teaching skills with literature and the shift of roles of both

teachers and students that require a variation in planning lessons. The second part presents

a sequence of three lessons executed in a second grade of an Austrian new middle school

(NMS). The main focus will hereby lie on a picture book, namely Me and My Cat? by

Satoshi Kitamura. In this sequence, various approaches and methods will be tested, in

order to introduce young EFL learners to literature.

1

1. Introduction

The inclusion of literature in the Austrian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom

has decreased lately as language skills have become a dominant focus. Nevertheless,

“focusing on linguistic elements only does not help language learners communicate

fluently in the target language. However, the use of literary texts provides an authentic

model for learners that supports their language enrichment” (Mart 2016, 77). The

aforementioned predominant focus on language skills in Austrian EFL classrooms does

not mean that literature has been totally banned from EFL classes, but either they are

introduced at a very late stage, or teachers generally neglect using literature to their

classes. Therefore, even the endless offer of narratives for beginners of a language could

be used more often.

The purpose of the following thesis is to provide the reader with information on

how to include literature appropriately in the EFL classroom. It is organized as follows:

Similar to a pyramid structure, general facts and approaches are introduced first.

Afterwards, the topic is narrowed down, and picture books become the center of our

interest.

More specifically, this thesis investigates the use of literature in the Austrian EFL

classroom at the beginning of secondary school. To narrow down the scope, it focuses

primarily on picture books and activities that can be planned in relation to them. This

thesis is divided into two main parts, namely a theoretical and a practical one. The first

part provides general facts, which include theories on how literature can support the

process of learning a new language and reasons why teachers and even national curricula

should not exclude this useful instrument from the EFL classroom. This thesis includes a

number of teaching theories, in order to provide a profound understanding of the topic

and basic ideas of how to incorporate literature in class, as anything else would go beyond

its scope. This theoretical framework contains findings about the value of literature in

Austrian schools, practical approaches, visual literacy, pictures and picture books in class.

Firstly, task-based lesson planning is examined in order to identify its compatibility with

literature lessons. Afterwards, the communicative approach is taken into consideration,

as it might offer the students the possibility to engage more actively during lessons.

2

Finally, this subchapter analyzes possible effects on how students profit from literature-

based lessons concerning acquiring skills.

The second subchapter focuses on how roles of teachers and students might

change by introducing new methods in class. While many teachers already try to teach

using a variety of methods, in order to bring variety to their EFL classroom, others still

need some input concerning this subject. Various teacher roles are therefore explained at

this point too.

The following chapter, namely teaching visual literacy, builds a transition to the

other topics as further teaching methods are introduced in it and justifications for

implementing visual literacy in class are given too. Afterwards, ideas on how pictures and

picture books can contribute to EFL lessons are examined.

In a further section of the theoretical part, the thesis provides ideas on how picture

books can introduce another form of art into the classroom, namely drama. Such activities

can be five-minute performances or longer projects combining several subjects (such as

English class, art or sports) – picture books offer a great range of possibilities. In order to

gain insight into how pictures and picture books can be integrated into class, some

examples of competent authors are presented.

The second part demonstrates an example of a lesson plan based on the picture

book Me and My Cat? by Satoshi Kitamura. In addition to the plan, this chapter contains

background information on the planning process, the practical experience in class and an

evaluation of this experience.

As mentioned previously, literature has faded into the background in most

language classes as, firstly, teachers are often confronted with a lack of time and secondly,

curricula concentrate on skills that can easily be tested with standardized tests. On the one

hand, this is a great step forward concerning uniform levels all over Austria and with the

CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) even all over

Europe. Still, other skills, for example interpreting literature, do not play a predominant

role in the Austrian curricula. This does not mean that no teacher introduces literature to

their students; still, its potential to teach a language is often not fully exploited. Literature

offers great opportunities like acquiring new vocabulary, language in use or reading and

writing skills. Some of these options are discussed and depicted in this thesis.

3

As already mentioned, this paper focuses on picture books in class. Picture books

are above all known as children’s literature, but according to Stafford (2011, 26) “picture

books have begun to move out of the realm of children’s literature and emerge as a valid

art form in their own right”. When it comes to younger learners, reading with the aid of

pictures enhances the students’ motivation, as the meaning of texts becomes more

intelligible.

At first glance, this narrative medium might thus appear to be limited, but as is

depicted in greater detail at a later stage, picture books offer endless opportunities to

contribute successfully to the students’ learning process. They may be most children’s

first approach to literature and, when they are first exposed to a second language, these

stories can, for instance, be used to learn new words, how to read pictures or how pictures

can be combined with short texts. This way, students are familiarized with a new approach

towards books. Even though they might have learned not to judge a book by its cover,

they learn to look closely at covers and how they might predict parts of the story or even

contradict them. Students learn to take a closer look at obvious-seeming aspects – may

that be texts or pictures. This approach mostly appears to be more natural as they learn to

derive the meaning of new words from the pictures that come with the text as it would be

the case with native-speaking young children learning to read in their L1 (first language).

In the Austrian curriculum for middle schools, there is not a lot of information on

the importance of literature; therefore, for most teachers there is no official need to

integrate this immense resource in their lesson planning process.

4

2. Literature in the EFL Classroom

Literature in the EFL classroom has a long history and decades ago, students used to work

on texts by translating them into their first language. During these days the students’ only

goal was to identify the word-by-word translation of any text. They were seen as

consumers, who received information by not only reading and thereby understanding but

by translating.

With the advent of reader response in literary criticism and the communicative

approach in language pedagogy, the learner’s role was redefined as a co-creator of

meaning, and ELT (English Language Teaching) attention was drawn to the

communicative possibilities inherent in literary texts in language teaching

(Delanoy/ Eisenmann/ Matz 2015, 7).

According to Hallet, Surkamp and Krämer, literature has played an important role in

English class for a while now (cf. 2015, 7), but it needs to be mentioned that most texts

in students’ books are not authentic literature, which means, they have been produced

especially for English language learners. Still, a shift from receiving to interpreting

readers has taken place.

Additionally, new media and a more diverse range of literature for all target

groups and ages have changed and improved the use of literature in class. Literature can

teach us so much more than its contents. “In other words, literature is seen as a potentially

empowering discourse which can help learners develop creative abilities, critical thinking

and empathy for other people” (Delanoy/ Eisenmann/ Matz 2015, 8). In addition,

“English Studies perspectives formerly dominated by a focus on the United States and

the United Kingdom have been complemented by the New English Literatures, coming

from places as diverse as Australia, Canada, India, Kenya or Malaysia” (Delanoy/

Eisenmann/ Matz 2015, 9). English language teaching should thus not only be perceived

as learning words and grammar, but at least as the basic knowledge of a cultural construct

of another country with all its customs, religions and politics.

As mentioned above, during the twentieth century, a shift has taken place from a

reader being just a recipient of literature to a reader who must interpret and add his or her

own ideas to a text. Although possibilities and methods have multiplied, teaching

literature has become more challenging. Teachers frequently cannot use interpretations

that often come with books as teachers’ material, as they must be prepared for any new

5

and creative interpretations and guessing by their students. As often, some room for

interpretation is left, the preparation for literature classes becomes more time consuming,

too (cf. Delanoy 2015, 20). Additionally, teachers should be prepared to act

spontaneously and to only create a frame for the lesson in which both teachers and

students can act freely.

According to Delanoy (2015, 22) “RRC [Reader Response Criticism] is a broad

church with different and conflicting positions, some of which may prove incompatible

with a dialogic agenda”. A dialogic agenda allows different views and interpretations

alongside each other. Still, when taking a closer look, both can be helpful in class. As all

readers bring their previous experience and knowledge with them, stories may be

interpreted in various ways. Even the students’ current moods can influence their

interpretation of texts as they might, for example, be looking for answers to personal

questions or problems (cf. Rosenblatt 1982, 268). Furthermore, “[i]n an age of wide-

ranging communication networks and mass data transfer, competences need to be

developed which allow learners to successfully navigate in a vast body of texts both

within and outside literary studies” (Delanoy 2015, 23). Students may thus not deal with

literature commonly known in connection with studies and school, but with a new form

of literature. They are confronted with rather short texts, which sometimes can carry

hardly interpretable information like tweets or short messages and posts on Facebook.

Even numerous politicians use these new media and spread their information and

standpoints via them.

Although literature changes, a considerable difference between authentic

literature and texts in school books can still be observed. Authentic literature offers a

much broader vocabulary and also, linguistically, texts in school books are simplified and

reduced to what students have learned by then. But above all, from looking into literature

and deriving its meaning and by finding new structures and words, students can learn so

much. Although literature should not primarily be used to introduce new vocabulary or

grammar, reading can greatly contribute to the students’ development regarding their

comprehensive and productive progress in EFL. Teachers should choose literature

carefully so that students do not feel overwhelmed (cf. Floris 2004, 2). In order to meet

today’s demands towards literature in class, teachers should be sure to include as many

6

text types and media as possible. This way, students can learn for their lives and acquire

the ability to interpret information correctly or at least logically.

Due to social media and the internet, even novice learners of English have already

come across anglicisms. “Thus, even beginners have recourse to a range of vocabulary in

the L2, even if it is still very limited. […] From learning to read and write in their L1,

they are also aware of structures like words and sentences, grammar, and the existence of

a phoneme-grapheme relation” (Hempel 2015, 72). The same way linguistic features, like

other skills such as interpreting books and pictures, can be applied from the L1. This top-

down method, where learners use universal information they have already acquired to

learn something new, relates to the bottom-up process, as illustrated in the following

citation:

It has been said that in top-down processing, the reader (or listener) gets a general

view of the reading or listening passage by, in some way, absorbing the overall

picture. This is greatly helped if their schemata allow them to have appropriate

expectations of what they are going to come across. In bottom-up processing, on

the other hand, the reader or listener focuses on such things as individual words,

phrases or cohesive devices and achieves understanding by stringing these detailed

elements together to build up a whole (Harmer 2007, 270).

These processes can then be used to acquire reading skills, meaning being able to grasp

the general information while reading for detailed information. Still, this process should

be guided by a teacher in order to facilitate success.

Nowadays, “[s]tandardization has […] been linked to a narrow definition of

language competences. In other words, preference is given to forms of communication

which can be tested quantitatively, and which exclude demanding content and personal

learner involvement” (Delanoy 2015, 24-25). This does not necessarily mean that

literature cannot be included in the EFL classroom, as there exists a broad range of

narratives of all levels. Still teachers must be careful with their students’ personal

involvement, as they should not be forced to reveal details of their personal life in front

of the teacher and class mates. This difficulty can, nevertheless, be managed by allowing

students to invent their characters or rather set tasks where teachers preset certain habits

the students should represent. Thus, learners can concentrate on learning the language

without being scared of giving too much personal information away.

7

Listening and reading skills, for example, are much easier to test, as only few

answers are possible. Nevertheless, the great offer of activities and skills that can be

taught by literature should not be missed and as we live in a globalized environment, we

should try to integrate the culture behind a foreign language in our teaching/ learning

process.

Students learn [for example] to see a world through another’s eyes, observing

human values and a different kind of living, and discovering that others living in

very different societies. They will understand and become broadly aware of the

social, political, historical, cultural events happening in a certain society. Through

literature, learners can deepen their cultural understanding (Floris 2004, 2).

Furthermore, literature offers a smooth approach into using a foreign language: “Also,

literature learning can foster a performative literacy, and, thanks to literature’s aesthetic

possibilities, literature learning invites safe, personally meaningful, and creative

experimentation with feelings, ideas and language” (Delanoy 2015, 27). A foreign

language should thus never just be seen as a construct of vocabulary and grammar, but

teachers should always involve the culture beyond the language and additional expressive

features like facial expressions and tone.

8

2.1. Literature in the National Curriculum – The Current State

The National Curriculum for the NMS (Neue Mittelschule, which is the Austrian middle

school), defines literature as an important basis for the EFL classroom. Apart from being

able to read and interpret English texts independently, intercultural relations and

awareness raising concerning cultural differences and similarities between two countries

represent an essential part in English language teaching in Austrian schools:

Interkulturelle Bildung behandelt nicht nur Fragen der Kommunikation über

sprachliche Unterschiede hinweg, sondern auch die Zusammenhänge zwischen

Sprachen und ihren kulturellen Hintergründen, Fragen des Austauschs und des

Verstehens zwischen Gruppen verschiedener sprachlicher, sozialer, geographischer

bzw. sonstiger Herkunft und damit Fragen der individuellen und sozialen Identität

sowie der Zugehörigkeit und der Strategien zum Umgang mit kulturellen Praktiken

(BMB 2018, Allgemeiner Teil).

The national curriculum offers possibilities to integrate additional activities and contents

in class according to the students’ needs. Therefore, teachers can – mostly in coorporation

with their subject-specific colleagues – develop new tools and use material they think to

be helpful in order to teach a language.

Der Prozess des Fremdsprachenerwerbs bietet auch zahlreiche Möglichkeiten der

Auseinandersetzung mit interkulturellen Themen. Das bewusste Aufgreifen solcher

Fragestellungen soll zu einer verstärkten Sensibilisierung der Schülerinnen und

Schüler für kulturelle Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede führen und ihr

Verständnis für die Vielfalt von Kulturen und Lebensweisen vertiefen [BMB 2018,

Lebende Fremdsprache (Erste, Zweite)].

As has been explained above, literature is a multidimensional instrument, which offers

numerous ways to teach all competences, including cultural aspects. Even though it is not

mentioned in the curriculum, there are countless ways to teach it in class. Literature is

available for all levels and even authentic literature can be introduced to classes at an

early stage. As with every approach, teachers must reflect carefully on how they can use

literature and which text types and level might match their class. But with some

experience and research, every teacher and students can profit from the use of authentic

texts in class. All skills and levels that should be taught for acquiring a foreign language,

in this case English, are determined in the CEFR (Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages) [cf. BMB 2018, Lebende Fremdsprache (Erste Zweite)].

9

The Common European Framework provides a common basis for the elaboration

of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across

Europe. It describes in a comprehensive way what learners have to learn to do in

order to use a language for communication what knowledge and skills they have to

develop so as to be able to act effectively. The description also covers the cultural

context in which language is set. The Framework also defines levels of proficiency

which allows learners’ progress to be measured at each stage of learning and on a

life-long basis (Council of Europe 2011, 1).

10

3. Literature-based Lessons

3.1. Planning Task-based Literature Lessons

The lesson plan which will be described later in this paper, is above all based on tasks

building one unit. During task-based lessons, students do exercises which are part of an

entire lesson, where various skills are trained (cf. Nunan 1989, 6). Although Nunan

describes task-based lessons in general, these guidelines can be used for literature lessons

as well. According to Nunan, “the definition of a language learning task requires

specification of four components: the goals, the input, and finally the roles implied for

teacher and learners” (Nunan 1989, 47). The roles of teachers and students will be defined

later. To define goals, teachers should formulate learning objectives for each lesson. An

example can be found in the second part of this thesis. The goals of every task should be

clear to the teacher who uses a task in class, but also to the students to know what they

are expected to train or find out during every exercise or activity. (Nunan 1989, 49).

The input given to the students by tasks is as important as the announcement of

the goals and can be seen as a pre-teaching phase. To the teacher it must be clear what

students already know and which information they need in order to successfully finish an

exercise. This information is especially important when introducing literature to students,

as the teacher must be aware of which input students have to be provided with. The input

given can be in countless forms like newspaper extracts, letters or notes. To form the basis

for communicative tasks the designer should make sure to use authentic material (cf.

Nunan 1989, 53). For literature tasks other input than provided by a book can be given

too. As input anyways should be chosen carefully in order to fit the lesson’s context,

additional information concerning literature can be helpful. “A rule-of-thumb definition

for ‘authentic’ here is any material which has not been specifically produced for the

purposes of language teaching” (Nunan 1989, 54). We use authentic material in class

because we want students to be able to communicate outside the classroom in their target

language. As most texts in students’ books are reproduced or produced for the purpose of

teaching a certain level of language, some text might even become more complicated and

less comprehensible. This does not only concern listening activities where speakers talk

very slowly and extremely clearly but also written texts where vocabulary is simplified,

and sentences are shortened in an unnatural way (cf. Nunan 1989, 54).

11

Furthermore, authentic material, in relation to the target group, can pave the way

for increasing the students’ pleasure in reading. Children are much more interested in

reading books created for their age, for example literature for adolescence like Harry

Potter than studying reports which have been simplified in a nearly uncomfortable way.

Characters like Harry Potter are much more familiar to younger learners than interpreting

reports, and thus, extensive reading becomes more popular as well (cf. Bland 2010, 91).

This should, nevertheless, not mean that difficult or demanding texts should be banned

from class, but that texts should only be introduced to the students if they have reached

their level.

In the secure environment of the EFL classroom the students can practice their

language skills without being confronted with real-life situations. Although it should be

clear to the teacher that this is only for practice, they can try to make the experience as

authentic as possible (cf. Nunan 1989, 59-61).

To structure tasked-based literature lessons reasonably, teachers could start their

lessons by tuning the students into the new topic by means of creating some pre-reading

activities. Afterwards while-reading tasks follow, which should be designed in order to

supplement the actual reading experience. These activities mostly concern the plot and

the characters of a book and let the students dive into the story’s world and acquire new

knowledge, as for example new vocabulary, language in use or general information.

Hereby, if the teacher, for example, chose a picture book, the students should take a closer

look at all illustrations and grasp even little details of the plot. Furthermore, students

become involved in the storytelling process and are asked to use their own creativity and

apply skills during various tasks. This phase leads students beyond the storytelling phase

and the story itself can be extended through role plays or other activities. After reading

a book, teachers should always implement a follow-up part to conclude the lesson. As a

follow-up, many activities can be chosen. These activities are still linked to the book and

can be seen as a reflection of what has been learned or an outlook to the next lesson. A

wide variety of tasks which can be used in class exist and some will be defined in chapter

10 (cf. Hempel 2015, 74-75).

As has been explained in this sub-chapter, even literature lessons can be task-

based and therefore, offer the students a better orientation and make planning the lesson

easier for the teacher. “As pedagogical acts of mediation between literary texts and

12

learners, the function of tasks is to help learners engage with literature in aesthetically

motivated, personally meaningful, and dialogue-friendly ways” (Delanoy 2015, 29).

3.2. Planning Literature Lessons within a Communicative Approach

The EFL classroom in Austrian schools has changed considerably during the last decades.

Rather teacher-centered lessons are criticized by experts and young teachers are

instructed to plan communicative lessons during their training at university. Especially in

language classes, theory should not be the center of attention; on the contrary, students

should be given the chance to use their acquired knowledge. Therefore, the

communicative approach can be an effective tool. From the very beginning, children

mostly learn by doing. This process is often interrupted at school. If children, for example,

learn a language by introducing them to grammatical rules of English in their mother

tongue instead of teaching the students by speaking English, they might have difficulty

to dive into the new world of a new language. “Es läßt sich also aus dem Aufbau

kognitiver Strukturen im Zusammenhang mit dem Handeln von Schüler/innen begründen,

dass nicht die Vermittlung von fertigem unverbundenem oder assoziativem Wissen

sinnvoll ist, sondern der Ausbau von Handlungs- und Denkstrukturen“ (Gudjons 2014,

52). As students cannot understand a new language right from the beginning, the teacher

can use, for example, pantomime, objects or social mores, like greeting someone (“Hello,

my name is …”). Similarities of the social conventions of the mother tongue and English

facilitate remembering new words for already known structures.

The communicative approach also implies the different meanings between

“learning that” and knowing how; therefore, “we need to distinguish between knowing

various grammatical rules and being able to use the rules effectively and appropriately

when communicating” (Nunan 1989, 12). But in order to know how language and its

grammar is used, students still must be taught how its grammar works.

For some time after the rise of CLT [Communicative Language Teaching], the status

of grammar in the curriculum was rather uncertain. Some linguists maintained that it

was not necessary to teach grammar, that the ability to use a second language

13

(knowing ‘how’) would develop automatically if the learner were required to focus

on meaning on the process of using the language to communicate (Nunan 1989, 13).

The history of language teaching already knows many changes. Besides avoiding

teaching grammar actively, there has been a concentration on only speaking English in

the EFL classroom. Moreover, teaching grammar has also experienced a development, as

it is now integrated into context and therefore, “sometimes happens as a result of other

work the students are doing – for example, when they have been reading or listening to,

or when a grammar problem presents itself unexpectedly […] and we have to deal with it

on the spot (Harmer 2007, 210). This direct method promises better success in foreign

language learning (cf. Harmer 2007, 63-64).

The communicative approach and the direct method enable teachers to offer

students more opportunities to use the newly learned language instead of only reading or

hearing about it. There are many ways of how students could be asked to use a language.

One is literature. Literature covers countless genres, levels and target groups. A multitude

of teachers introduce literature to their classes after they have already reached a certain

language level. Still, literature can contribute immensely from the very beginning of the

learning process. In the early stages of learning, it is not the graded readers or other stories

written especially for foreign language learners, but picture books.

Furthermore, students should be allowed to contribute to class with all their

experience they have already gained. Nowadays, children are exposed to a great number

of impressions: television, the internet with all its social media platforms and all the

colorful advertisements both moving and still pictures. This influence means a

tremendous change in children’s focus, compared to people who grew up 40 years ago.

But if there are advantages teachers can draw on, it is their students’ ability to read

pictures and read various meanings from short texts. Besides, students can be motivated

for class much more easily if they are given the feeling of being able to contribute

meaningful input from their own world. The students’ experience should then be

combined with new contents in class, as it is important to focus on practical knowledge

as well as on theoretical details. As already mentioned, for most people it is easier to grasp

new contents when being actively involved in the learning process, rather than only

hearing the teacher lecture on some new theory (cf. Gudjons 2014, 56-57).

14

A communicative approach in class also allows students to interact with

colleagues and teachers. Teachers should profit from the students’ interaction and

integrate their need to talk into lessons. As most students start whispering or writing

letters during lessons, their concentration shifts, and they only process parts of what the

teacher is explaining. Pair work or group work can be introduced to class to make the

students discuss current topics in class without suppressing their need for communication.

Planning lessons with pair or group work might mean more work for teachers, but if pair

or group work is well prepared, students can highly profit from it. If students can interact,

their focus will not shift as easily as if they were only listening. Many teachers often fear

sequences where students can interact freely, but in order to support the students’

understanding and feeling for a language they must let them talk. When planning such

lessons, it is important to adapt them to the class, as problems might arise concerning

particular students. But as long as teachers consider their students’ characters while

building pairs or groups in class, severe problems can already be avoided (cf. Becker

1991, 32-33).

Regardless of the content a teacher wants to introduce to the students, a lesson’s

planning process is a crucial part of successful teaching. Therefore “it is essential that the

reflective teacher understands where the students have ‘come from’ in terms of their

learning, and where they should be ‘going to’ – space is therefore given to appreciate

aspects of continuity and progression in planning” (Butt 2008, V). Teachers get to know

their groups of students over time and should be able to adapt lessons according to their

abilities, needs and interests without losing track of the requirements of the national

curriculum. Although the whole process of planning lessons would exceed the scope of

this paper, teachers should never neglect it nor all other circumstances, like group

constellations, age and level (cf. Butt 2008, 2-3).

3.3. Teaching Skills with Literature

The language learning process today can be subdivided into teaching various

competences. This subdivision into competences facilitates the standardization which has

taken place in Austria concerning the Matura (a-level exams). Nevertheless, all skills that

15

are important in order to master a language cannot be squeezed into what is called a

competence because they are not concrete enough. For example, intercultural

competences are difficult to be narrowed down and thus are not part of the competences

tested at the Matura (cf. Hallet/ Surkamp/ Krämer 2015, 10). Still, introducing literature

to class supports an integral teaching of a language. According to the newest version of

the Common European Reference of Language (CEFR) there has been a positive

development lately because intercultural and plurilingual competences are taken into

consideration again (cf. Council of Europe 2018, 53).

Literature does not only offer the possibility to teach testable skills like

comprehensive reading, but helps students to get a feeling for a new language.

Collocations, idioms and so on can be filtered from authentic texts. Even though authentic

sources do not offer new words as compressed as texts in students’ books often do, they

demonstrate to their readers how the English language is used naturally.

The natural use of a foreign language could be put into focus by using more

authentic literature. Even though it could be stated that literary language does not equal

the everyday use of a language, it should be preferred to texts that are simplified for

students. Teaching and testing only skills does not guarantee that even good students are

able to use English naturally and freely at the end of their school career when in dialogue

with a native speaker. Although reading, writing, language in use and other language-

centered topics are discussed in class, students rarely come into contact with authentic

material.

Teaching competences in language classes is also part of the Austrian national

curriculum for the Neue Mittelschule (an Austrian new middle school). This should be

mentioned at this stage as the following lesson plan will be executed in this school type.

“Kompetenzorientierter Unterricht ist an den Prinzipien der kommunikativen Didaktik

auszurichten, wobei insbesondere Modelle der Immersion in der schulischen Praxis bzw.

„Content and Language Integrated Learning“ (CLIL) gefördert werden sollen“ (BMB

2018, Allgemeiner Teil). Thus, the development of English teaching has also been

integrated in the national curriculum for the Austrian new middle school and as this

citation shows, even though there is a focus on teaching competences, it should be content

and language integrated.

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4. Shift towards a Student-centered Teaching

A shift from frontal teaching towards new approaches brings a change of the teachers’

and students’ roles. While during frontal teaching the teachers are at the center of attention

and they mostly act as controllers and organizers (cf. Harmer 2007, 107-109) and hold

the speaking and acting part in class, new mostly student-centered ways of teaching give

students the opportunity to actively contribute to class themselves and, moreover, these

forms entail new roles for the teachers too. Nevertheless, we need to be aware of the close

relationship between roles of learners and teachers. Teacher roles do not only depend on

the task the students should do or the material that has been chosen. They also depend on

the teachers’ characters and their abilities. Although teachers should try to leave their

comfort zones, it is often easier to use the same roles than switching from one function to

another (cf. Harmer 2007, 107). Additionally, teacher roles should be clear to the learners

as well. Tasks only work if students do not expect something the teacher will not give

them (cf. Nunan 1989, 84).

During roleplays, for example, the teacher can act as prompter and therefore, help

students whenever they are lost for words while talking. As a prompter, the teacher must

be careful not to talk for the students and to support their own creativity. Therefore,

teachers should act in the background and only help if necessary.

Another role which can be taken on during discussions by the teacher, is the

participant. Hereby, it is important to stay in the role and not to intervene too much. This

teacher’s role could help students to learn new formulations and vocabulary and be

familiarized with new opinions and standpoints. Nevertheless, teachers must be very

careful when acting as participants in order not to dominate the whole discussion.

Furthermore, teachers can be resources during preparatory phases, for example,

of presentations or group writing activities. In case teachers are acting as resources, both

teachers and learners must be aware of the fact that nobody is omniscient and further

research might be required. However, foreign language teachers should at least be very

familiar with the target language and only require further research for specific

information. Therefore, being familiar with numerous research platforms and other

resources is helpful. Some of these platforms can then be introduced to the students as

well to make them more independent learners. Autonomous students do not only feel

17

more comfortable, but make lessons more efficient because the teacher can concentrate

on challenging questions, whereas the students are able to help each other with easier

ones (cf. Harmer 2007, 108-109).

A last role explained by Harmer is the tutor, a mixture of the prompter and

resource. When students are preparing tasks in small groups, teachers can walk around

and help with upcoming questions or direct them towards ideas they have not thought of

beforehand. Acting as a tutor helps learners feel better supported and understood, and

thus, teachers should use this role from time to time (cf. Harmer 2007, 109-110). Despite

their rather clear definitions, these teacher roles cannot be seen as separate tools to be

used in class. “[T]eachers […] cannot be taken for granted or viewed simply as skilled

technicians who dutifully realise a given set of teaching procedures in accordance with

the directives of a more or less distant authority” (Tudor 2001, 17).

If at this point the question arises whether we need these roles in literature lessons

as well, it needs to be stressed that literature is not just reading. Students should work

with new contents and countless tasks can be developed to work on skills and improve

the learners’ knowledge of the language. During students’ development, their teachers

and their roles constitute an essential element because teachers can offer their students

various types of support. Hereby, the relationship between both is a sensitive topic whose

development starts at the very first contact.

[Therefore,] teacher and learner roles imply different relationships with literature.

While the principal aim for learners is a personally meaningful and aesthetically

motivated exploration of texts, the teacher’s role is to help the learners in their

efforts both by providing tasks which are relevant to the themes and the texts and

also by carefully activating opportunities for individual group-related interaction

(Delanoy 2015, 31).

An efficient cooperation between teachers and students constitutes an important factor

for successful literature lessons. The students can contribute to a better development of

their skills by reading extensively and for pleasure outside of school. Teachers could

therefore give inspirations and examples of potential reading material, which could be

lists of books matching the learners’ age and interests or regular book presentations in

class. Reading extensively improves their range of vocabulary and consolidates their

language skills (cf. Delanoy 2015, 32-33).

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The relationship between teacher and students are an important part, not only

when teaching literature, but in all situations because confidence in and respect for one

another already provide a basis for successful teaching and learning. Moreover, the roles

a teacher chooses during class can then influence this relationship. For example, offering

the students phases of individual approaches towards certain tasks and acting only as a

resource or prompter makes them more independent than insisting on rather teacher-

centered teaching roles like frontal teaching.

Additionally, teachers should be willing to leave their comfort zone and try out

new roles. As many students often tend to be passive in class, the change of teachers’

roles might bring a change in students’ behavior as well. This change might also lead to

various way of students’ contributions in class. As they are no more forced to only talk

in front of or to the whole class but rather, for example, in small groups or in pairs, even

introvert characters might tend to become more active and thereby train their oral English

skills.

For tasked-based literature lessons, the roles of the learners and the class setting

itself are crucial. Nunan lists the following roles for learners in class: “the passive

recipient of outside stimuli”, “an interactor and negotiator who is capable of giving as

well as taking”, “a listener and performer who has little control over the content of

learning”, “involved in a process of personal growth”, “involved in a social activity, and

the social and interpersonal role of the learner cannot be divorced from psychological

learning processes”, “learners must take responsibility for their own learning, developing

autonomy and skills in learning-how-to-learn” (Nunan 1989, 80). All these roles can

contribute positively to the language learning process; still, teachers should not forget that

productive skills can best be rehearsed by production. Although producing contents can

surely take place in whole-class teaching, single, pair, or groupwork, depending on the

rehearsed skill, often are more successful. The task designer must take all factors

mentioned above into account and thus must not ignore the importance of learners’ roles.

Although many teachers already use several roles in class, others still have

difficulty introducing them or even refuse to try new ways of designing their lessons. If

they are willing to try out new patterns, teachers must be sure to be well-prepared and

give the students all the necessary information in order to avoid misunderstandings or a

lack of efficiency (cf. Harmer 2007, 107).

19

Given that this thesis mainly concentrates on teaching literature, it should be

mentioned that teachers and students must become a unity which tries to interpret and

work on a text together. Still, teachers must be aware of their situation and try not to force

their opinions on their students. “While the learners are encouraged to develop a personal

response, teachers need to keep the personal at a distance to make sure that their response

does not inhibit their learners’ interests in meaning making” (Delanoy 2015, 30).

Nevertheless, group size, personalities and learner types also play an important role when

teaching and discussing literature in class. The learners must feel comfortable and should

not fear to speak out in front of their classmates (cf. Delanoy 2015, 30).

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5. Teaching Visual Literacy

Using visuals in class often helps as pictures are an international language many people

understand. But before describing how to teach literature based on visuals, the term visual

literacy should be defined: “If we consider that the term literacy in its simplest form

means the ability to read and write words, then it follows that visual literacy must refer

to the ability to read and create images” (Stafford 2011, 1). Thus “visual literacy is the

active process of reading, interpreting and understanding images and visual media”

(Stafford 2011, 1).

A reason why to teach visual literacy can be taken from everyday life. Nowadays

our world is full of pictures and students must be taught to be able to interpret them

properly. In combination with words, pictures can change their meaning, which is reason

enough to teach our students how to read them. Even though Stafford (2011) has written

his book Teaching visual literacy in the primary classroom with a special focus on

primary schools, it is useful for teaching English as a second language in a secondary

school as well. Students learn how to read and, therefore, use pictures to understand a

foreign language and to use their imagination to find out meaning.

Children are taught how to read and write; likewise, they must be taught how to

read pictures (cf. Stafford 2011, 2). With visuals, of course, every source, such as TV or

video walls, are included. In this thesis, only picture books will be considered though. At

Austrian schools, teachers tend to introduce literature rather late and thus miss the chance

to use its benefits at an early stage. Often, books are not introduced to class before the

fourth or fifth year of learning, but as will be described, plentiful possibilities of using

literature even at the very beginning of teaching a foreign language exist and can be

designed by teachers themselves. The process of designing lessons will take more time

than using existing ones but with experience, motivation and knowledge each following

planning process will be accelerated.

Stafford (2011, 3) lists another important reason as to why visual literacy should be

taught at school – fun. As students may sometimes lack motivation in class, their attention

can, for example, be attracted by introducing new tasks and topics to the class in certain

intervals. Students love to take up new challenges and above all, if they feel comfortable

and secure, they literally begin to blossom out. Using pictures in class can even help

21

students with low self-esteem to become more confident and finally take part during

lessons, as it was the case during my own experience when teaching literature.

Although teachers must keep a specific curriculum and its guidelines in mind, there

are always possibilities to insert something new and interesting to their lessons.

Furthermore, it is rather easy to find relevant literature which fits the contents of each

class as countless books and other useful resources like the internet are available. It is of

great importance, despite the content, to properly introduce students to new activities.

Even though there are visuals everywhere in our lives, the learners should be taught how

to look at pictures and what can be derived from them and how they can be interpreted.

Although visual literacy can offer many more opportunities, we should still

concentrate on storytelling, as learners should improve their language skills. Looking at

pictures and deriving meaning from them needs practice and students often need advice

as to which parts of pictures need to be looked at more closely and how various motifs

can be read (cf. Stafford 2011, 6). To use visual literacy in class does not mean to

represent already existing material in a different way, nor does it mean using contents

without relation to what we have already taught. “Integrating new media and concepts

into our teaching will necessarily take us into some previously unexplored educational

territory. It should help us to achieve a twofold objective: to explore dynamic new forms

of literacy while simultaneously reinforcing and consolidating the skills we have always

taught” (Stafford 2011, 9).

Storytelling is taught to children at an early age in their mother tongue. As soon

as they start learning a second language, storytelling can be used to give students a secure

“cognitive frame for organizing knowledge” (Hempel 2015, 71). Although they might not

understand the text of, for example, a picture book right away, they can rest on their

knowledge from children’s literature in their foreign language. Even though the language

is new, the framework of storytelling stays the same. Step by step and with the help of

the pictures, children will be able to understand the story’s plot. “Since primary EFL

students have little knowledge of the English language to draw upon, teachers have to

gear them to connect their previous world knowledge, mostly in their mother tongue and

mother culture, with the target language and target culture” (Hempel 2015, 71).

Picture books are an excellent resource for storytelling in class. Teachers can use

the pictures of the book as a framework and, with the help of the students, they can tell

22

the story. The book provides characters and the main plot and the rest can, for example,

be interpreted or even invented by the class. Although the story itself is given by the book,

storytelling can be divided into three parts, namely the pre-storytelling phase, the while-

storytelling phase and the post-storytelling phase (cf. Hempel 2015, 73). As will be

explained in more detail in the following section, this structure can be found in most

lesson plans as pre-, while- and post- reading, listening, writing or speaking tasks need a

fixed course in order to give the students an orientation phase, a working phase and a

follow-up activity. This way tasks can be built up similarly every time, and students will

not need completely new instructions every time. Nevertheless, teachers should be careful

and implement new details every now and then to keep the students motivated and

occupied.

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6. Pictures in Class

6.1. Pictures in the Literature Classroom

Using pictures instead of texts might seem odd, as students should learn how to write and

speak a foreign language. Still, we should not forget that languages always are part of a

people’s culture. To avoid misunderstandings, teachers must be sure to introduce their

learners to this foreign culture (cf. Hecke 2010, 165). Doonan mentions two ways of how

pictures refer “to things outside themselves: denotation and exemplification” (Doonan

1993, 15). Denotation is achieved by a symbol that stands for an object, whereas

exemplification appears to be more abstract. This “means that pictures show, by example,

abstract notions, conditions, ideas, that cannot be pointed to directly but may be

recognized through qualities or properties which the pictures literally or metaphorically

display” (Doonan 1993, 15). Exemplification does not only allow one correct answer, but

can be interpreted in several ways, while denotation clearly represents an object. As

cultures have different pictures for many objects, these must be introduced in class in

ways comparable to new vocabulary.

In addition to cultural aspects, children learn how other people interpret certain

stereotypes. Although they should not be taught to judge others by interpreting these

stereotypes, it can be helpful to learn about them in order to better understand each other’s

perception and actions. “There are the perfectly beautiful, spotlessly clean, and naively

infantile figure and animals with their famous large heads, ready to be loved. There are

the grimaces, the affected caricatures, and the outright grotesque physiognomies, ready-

made to be laughed at” (Schwarcz 1982, 179). Teachers should, nevertheless, try to

introduce their students to these stereotypes without teaching them to apply them but to

understand them. Although these characters might also be shown in other children’s

literature, they are not depicted as obviously as in picture books, as pictures are the focus

of this literature. To be able to fully understand illustrations, teachers should introduce

techniques of illustrations. “Strategies to increase student awareness of book design […]

[are] obviously important; so […] [is] a basic introduction to artistic elements used by

illustrators for intended effects on the audience” (Lacy 1986, XIII). When introducing

pictures to class, children should learn about the effects of, for instance, colors, lines or

24

lightness. To be able to teach students such details, the teacher must be aware that further

education might be helpful.

The exact opposite – aspects that non-verbal communication of various cultures

has in common – can be taught as well by using picture books. Damman-Thedens and

Michalak describe Flotsam written by David Wiesner (2012) as an excellent example for

how the same picture or gesture can be understood by other cultures. Wiesner’s picture

book is about a boy who finds an underwater camera in the sea. On the camera’s film, he

finds a picture of an Asian girl with a picture of a boy who too is holding a picture of

another child in his hands. The boy decides not to keep the camera but to continue the

story by taking a photo holding the one from the camera in his hand, before the waves

pull the camera back into the depths of the sea (cf. Dammann-Thedens/ Michalak 2011,

87-88).

[This is an example how] the authentic input provided by picture book stories

fosters lexical appropriateness, and encourages learners to apply learning strategies

such as predicting, guessing meaning, hypothesizing, making sense of idioms, and

playing with language by using linguistic features such as rhymes, rhythm, and

repetition (Hempel 2015, 70).

As the story is presented as a wordless picture book, readers have endless options for

interpretations. A text would narrow down the room for interpretations and the readers’

motivation to use their creativity would be reduced noticeably. In class, wordless picture

books offer great opportunities to let students describe what they can see with structures

and vocabulary they already know, and new language can be introduced. When beginning

with what learners already know, they gain self-confidence and by using new words or

grammar in connection with pictures especially visual learner types will profit (cf.

Dammann- Thedens/ Michalak 2011, 89). On the camera’s film, the boy finds pictures of

children from all over the world and even though their looks, the environment and

clothing are different, they all understand that taking a new picture with the camera and

throwing it back into the sea continues an endless story. In class, students could start

talking about the differences but, above all, about the common grounds of children from

various countries.

As this thesis’ most prominent focus are children who start learning English as a

second language, adults and smaller children are only mentioned if in direct connection.

One would be the stereotypes and prejudices against other ethnic groups. Schwarcz

25

mentions in this content “The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek […][,] a fantasy creature born

of the mud with a strong urge to know who he is and what he looks like. He is uniformly

rejected by all the animals whom he meets and asks about himself, because he is so

horribly and disgustingly ugly” (1982, 192). While reading the story to children or even

just for themselves, adults might as well reconsider the danger of prejudices and what it

may feel like to put oneself in somebody else’s place and how others might feel. Many

other books, like for example The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (1999),

show how people and their thoughts can easily be influenced by others. In The Gruffalo,

a little mouse is in the woods and in danger to be eaten by most other animals like a fox,

an owl or a snake; thus, the mouse tells them all that it has a big, dangerous friend who

will kill them if they hurt it. Every animal fears the Gruffalo and then, when the mouse

finally meets the Gruffalo and it wants to eat the mouse, the mouse tells him that every

animal in the woods fears the mouse. As everyone fears the Gruffalo, everyone runs, and

the Gruffalo thinks it is the mouse they fear (cf. Donaldson/ Scheffler 1999). This is a

perfect example that we should not always take everything at face value but question

dubious situations.

All these picture books help children to be able to get to know new cultures and

languages and they

stimulate children by applying to them the humanizing power of the visual art. […]

By heightening […] [a child’s] senisbilities it develops his [or her] self-perception

and his [or her] comprenehnsion of the world he [or she] lives in, his [or her] ability

to understand his [or her] own intimate experiences and to relate more meaningfully

to others (Schwarcz 1982, 195).

6.2. Production of Pictures in Class

The production of pictures should be introduced to a class too to fulfill the learning

objectives of visual literacy [“[Es][…] muss im Sinne des fächerübergreifenden Lernziels

‘visual literacy’ bildprodukitv gearbeitet werden” (Hecke 2010, 165)]. Furthermore,

producing pictures in foreign language classes supports an integral language learning

without leaving any skills behind. The advantages students can draw from an integral

teaching style justifies this comparatively time-consuming activity (cf. Hecke 2010, 165).

26

Hecke also suggests visualizing texts to obtain a general understanding of them (166f).

Compared to picture books there is only one difference: The picture book’s author is

aware of the interaction between the pictures and the text and even uses the picture to

help interpreting the text or the other way around.

If these suggestions are transferred to picture books in class, learners could, for

example, draw pictures of any motif in relation to the text, and then talk to their neighbors

and explain their pictures, details and background information. As such activities involve

some personal information, students can also be allowed to invent certain details not to

feel embarrassed. Presenting pictures to others, offers much room for various speaking

activities (cf. Hecke 2010, 167-168) and can be adapted to any learner level and age. Yet,

students could approach such activities skeptically; most of the time this attitude can be

assigned to an insecurity when it comes to drawing. Numerous students fear their drawing

skills might not be good enough. Here, teachers should reassure their learners early

enough and not expect highly artistic works but tell them that even stick figures are

allowed and that details about a text’s content are crucial (cf. Hecke 2010, 172).

As also other possibilities to produce pictures exist, teachers do not have to let the

students draw but offer them to take pictures, make a film or act out scenes, still or

moving. The limitless offer of how pictures can be produced may make it hard to choose

for the teacher but enables diversity in class. Although the usage of pictures in class may

be time consuming, the advantages outweigh this effort. Learners do not only profit from

being introduced to visual literacy in class for their private life, but pictures also help to

gain a better understanding of a foreign language (cf. Hecke 2010, 172).

Only drawing pictures in class does not automatically translate into students’

proficiency in visual literacy. They must be able to draw whatever is asked from them,

even though the outcome does not have to be highly artistic. As already mentioned,

students must know how they can express a text’s meaning with their pictures, which

does not mean that they must be able to draw perfect pictures, but even stick figures would

be enough. In relation with foreign language teaching, students must be made aware of

potential cultural differences in depicting meaning (cf. Hecke 2010, 173-175). The

learners could therefore be made aware of existing differences in expressing meaning and

then be shown a picture or a film and be asked to find out how these individual

27

characteristics manifest themselves and what kind of communication problems between

two cultures can appear.

6.3. Looking at Pictures

Another way of using pictures in class is looking at them and trying to find out their

possible meaning. Interpreting pictures in order to be able to use them as a help when

reading texts needs experience and extensive practice.

Interpreting pictures fully involves attending to everything which presents itself to

the eye. It is not necessarily the obvious that the qualities of a picture come from

the artist’s style, choice of materials and compositions, nor how these pictorial

means achieve their effects. Once children have been told and shown how lines and

shapes and colours are able to refer to ideas and feelings, they can explore the

dimension beyond what is literally represented (Doonan 1993, 8).

Following semiotic terminology, picture books consist of iconic and conventional signs.

“Iconic, or representational, signs are those in which the signifier and the signified are

related by common qualities; that is, where a sign is a direct representation of its

signified” (Nikolajeva/Scott 2006, 1). “Conventional signs are based on the bearers of a

particular language, both the spoken language and communications, such as gestures,

dress code, or emblems (Nikolajeva/Scott 2006, 1). Numerous conventional signs, like

gestures or dress code, are taught to children mostly by their parents or other role models

already before they start learning to read. The interaction and combination between iconic

and conventional signs allow endless possibilities of meanings and thus, a picture book’s

author and, if both are not the same person, the illustrator face the difficulty of designing

a coherent story with matching illustrations. To this combination of texts and pictures the

various interpretative approaches of the readers can than bring additional meaning to the

narrative.

This is when reader-response theory comes into play. Both the text and the pictures

leave gaps which can be filled by the reader (cf. Nikolajeva/Scott 2006, 2). As children

are not able to read during their first contact with picture books, illustrations are

interpreted on their own. When parents or someone else then reads the story to a child,

even the meaning of the pictures might change for this child, as gaps that are left by the

28

illustrations are then filled by the text. Still, there is always room for interpretation and

every person will draw different meanings from pictures and stories.

Keddie offers a great variety of how pictures can be used in class serving the

purpose of teaching all four skills important for language learning, namely listening,

reading, writing and speaking. Although he gives us concrete examples of how to use

pictures, he recommends only taking his notes as a starting point and then making our

own exercise matching our own requirements and our students’ needs (cf. Keddie 2009,

6-8).

With time and under the guidance of, for example, parents and later teachers,

children can easily learn to read and interpret pictures and their hidden meanings (cf.

Doonan 1993, 8). But when reading, we should never assume that only a single

interpretation of any text exists. Even details a text’s author might not have thought of

could be detected by a reader.

When picture books are read […], the process by which a speaking reader chaperons

the words becomes quickly obvious: even if the speaker reads all of the words and

reads them all correctly – neither of which should be assumed – the speaker

inevitably performs the words in a way that narrows their meaning even as the

words fix the meaning of the images (Sanders 2013, 62).

During literature classes, teachers must be aware of this fact. Every interpretation should

be considered, and if some might seem too far-fetched this can, of course, be discussed

in class. Sometimes, obvious reasons underlie misinterpretations, like new vocabulary,

new grammatical structures or just inaccurate reading. Nevertheless, any new view of a

story should not be seen as a mistake at first, but as a new option of interpretation.

Moreover, pictures offer the chance to aim at education in empathy and

perspectives. Emotions can be drawn more easily from pictures than from texts, which is

the reason why illustrations simplify remembering the content of texts. Although it might

take more time to look for matching illustrations, the time spent pays off most of the time

(cf. Hecke 2010, 168). “Denn das Bild wird von den Betrachtenden unter Bezugnahme

auf ihre individuellen Erinnerungen, ihr Weltwissen und ihre Erfahrungen mit dem

Medium ‚Bild‘ gedeutet. So können Visualisierungen von Textinhalten Erinnerungen und

über damit verbundene Emotionen Gefühle für die Textinhalte wecken“ (Hecke 2010,

169). Evoking students’ emotions in class enhances their attention as they often, for

example, feel with certain characters or wish for another ending.

29

Nevertheless, “since [pictures] […] cannot tell us directly or exactly what their

signs mean, pictures present something of a puzzle, and our attitude to them must, above

all, be open-minded” (Doonan 1993, 11). Looking at pictures and the attempt to interpret

them always starts with guessing and trying to find supportive details for our hypothesis.

This process can be stimulated by asking questions about the objects or people in a

picture.

But even if we think we have come to a relevant hypothesis about a picture we

might learn something different from reading its accompanying text, like in a picture

book. Then we would have to go back to redefine the signs that we have obviously

misinterpreted. Readers must be skeptical about what they interpret and be able to rethink

their hypothesis when contradictions come up (cf. Doonan 1993, 11). If students follow

this advice, pictures and their meaning can be used as a help to, for example, understand

texts better.

The structures of texts are important for understanding them and, still, many

students struggle with finding useful techniques to define the parts of a text’s

construction. Images can help here, too, for example by constructing time-lines or graphs,

defining the character’s emotion or display a text’s structure. These pictures and graphs

offer the opportunity to let the class work in groups or in pairs, which encourages the

understanding of a text of most students, as they can ask their colleagues for further

explanations if anything appears to be unclear (cf. Hecke 2010, 170f).

Even though pictures provide considerable advantages for visual learners, also

others can profit from them. “For children learning to read, pictures are important for

communicating the meaning contained within words. Why should it be any different

when learning a foreign language?” (Keddie 2009, 25) Pictures books are read all over

the world by children and often with their parents, so they exist in various languages and

can thus be used for foreign language teaching. Except for facial expressions or the deeper

meaning of certain animals in some cultures, a picture of, for example, a dog will

everywhere be understood as a dog. Thus, learning foreign languages and especially

reading with the help of pictures can simplify the process.

The reasons for using images in class are numerous. We live in a colorful world

where pictures, either moving or still, surround us and, therefore, teachers and students

should profit from this vast range in class. “On the one hand, we are now submerged in a

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flood of moving images, which tends to distract us from giving concentrated attention to

one or more still pictures. On the other, we now have available infinite resources for

accessing, storing, and retrieving digitally generated images” (Keddie 2009, 3). Many

schools are already upgrading their technical equipment in class and try to provide at least

one computer, a projector and white boards in each classroom. This new offer is an

opportunity teachers should not miss. Today’s teenagers cannot imagine a life without

smartphones, internet and computers. Why not integrate in class what students cannot live

without? When using pictures for teaching, computers and the internet offer a range and

diversity, immediately available. Therefore, pictures do not have to be in print anymore

and can be searched and used instantly.

Students should be in contact with both moving and still pictures and neither of

them should be neglected. As they mostly see moving pictures, they can have difficulty

to read still pictures. Due to the fact that many children are mostly used to moving pictures

like films, they sometimes need help with interpreting still pictures. These interpretations

and observations can then be used for language learning and stimulate creativity.

Reading and discussing pictures can be used in every learner year. Only the choice

of pictures must be adapted to the learner age and the content being discussed (cf. Stafford

2011, 23). Teachers can thus use this activity with the same class every year as it can be

varied by the choice of pictures. Stafford also mentions that in lower classes picture books

are more useful whereas with higher levels even famous paintings or rather abstract

pictures can be interpreted (cf. Stafford 2011, 23).

Stafford also offers guidelines on how students should approach the interpretation of a

picture:

- Write a first person monologue, expressing a character’s inner thoughts

- Write a short story explaining events which happened after the ones shown in the

image

- Write a playscript detailing the dialogue between the characters

- Write down what the figures in the image could be saying or thinking (in the form

of speech bubbles), then come and place them on the whiteboard by each character

as if it were a giant comic. (2011, 23)

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6.4. Introducing Images to the EFL Classroom – Jamie Keddie

This subchapter contains several ideas Jamie Keddie offers in his book Images (cf. Keddie

2009, 26ff). He describes various opportunities as to how to profit from pictures in class.

In this section, a selection of these activities will be presented and explained to illustrate

their usefulness in class, above all, in connection with literature.

The first example is called “The baby gorilla joke”. Here, an image is used to

introduce the learners to a text preceding the actual reading activity. The students should

draw a picture of a man and a baby gorilla standing in the street holding hands.

The baby gorilla is eating an ice cream and the man is talking to a police officer.

The police officer doesn’t look happy. Draw two speech bubbles – one coming

out of the man’s mouth and another coming out of the police officer’s mouth

(Keddie 2009, 26).

After having drawn their pictures, the students should write short dialogues in pairs;

volunteers can act their dialogue out in class. During this activity, the teacher hands out the

lines of a joke (cf. handout 1 below) in the classroom, which should then be copied by the

children in the correct order. The joke and its correct order are then compared in class (cf.

Keddie 2009, 25-26).

Handout 1, Keddie 1

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As we can see in this chapter, jokes can be combined with pictures and then be introduced

in class to work with. The benefit from using jokes in class is that the majority will

remember at least their content and, thus, they can be used to train other skills too in later

lessons.

Keddie uses pictures children will not forget too soon. In the next example, he uses

an elephant in a fridge (cf. picture 1 below).

Based on this picture, he designs a lesson during which the students are asked to write their

own version of the story. As an introduction, Keddie wants the children to only listen to

the teacher who describes the situation. Here, several questions should be asked in order to

be sure that all students are on the same page (see Keddie 2009, 40). Then the teacher tells

them that they should write a note to the person who is going to open the fridge next.

Hereby, they should explain exactly how and why the elephant is in the fridge (cf. Keddie

2009, 40).

Another great idea is presented in the fourth chapter of Keddie’s Images. Here, he

suggests letting the students choose which picture they want to write a short text about.

This task can be set in elementary classes but also later. Students should choose a picture

at home and write a short text. The aim should be to prepare and do a short talk about the

picture. They can talk about where it was taken, what or who can be seen in it or explain

Picture 1, Keddie

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why they like or do not like this picture (cf. Keddie 2009, 69). In connection with the

picture book which will be included when presenting the lesson plan later in this thesis, the

students could be asked to choose a picture of an animal of their choice, no matter if it is

theirs or a picture from, for example, their holidays. The same task as explained by Keddie

could then be conducted.

This example task could be combined with another activity in the same chapter: the

photography competition. Keddie suggests choosing an online photography competition

that has already been judged. Then the teacher shows the pictures to the students without

telling them that they are going to deal with an old competition. The learners should then

choose their winner and tell the rest of the class which photo they chose and let them

describe it shortly and add reasons why they chose it. At the end, the teacher tells the

students which picture won and lets them express their thoughts about the actual winner

(Keddie 2009, 90-91).

As an alternative, included in to the lessons that will be illustrated later, the students

could bring their own photos of animals or their pets and the teacher collects them to show

them to the rest of the class on slides. The students should then choose one of the photos

(not their own) they find best and, as Keddie planned too, describe their favorite picture,

express their thoughts about it and give reasons why they chose it. Furthermore, this

activity can be adapted to any topic in class, either by letting the students choose their own

photos or by searching the internet for a competition that has already been carried out.

As not all children might own a pet or have the possibility to photograph an animal,

another of Keddie’s lessons could be combined with the photography competition. The

world wide web offers countless pictures of everything we can imagine, but to find the

pictures you need requires some practice and clues. The aims of this activity are “[t]o learn

how to carry out an online image search. To promote autonomy of learning” (Keddie 2009,

94). This activity can be adapted to any topic and, therefore, words on, for example, pets

can be searched as well. It would be best if every student or at least pairs or small groups

would be provided with their own computer with internet access. If your school does not

offer a sufficient number of computers, this activity could be conducted in class if at least

one computer exists; if not, the activity can be transformed into homework. The students

are given a worksheet with noun pairs on it. They are asked to identify the difference and

to properly define the words in a short sentence. Therefore, the teacher must be sure that

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the students know how to use a search engine properly and if they do not know it already,

they must teach them beforehand. Hereby, the teacher must ensure that they already know

how to use search engines and to inform themselves beforehand (cf. Keddie 2009, 94-96).

This activity, as most others, can be adapted to many other lessons, for example to

discover new vocabulary or define new words with different meanings or word pairs. As

in the lessons planned for the picture book Me and my cat? (Kitamura 2009), vocabulary

concerning furniture is introduced. The search of pictures online could be a great help to

the students to notice the difference between similar words or objects, like for example

between a sink and a basin.

To familiarize students with new vocabulary, the teacher can let them design their

own flash cards, with words on one side and little drawings on the other. These cards should

not be too large to avoid time loss due to laborious drawings. This activity can be used with

any age and combined with, for example, difficult grammatical structures or collocations

(Keddie 2009, 113-115).

This selection of activities can be integrated in class in order to introduce pictures to

students. As the sequence of lessons, which will follow in the practical part of this thesis

did not provide enough time to try all these activities, they were integrated in this section.

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7. Picture Books

A picture book could be defined as “an often complex fusion of art and literature which

are not only educationally valuable but are also able to be aesthetically appreciated and

enjoyed by both adults and children” (Stafford 2011, 26). Picture books consist of pictures

which take a whole or even a double page. The most important part of these narratives

are the pictures themselves. In addition to these pictures there can be added short texts

which give further information about the content, but some picture books are wordless

and, as the term already says, they only consist of pictures. In comparison to interpreting

art from famous painters, looking at pictures in picture books might seem easy, but it is a

first step for children towards interpreting their first painted pictures, and thus can be

compared to laying a foundation for their skills in interpretation. “One other manner of

opening children’s eyes to art is represented by illustrators who create pictures that are

consciously presented as art, and still within the children’s grasp” (Schwarcz 1982, 188).

The complexity and type of pictures vary regarding the book’s target group.

Although most picture books are aimed at children, also examples for adults exist.

Reading picture books offers the chance to dive into the story and, different to novels, it

leaves much room for interpretations and only sets little limits to the reader’s imagination.

Stafford divides picture books into three categories: “the illustrated storybook, the picture

book and the comic book” (Stafford 2011, 27). He uses “the term illustrated storybook to

describe any fiction book which contains both words and pictures but in which the

pictures merely illustrate the written text. In other words, a book where the pictures do

not add any new information to the story but simply support that has already been written”

(Stafford 2011, 26-27). Nevertheless, the moment a picture is added to a text it conveys

meaning and can influence the reader’s interpretation of the narrative.

As already mentioned, to be able to highlight the meaning of illustrating

techniques, teachers might choose to educate themselves further in this field. But

introducing children to art should already start during their pre-reading age. Even if they

cannot yet understand the written words, they already develop an understanding for

colors, lines and atmosphere. As today’s children are rather visually oriented, due to the

media, smartphones and television, it seems even easier to teach them how to read

pictures (cf. Lacy 1986, 1-2)

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“Picture books have the shape that they do, for example, because their design

anticipates a dual readership in which a speaking reader will chaperone the words. They

are often horizontal than vertical, and even when they are vertical, they tend to be

oversized” (Sanders 2013, 63-64). This means that most of the time picture books are

read to someone, mostly a child and the child is listening while looking at the pictures.

During this activity the book often is not only read out loud, but adults ask questions in

order to help the listening child to find new details in the pictures. This helps kids to

become more attentive and learn how to look at pictures to make the most meaning of

them. In this thesis, various approaches to and benefits of picture books will be discussed.

Although rather poorly designed picture books surely exist, I will primarily focus on well-

conceived pieces (cf. Schwarcz 1982, 179- 182).

Reading picture books starts at an early age and introduces children not only to the

literary world but allows a first “aesthetic experience” (Doonan 1993, 7). Still, children

are not able to interpret pictures and their corresponding texts beyond the obvious. It is

important to recall that picture books can rather be seen as an introduction to the literary

world and that children, during their first approach, do not read themselves but look at

the pictures while someone else is reading the story to them out loud.

The illustrator of children’s books is not, of course, the only one who presents

aesthetic objects to the child. On the contrary, the child’s relatively small world is

full of such objects vying with each other for attention. But the first one to present

the child with aesthetic messages, symbolic deceptions which are specifically

created for the child” (Schwarcz 1982, 169).

It also needs to be mentioned that picture books are not the only literary experience they

gain at an early age. “Fairy tales, cumulative picture books and above all nursery rhymes

abound in dynamic rhythm and rhyme, parallelism, assonance, alliteration, repetition,

onomatopoeia and refrains. These delight children and are memory anchors at the same

time” (Bland 2007, 303). For some time, children just enjoy listening to others while

looking at pictures; or they often start repeating rhymes or even picture books’ stories by

heart, without really questioning or interpreting the words.

Only later, when they are older and have already developed a certain understanding

of pictures and texts and their possible meaning, do they develop the ability to look

beyond this obvious meaning and rhythm and start interpreting what authors and artists

might try to convey. “Considering the integral role of picture books are presumed to play

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in the acquisition of literacy, one might say that they not only mirror the direction of

reading, they draw the listening/ viewing reader into literacy, along the way naturalizing

the Western tradition of reading visual fields from left to right” (Sanders 2013, 67).

Hence, reading picture books at an early age can be seen as an introduction to reading,

not only meaning-wise but also considering technical details.

At the very beginning, when children start learning to read, illustrations and pictures

in books make this process easier and make reading an enjoyable activity.

Literary texts for children are created for an implied reader with a conceptual

framework that is still developing. Certain safeguards are built in by the authors as

memory anchors, and to cater for readers whose grasp of the text will not be

completed in one reading, due to both his limited schemata and limited linguistic

competence (Bland 2007, 313).

Children who are L1 users of English have some characteristics in common with

beginning learners of English concerning their language skills: they have difficulty in

grasping texts written in English. Although learners might already have an understanding

of complex texts in their L1, they lack vocabulary and linguistic knowledge to be capable

of understanding the new language in written form. L1 speakers struggle with reading

words at the beginning and need progress concerning the skills mentioned too. Still, the

interplay between pictures and the text cannot be neglected. “Einzeln rezipiert bleiben

Inhalte des Bilderbuches fragmentarisch; erst im Zusammenspiel von Wort und Bild

entsteht die Bedeutung“ (Bland 2010, 76). Children must be familiarized with this

relationship in addition to reading a text themselves.

As most native speakers of German made their own experiences with German

picture books with support of their parents, they already know the context and functions

of this genre. If picture books in English are introduced to students, they can use their

previous experience to be able to understand this literature more easily. Students can use

their ability to interpret pictures and with a little help of words and structures they already

know, understand the story.

Most picture books work with the same scheme. The first and the last picture in

the books are very similar most of the time or have important details in common. “This

brings the story to a satisfying closure and is one of the principal ways the artist achieves

resolution and a sense of completion” (Sipe 2001, 37). Kitamura’s Me and my cat? is a

great example. The first illustration of the story shows the boy and his cat in bed while a

38

witch comes through the window to bewitch both. At the end of the book, on the third

from last page, the witch steps out of the boy’s room through the window after having

withdrawn the spell. Although this is not the very last illustration of the story, it gives the

reader a frame and the last illustrations can be seen as a kind of resolution.

7.1. Literature Lessons Based on Picture Books

Picture books are plentiful resources. All skills can be trained, picture books can demand

creativity from their readers and ask them to relate the story to their own lives and

impressions. The focus can usually be shifted towards whatever the teacher wants the

students to draw from a lesson.

Lessons need to be well thought-out and all tasks which consitute a lesson “require

specifications of four components: the goals, the input (linguistic or otherwise), the

activities derived from this input, and finally the roles implied for teacher and learners”

(Nunan 1989, 47). If this guideline is followed, teachers ensure that they plan tasks on

an appropriate basis and provide consistency in preparing tasks. However, this basis

should not keep teachers from being creative and composing new tasks to challenge their

students sufficiently.

When visual narratives are used in class, the focus usually lies on the text and the

pictures are used as a help to understand the written part. Nevertheless, picture books

should always be read and seen as a whole: text and pictures only work in combination;

thus, the reader would miss important details if one or the other was neglected. In addition

to picture books with texts, also wordless picture books can contribute to the students’

skills. These pictures can, for example, be introduced to help students working on their

describing and speaking skills (cf. Dammann-Thedes; Michalak 2011, 84).

7.2. Skills Trained by Reading Picture Books

Phonological sensitivity (rhyme and phoneme detection) connects nursery rhymes

to reading. […] In foreign language teaching rhymes are first collected aurally.

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Pictures facilitate the first-time reading of familiar texts by recalling to the reader’s

mind the echoes of words often heard (Bland 2007, 303).

Only by frequent repetition of new phonemes and rhythms, learners get used to them.

Especially when learning a foreign language which differs a lot from the native language

in phonemes, rhythm and intonation, hearing new words very often is necessary.

Reading a text requires making pictures in one’s mind to imagine the situation and

what it may look like. But picture books already offer a picture and thus this imagination

is more effortless, and the reader does not read “in the literary sense of term. She is the

beholder of the pictures, looking at what is depicted and being affected by the interwoven

arrangements that meet her eyes” (Doonan 1993, 9). Hereby, the way pictures are

illustrated should be mentioned. Picture books are often drawn by the authors themselves

and thus, every book has its own style also due to what the author wants to achieve.

“Although picture-book art must be reproduced by a mechanical printing process, the

print still records the technique used in the original and something of the effects of the

chosen materials, even the actual materiality is lost to our direct apprehension” (Doonan

1993, 12). After having read and interpreted several picture books, students become more

familiar with their style and the process speeds up. But it is not only the style of drawing

that influences how pictures are read, but so do the colors used. Children learn at a very

early age what certain colors mean and how they could help understand a text better. An

example would be dark colors which often express something dangerous or sad.

For the ability to interpret illustrations and the text that goes with them, knowing

its intertextual codes makes the process even more enjoyable for readers as they can profit

from background knowledge, hidden meanings and other information in order to

understand a story (cf. Lobato Suero/ Hoster Cabo 2014, 179). By learning how to

interpret these details in picture books, students learn for life. We are surrounded by a

world full of pictures, ambiguous information in news or advertisements and on

television. Children need to be taught that most messages in texts, videos or pictures have

multiple meanings, and still it is possible to learn how to decode them (cf. Lobato Suero/

Hoster Cabo 2014, 166). As already mentioned, pictures and texts in picture books act as

a unity. “Beim Sprachenlernen werden die Bilder in Bilderbüchern jedoch oftmals nur als

effektives Gerüst (scaffolding) angesehen, das bei der Erschließung des Kontextes helfen

soll“ (Bland 2010, 77). Nevertheless, we should not forget that pictures offer students

40

hints for new ideas and additional clues for the context. Generally, children are said to

learn foreign languages with greater ease than adults. Children learn from the very

beginning of their development by trial and error. They apply the same technique when

learning new languages (cf. Bland 2010, 78).

In this context, literacy comes into play again. Students should not only learn to

read a picture or a book but understand its cultural background and any further meaning

that could be implied. When approaching the qualities of a new culture, students should,

first of all, be advised to accept different cultures and to approach every other person

respectfully. The introduction of a new culture, could, therefore, be introduced by getting

to know all cultural backgrounds present in class. Students should learn about their

classmates’ culture and accept any differences they might discover. Afterwards, a new

culture can be presented by the teacher. This can be one way, how students learn to

approach the lifestyle and conventions of foreign societies. “Literacy is the qualification

required for reading worldwide texts – with confidence, mindfully and critically. Few can

become experts at any skill without practice, and this is certainly true for the skills of the

literacy spectrum” (Bland 2007, 299). Therefore, literature should be introduced to

children as early as possible and with picture books and their amazing and creative

characters this is an easy thing to do. Picture books, hereby, are a useful tool to let children

discover possible structures and meanings of literary texts.

The pictures can reverberate with meaning, drawing children into the world of the

book and holding them there long enough for complex cognitive processes and

exchanges to take place. It would seem that the affective dimension of children’s

response to pictures casts a spell of wonder” (Bland 2007, 309).

Although picture books often are seen as literature for younger children, mostly

pre-school age, even older students can learn a lot from them. Texts and pictures are

meant to complement each other and, thus, the meaning becomes clearer by respecting

both, above all for little children. In foreign language teaching this is an advantage for

understanding a new language. The content becomes clearer by looking at the picture (cf.

Lobato Suero/ Hoster Cabo 2014, 167).

The communicative value of a picture book increases considerably when the

reader’s knowledge allows him [her] to reconstruct the meaning of the message

transmitted through the text and the illustration. Among the contributions that the

reader of a picturebook makes to construct meanings, one of the most interesting is

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the capacity to identify those that refer to the intertextual elements (Lobato Suero/

Hoster Cabo 2014, 179).

Nevertheless, we must differentiate between “well crafted texts for children” and “poorly

crafted texts” (Bland 2007, 301). Whereas well-crafted texts offer a “rich, idiomatic and

linguistically appropriate” language and an “appropriate content” (Bland 2007, 301),

poorly crafted books lack these details and cannot contribute positively to a child’s

development of literacy. Many parents and teachers think that simplified books or texts

can contribute to the children’s development in literacy, but often the opposite is the case.

Most texts are simplified illogically and even worsen the learner’s understanding. “In fact

young children are very good at guessing and tolerating ambiguity, characteristics that

should be cultivated, not discouraged. […] Children should be allowed to guess at

meanings and to build up hypothesis about what the writer/ storyteller will say next”

(Bland 2007, 301-302). Students should be educated to act and read autonomously and

not every word should be explained or translated for them.

This capacity can then be transformed into a useful tool when interpreting texts

without illustrations at a later stage. Teaching picture books in class is not a general tool

when teaching foreign languages, although it is a very useful one. As Lobato Suero and

Hoster Cabo were convinced that picture books should be used in class more often, they

started to organize workshops where teachers should be taught how to introduce their

students to picture books, and in which way this could help to deepen the students’

comprehension of intertextuality (cf. 2014, 179).

Picture books’ richness in idiomatic and creative language allows students to

expand their vocabulary skills and thus “learners of English […] would […] benefit from

the opportunity to use more adventurous expressions in their own writing, and to profit

from the wealth of exciting words in [sic] their dictionaries can offer them, words of their

own choosing” (Bland 2007, 310).

Even when children are already able to understand longer texts in English or any

other foreign language, picture books can still be useful and challenging. At an advanced

level, the teacher could introduce more complex picture books to repeat and deepen the

students’ understanding for intertextuality and motivate them to look beyond a text’s

obvious meaning (cf. Lobato Suero/ Hoster Cabo 2014, 180).

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The reading process in class should be well prepared as grasping the whole content

of a text and its corresponding pictures takes several times of reading and interpreting.

During the first time, the reader should grasp the overall content and how the story

evolves, the second time the reader can skim through to discover details that have been

missed the first time. A third time is used to look at all the pictures carefully and find out

their relation to the text. “The pictures may elaborate, amplify, extend, and complement

the words. Or the pictures may appear to contradict or ‘deviate’ in feeling from what the

words imply” (Doonan 1993, 18). Doonan takes the process even further and tries to

identify any hidden details in the pictures and the text. This concerns the distribution of

text in relation to the pictures and even when the book is reread some time later, many

more details can be detected (cf. Doonan 1993, 18-20).

In connection with reading picture books in class, a definition of symbolic systems

is required. The difference between pictures and texts has to be explained to facilitate

students’ comprehension of their complementarity. “Looking at pictures evokes

emotional responses: the feeling, and a rationalization of how you feel” (Doonan 1993,

51). After raising the students’ awareness on how signs work in a picture book, the teacher

should draw their attention to the book’s physical appearance, its structure and how all

these details in general eventually have an effect on the reader (cf. Doonan 1993, 52- 53).

Reading picture books in class must be well prepared and clear aims must be

defined. There often is no time to read books several times and to go as much into detail

as Doonan recommends. Nevertheless, students should be given a chance to dive into the

pictures and learn how to interpret colors, drawing styles and the pictures’ relation to the

text. Here the book could firstly be read in general and then the teacher could plan to deal

with smaller sections more profoundly.

From the very beginning of their lives, children are taught to fit in and to act as

everyone else would. “Nonsense literature often breaks rules; rules are like a safety net

for children, rule breaking provides the shock of novelty” (Bland 2007, 306). As the

example Alice in wonderland shows, “nonsense literature is often inventive and bizarre”

(Bland 2007, 306). In Lewis Carrol’s Alice in wonderland there can be detected a number

of nonsense features, as for example the characters Alice meets all the way through the

narrative. All seem unreal and cannot be imagined living in our real world (cf. Millikan

2011, np). This literature teaches children to use their imagination in order to understand

43

how a story works. Another example would be talking animals in stories or films.

Children know that this is not part of the real world, but they perceive and understand that

animals can communicate too and that, even though animals cannot talk like humans,

their needs must be met and above all humans are responsible for their well-being.

Reading or seeing animals and their families in books or films “helps children view the

world through the eyes of others; the relative importance of things can be seen from

different angles” (Bland 2007, 307).

Despite the fact that picture books or films use stories and characters that might

be nonsense, they still convey meaning and a message. Bland mentions a short rhyme

from a textbook in this context. This rhyme does not convey any sense and thus is hard

to remember for school children.

The rhyme:

Where are you? I’m at home.

Where is she? She’s in Rome.

Where is he? In the pool (Popcorn 2, Auer 2001 in Bland 2007, 307).

In this example, we do not get to know more about the characters or any connection

between their whereabouts or actions. Numerous picture books leave room for

interpretation too, but “many ingenious picture books surprise and perplex readers – while

stimulating them to pose questions and construct their own interpretation, particularly

when the resolution is left open” (Bland 2007, 307). Picture books offer much more than

empty stories; children and even adults can learn for life when reading them.

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7.3. Introducing Picture Books to the EFL Classroom – Tim Stafford

In this subchapter some of Stafford’s teaching ideas will be presented, as alternatives to the

activities included in the following sequence of lessons in the practical part of this thesis.

First, he introduces the book Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates by Timothy Knapman

and Adam Stower (2006). The learning objectives of this lesson are:

To explore a picture book text, noticing and commenting on how the pictures

tell the story as well as the words, to use the book as the basis for their own

imaginative verbal description, to describe and explain the plot, characters

and visual elements of books they have read as a class and on their own

(Stafford 2011, 39).

The lesson starts by asking the children about what they can see on the book’s front page

and letting them interpret what they can see and making some guesses about the plot.

Afterwards, the story is read to the children. Questions on the content or the pictures

should be answered by the students and should motivate them to participate and use their

creativity.

Stafford then lists a variety of additional tasks in combination with the picture

book Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates like, “ask the children to think about a book

they would like to jump into” (Stafford 2011, 40), or let the children choose a book on

their own. They should then hide the book and a piece of A3 paper is placed in the middle

of the circle they should be seated in. Then, one by one, they step onto the white paper

and they are asked to describe what they can see when imagining their books. The other

children should try to guess which book the child in the middle is describing (cf. Stafford

2011, 40). These activities allow the students to introduce their own ideas to class. The

second activity offers the opportunity to train speaking freely in front of class.

Furthermore, describing a picture from memory challenges the students’ creativity.

Within the next section, Stafford provides further suggestions on how to proceed

when reading a picture book in class. He suggests stopping reading at a certain stage and,

afterwards, letting the students guess how the plot might continue. The students should

then complete the missing part by drawing pictures and using one or two sentences. After

the children have produced their own endings, the initial ending from the book is read in

class and compared to their new versions. It is important to let the pupils know that the

book’s ending is only one way and that their suggestions are real alternatives (cf. Stafford

45

2011, 42). Other ways to let students complete a book’s ending would, for example, be

to let them act out their ideas in front of class or let them find the correct order for the

book’s pages.

7.4. Further Teaching Ideas

Another example of how picture books can be introduced and used in class is elaborated

by Jane Doonan. The advantages of these narratives in class are, for example, that she

sees “the use of picture books as part of an education in developing a visual sense

generally and in being able to make meaning from visual information in particular”

(Doonan 1993, 48), and she believes “that picture books can provide a valuable

introduction to art appreciation” (Doonan 1993, 48). Therefore, this type of literature is

favorable in connection with learning skills, set by the national curriculum, even though

we have to consider eventual adaptions to the valid curriculum as these ideas belong to a

publication by Jane Doonan from 1993. In Pupils learn for life, as they learn how to

interpret colors, signs and other pictorial details. Picture books could even be applied in

interdisciplinary teaching in connection with art or biology.

Jane Doonan’s goal is that children have fun when discovering new books or

contents. “Children like above all to get their hands upon the material and discover for

themselves” (Doonan 1993, 49). When letting children work independently, their self-

confidence grows, and contents can be remembered much more easily when they must

search for information themselves. Nevertheless, teachers must be aware of their

students’ skills and avoid asking too much of them. Teachers can act supportively when

choosing the right role of a teacher (cf. above) for every lesson or activity.

Janice Bland is another author who presents diverse options of how to use picture

books or just pictures in class. In connection with some lessons of one of her students,

they tested how young students from the age of six to eight years would react to pictures

with empty speech bubbles in them. This activity challenges the students’ creativity and

writing skills. From this activity, the teachers drew the conclusion that children have

different interests; some rather concentrated on color in the pictures and others could not

46

wait to fill in the speech bubbles. With the help of chunks and rhymes learned in class the

children did not have any difficulty expressing their ideas (cf. Bland 2010, 88).

An additional option for working with picture books in class would be to create

them with the students. Therefore, the students can draw the pictures themselves and fill

in the text, or the teacher can introduce websites, like Storybird (Storybird Corp. 2018)

to the class where, for example, already given themes can be used and then stories can be

created. Such activities are great to combine various subjects and help students to profit

from their creativity without being obliged to draw pictures themselves.

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8. Picture Books and Drama

With picture books teachers should also use the possibility to let students actually feel

what they can see in the pictures. By acting out scenes, they can get even closer to the

characters they get to know through pictures. “Activities which explore body language

and facial expression are not only enjoyable for children, they also help them to gain a

practical understanding of how we can read emotions and character through purely visual

means” (Stafford 2011, 11). Although not all students are confident and like presenting

themselves in front of class from the very beginning, most children start getting

comfortable when all class members are acting out scenes and if they have some time to

prepare beforehand. Teachers can choose to let the students act out scenes right from the

book or let them invent new storylines or alternatives to the books. Nevertheless, teachers

have to offer enough support to the students in order to find the right lines to say and how

facial expressions can support their performance. Scenes can be acted out alone, in pairs

or in groups, but any combination needs enough time to be prepared thoroughly. As these

activities tend to be rather free concerning the contents and the way scenes are

represented, teachers must clearly define their expectation to avoid misunderstandings

and unexpected actions, like how students should speak, if they are, for example, allowed

to meow when playing cats and how long their performances should be, and any other

expectations concerning difficulty.

When planning such activities, teachers also should ask themselves how far they

want to go. They can plan short scenes that are improvised or whole stories by a whole

class. Even a theater performance could be planned. Teachers must consider how their

students can profit best from such activities. They must think of time frames, the different

stages, which are the planning process, the rehearsing process, the presentations and the

feedback. Sadly, there often is not enough time to perform real theater pieces in class,

although students can highly profit from such performances and the planning before it,

not only concerning language skills but also concerning their acting experience.

Stafford introduces the reader to some planned sessions based on the book Where

the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963). He introduces the children to the book

by having them look at the front and back cover of the book and asks questions concerning

the main character’s behavior, emotions and actions. Although he tries to motivate the

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students to participate during the lesson by asking questions, it would be possible to use

activities which are not as teacher-centered. The next session is action-based and aims at

using drama in class to let the students fully understand the book. The third lesson is based

on adapting characters of the book and working with them (cf. Stafford 2011, 19-21).

Stafford uses a great number of tasks and exercises to let the students make the most of

the book. As children need great diversity in class to stay motivated and to learn a

language, activities like acting out scenes or just playing characters and answering for

them can be great fun. While many teachers tend to integrate tasks, which can be easily

graded or where the students’ actions can be easily divided into right and wrong, they

forget that motivated children often perform better than insecure students who barely dare

to speak.

It is not only tasks that sometimes keep the students from talking, but also the

class atmosphere or the level of English have great influence. These influences can be

balanced by the role the teacher chooses (cf. Harmer 2007, 345). Even the number of

students has a great impact on how students engage in speaking activities. At this point,

it can be useful to establish certain routines and rules in class in order to keep everyone

comfortable. Even though a great variety in class stimulates the students’ motivation,

rules and routines can be a great basis to work successfully in class (cf. Harmer 2007,

122). The role of the teacher must be planned with the tasks and teachers should stick to

them while in class in order to support the students best. Sticking to a role does not mean

that teachers do not have to be flexible. In class, up to 30 people must be organized and

even if plans should be followed, interruptions or little changes of plans should not mean

the failure of the whole lesson.

Drama activities are also mentioned in the national curriculum for the Austrian new

middle school: “Der Fremdsprachenunterricht soll zu kreativen Aktivitäten, wie zB zu

Rollenspielen, fremdsprachliche Theateraufführungen und kreativem Schreiben anregen“

[BMB 2018, Lebende Fremdsprache (Erste, Zweite)]. For all three activities, literature

can be used as a starting point. Drama activities must be well planned if no drama group

exists as they are very time consuming if executed properly. Still, as students must

contribute a great part to it and can, for example, design their own costumes, a drama

activity can be planned as a huge project, involving several subjects (e.g., art, dance

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class). Nevertheless, if time is too limited, acting can be integrated into daily lessons by,

for example, only acting out short scenes in front of class.

8.1. Using Pictures to Introduce Drama Work to Students

“The concept of playful learning turns literature into an adventure: texts come alive

through performances” (Surkamp 2015, 142). Stafford suggests starting with a warm-up

activity such as “Stop/go (children have to do the opposite of the command you give

them)” or “in pairs, children have to create a tableau of an image and the other children

have to guess what it is”. Afterwards the students should be divided into suitable groups

to recreate an image that is handed out to each group. Then the students can be asked to

create the preceding scene of the picture. They should end their scenes by recreating the

picture. For this activity the teacher must give them enough time for careful planning and

rehearsing. Similarly, the students can also be asked to start their scene by recreating the

picture first and proceed by showing how the actions in the pictures could continue. At

the end or even between the planning stages, the scenes can then be acted out in front of

the class (cf. Stafford 2011, 25).

If teachers would want to take this activity to a higher level, whole picture stories

could be used to create a drama that could even be filmed scene by scene and then be put

together. As creating a film would take much longer than just several lessons, the teacher

could plan a class project and even cooperate with other subjects. Creating a film in

English does not only involve the English language but many other skills like filming,

acting or designing costumes for the characters are involved too.

Picture books can provide the basis for teaching any class. Not only the choice of

picture book adapts a lesson to a certain age, but the activities planned for a particular

class are influential here as well. The level of complexity of activities is a useful tool to

perfectly adapt a lesson to specific learners. “The visual and sensual experience with the

text facilitates learners’ understanding as well as the retention of new vocabulary and

linguistic structures” (Surkamp 2015, 142). Thus, the teacher can choose texts according

to the students’ level and use them to teach language in use. “In addition to purely

linguistic understanding, the transformation of the text into an experience involving the

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body, movement, and spatial positioning also promotes the understanding of the

relationships between the characters and of the conflict underlying the text” (Surkamp

2015, 142). The students do not only have to learn their text but must put themselves into

the characters’ place and try to understand and imitate feelings and actions. Here, they

learn how to act out scenes and also to understand other peoples’ feelings better. Learners

must be prepared properly for acting scenes and their language use should be correct to

the greatest extent, but the correctness should not be the center of attention.

“By working with dramatic texts, learners have the opportunity to test the effects

of facial expressions, gestures, and body language, as well as paralinguistic phenomena

such as intonation, rhythm, pitch, tempo and pauses” (Surkamp 2015, 143). Every

language, and with it its culture, contains a certain type of body language, facial

expressions and intonation. For acting scenes, pictures which offer the learners characters

with facial expressions already give information about a character’s feelings and current

mood. With the help of the teacher the students will learn how to pronounce and intonate

their part in order to bring a meaningful message across. This learning process will teach

the children much more than how to play their role appropriately. They learn for life, as

they get to know little details about the foreign language. It will be much easier for them

to understand rhetorical devices like sarcasm or cynicism in the foreign language and,

furthermore, they gain experience in speaking another language freely. Even though they

learn their parts by heart and do not have to act spontaneously, acting out scenes

contributes enormously to the students’ development in terms of speaking a foreign

language. “Moreover, acting allows learners to express their emotions and their

personality through non-verbal communication, to train their spontaneity, creativity, and

ability to associate, and therefore, strengthen their self-confidence” (Surkamp 2015, 144).

According to Surkamp, students train their performative skills, social

competences – as they mostly are acting in groups – and how their acting influences an

audience (cf. 2015, 144- 145). Short drama pieces, nevertheless, do not have to be

presented to a huge audience. Even short scenes in class work for students to improve the

skills mentioned. An important detail that always must be considered is that teachers must

be careful when introducing drama work to class. Every group of students consists of

various characters, one more outgoing and self-confident than another. When acting out

scenes in class, students must feel secure. If some children already have difficulty

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speaking out in front of class, playing a part might even be more demanding, and thus,

special support for such students must be granted by the teacher. Various causes could be

responsible for students having difficulty acting out in front of class. This could be

anxiousness of being bullied by others or simply the fear of failure. In any case, the

teacher should be attentive and respond to any need that might come up during a drama

activity. After every drama experience, students should be given the opportunity to reflect

on the experience they made. The students can think about their progress or difficulties

they may still have or any textual interpretations they may not have thought of (cf.

Surkamp 2015, 153).

8.2. Examples of Using Drama in Class

“Antoinette Portis’s Not a Box [(2007)], which shows how an ordinary box can be turned

into something more through the power of imagination, is an excellent way into Drama

for Reception or Year 1 class” (Stafford 2011, 50). Firstly, the book is read in class and

afterwards the children form a circle and one after another is in the middle with a

cardboard box and uses the box as if it was something else. This activity can also be

carried out in groups. “This activity will hopefully begin to develop children’s

imaginative play into a Drama session without over-formalising it” (Stafford 2011, 50).

Children can then draw their version of what else the boy might become. These pictures

can then be collected for a class version of Portis’s book (cf. Stafford 2011, 50-51).

Furthermore, Stafford introduces a creative idea of how learners can come up with

their own picture books and join them with drama activities. Children, therefore, are asked

to draw their own pictures with stick figures and add a few sentences to each picture in

groups. If they have problems in making progress, “it may help to give them the basic

premise of the story. For example, a family party where the sentences state that everyone

is having fun and getting along, while the pictures show disagreements and feuds”

(Stafford 2011, 5). The teacher then asks the children to act out their scenes while one is

the narrator and reads the sentences and the rest of the group acts. “An activity such as

this can help older children understand how to contrast words with images to create a

message and an ironic tone in a visual narrative” (Stafford 2011, 51). Pictures combined

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with drama activities let the students see a language from another perspective. With visual

help, getting a feel for a foreign language and the meaning of vocabulary becomes easier.

Even older children and thus higher-level learners can profit from using picture

books in class. In these classes, the material and activities certainly need to be adapted.

Students can be asked to create their own picture books; therefore, “a solid understanding

of how texts are structured and operate effectively” (Stafford 2011, 52) is indispensable.

“If the book they create is focused around a more mature subject […], children can

develop their ability to write for a specific audience by considering how to present such

material for younger children” (Stafford 2011, 52).

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9. From Theory to Practice – Me and My Cat?

This rather practically-oriented part of the thesis is a case study of Satoshi Kitamura’s

(2009) picture book Me and my Cat?. Kitamura being both the author and the illustrator

of the book depicts a story about a boy and his cat. The first lines of the book already

promise an exciting adventure and captivate its curious and inquisitive young readers:

Late one night, an old lady in a pointed hat climbs through the window into

Nicholas’ bedroom. She brandishes her broom, fires out some words, and then

leaves as abruptly as she came. It’s puzzling at the time, but not nearly as puzzling

as what happens the next day… (Kitamura 2009, back cover).

Throughout the following story Kitamura succeeds not only in presenting an interesting

story with surprising and funny turns, but he teaches his readers manners and how to put

oneself in another person’s, or rather, animal’s place in order to gain a deeper

understanding of their feelings and actions. Colorful and lively illustrations facilitate and

deepen the reading process.

Doonan describes Kitamura’s work based one of his other picture books When

sheep cannot sleep (1986). Kitamura tells his stories with “unforced humour and in

childlike vocabulary, speech patterns and tone” (Doonan 1993, 23). Using his books in

the foreign language classroom sometimes causes difficulties because English students

are not familiar with childlike English, but, nevertheless, they can benefit from reading

his books. The introduction of authentic literature offers the students access to English

culture and they are provided with an insight into native English children’s language.

“Why select to teach detachedly about different cultures through the medium of English,

when we can directly experience cultural meaning through authentic literature?” (Bland

2007, 311). The teacher must be aware of its vocabulary being new to most students

because they are usually taught the international use of a language.

Kitamura’s drawing style is characterized by doing “as little underdrawing as

possible, therefore his pen meets the paper once and for all, with no margin for error, no

chance to reconsider. The quality of the line is fine, unbroken, and exhibits a slight tremor,

which charges the drawing with energy” (Doonan 1993, 23-24). Kitamura always uses a

closed contour for objects. “This mode of drawing attention to an object suits Kitamura’s

purpose well, since many of his objects have specific symbolic as well as narrative

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functions and thus reward close attention” (Doonan 1993, 25). To maintain a certain

feature throughout the book, he uses repetitive details like, for example, the open door in

When sheep cannot sleep and falling things in Me and my cat, as can be seen in the picture

example below (cf. Doonan 1993, 25).

Falling things accompany Nicholas in his cat’s body throughout the whole story and are

an indication of the boy’s struggle. Thus, when he finally returns into his own body at the

end of the book, he might see his cat in a new light. It will no longer be the lazy and

thoughtless animal anymore, as he experienced its real daily struggles himself. This new

perspective might even have an effect on how children see other people. They might start

to consider others’ actual situations and stop judging them by isolated actions or

statements.

I chose this specific book for my sequence of lessons because it perfectly met my

requirements. Both English teachers of the class I taught were very cooperative and

decided to leave it up to me to choose the time and topic for my visit. They informed me

about important tests or other dates to take into consideration and when it was the easiest

to plan my lessons. One of the reasons why I chose Kitamura were the topics the teachers

Picture 2, Ktamura 1

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were working on with the students. In my opinion, text books can very well function as a

framework in order to offer a structure that teachers can follow to introduce new topics

and new skills. Nevertheless, using every single exercise and strictly following the book’s

sequences should be avoided, as monotonous lessons can demotivate students as well as

teachers. The uniform structure of most units in a text book for English teaching can be

one reason. If certain students struggle with understanding new topics via a typical

approach, it can keep them from acquiring a whole language because approaches scarcely

change. But if teachers offer various approaches towards new topics for the students, it

becomes more probable to obtain success.

As reported, I took the teachers’ topics into account and decided to build a bridge

between two units of their book with my sequence of lessons. My major aim was to

introduce authentic literature in the form of picture books to this class and to use various

approaches to make learning for every student and, to be more concise, for every learner

type easier. Most exercises I decided to integrate into my lesson plan have been inspired

by most authors already mentioned in the theoretical part.

Picture books offer all kinds of approaches for lesson plans: may it be looking at

the pictures, reading the texts or combining these with the pictures, for instance. Still, it

is not only the book itself that can be used, but also the storyline and characters of the

book. Students can do predicting and guessing activities, which can be extended into

storytelling or even acting activities, or the books can also be used to introduce new

vocabulary. The options are countless and some of them will be integrated into the

following sequence of lessons.

One further detail should not be skipped: the technical devices that are required

for such lessons. Most schools do not have copies of one picture book for whole classes

in place, which is why technical devices like projectors and computers are essential when

executing such lessons. “The narrative technique of quality picture books is akin to that

of silent film. Certainly, holding up a picture book is not the way to use its potential”

(Bland 2007, 308). An alternative to the book itself, are scans of the mostly double pages,

which could be projected on the wall to offer everyone a good view. For this technique,

teachers must be careful when scanning the pages, as low-quality devices might produce

blurry pictures, which would have a negative effect on the lesson’s course.

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Most students make acquaintance with their first English book after having

already studied the language for a couple of years and after reaching at least a B1 level

(in reference to the CEFR) in the English language. Such a late introduction of literature

to the EFL classroom is, personally speaking, a waste of resources. Our students are

expected to have acquired at least a B2 level at the time of taking their A-levels and,

furthermore, they are supposed to have a certain understanding of people’s lifestyle and

culture. Nevertheless, the learning potential of precious resources like authentic literature

is often not exploited fully as these resources are not integrated into many English classes.

Children’s literature that was initially written for preschoolers might not seem adequate

for a second grade student of a secondary school but it will eventually be demonstrated

in this thesis that although the stories seem to be too childish or far too easy, they are the

perfect resource to work with beginners of English.

Another important aspect in teaching a foreign language is preventing the students

from being frightened of making mistakes in their learning environment. School exists

for learning. As simple as this sentence may sound, a considerable number of students is

afraid of making mistakes. Therefore, I will also focus on letting them experience new

input and giving them enough time and options to learn to use it.

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10. Lesson Plans and General Information

The class I taught was the second grade of a secondary school (NMS – Neue

Mittelschule). The students were between eleven and twelve years old and spoke English

at a level of lower A2 to A2. There are 18 students in the class, nine girls and nine boys.

The class has four English lessons per week while three of them are in the morning and

one in the early afternoon. All three lessons were taught on consecutive days and, thus,

the students did not need a whole new introduction every lesson and my teaching plan

could be continued right where we had stopped the other day.

In the following section, I reflect on my teaching experience in this NMS in

general and, afterwards, a more detailed reflection of every lesson and some tasks will

follow. This class was said to be a bit more challenging to control as the students are a

mixture of motivated and good students and rather weak and unmotivated students. As I

am always ready to accept new challenges, I was rather curious to find out more about

the students’ characters and reasons for their behavior.

As I wanted to adapt my lessons to the students and the topics they were dealing

with in class, I decided to visit them in advance in order to find out more about their

characters and the way they are taught by their actual teachers. Already during our first

encounter and all the more during the three lessons I taught myself, I noticed that the

majority of the class was very talkative and was not at all hesitant to ask whenever

something was unclear to them. Only individual students were rather calm and needed

more support to complete their exercises or to start talking in class.

As the class’s English teacher neither limited my time when I was teaching the

lessons, nor the topics I wanted to treat, we agreed on adapting the contents of my lessons

to the student’s course book. Kitamura’s picture book proved to be the perfect choice as

it covers topics of the student’s book and builds the perfect transition between units.

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10.1. General Information

Form: 2nd grade – NMS (Neue Mittelschule)

Age of students: 11-12 years

Number of students: 18 (9 girls, 9 boys)

Type of school: Secondary School

Language Level: A2

The students can already (relevant for this sequence of lessons):

- describe pets and their characteristics

- talk about magic

- use prepositions of place

- describe what they like and what they do not like

Teaching Material:

The class uses the book More! 2 (Gerngross et al. 2017). The authors tried to put a lot of

different activities into it, but most types of activities are repeated each unit. As a picture

book can be used to encourage students to start reading literature and to teach new

vocabulary and grammar, the following sequence of lessons demonstrates, how books

can be introduced as a bridge between two units. Although it would be possible to start a

total new topic with a picture book, it may be a smoother transition if the new topic

develops out of the previous one and then moves on into a new one. Therefore, the

students who already learned about pets and have just talked about magic, are introduced

to Me and My Cat? (Kitamura 2009), which then builds a bridge to the next unit of the

book, which is Where we live (Gerngross et al. 2017, 99-105). At the end of the planned

sequence, the students learn new vocabulary concerning furniture and other objects of a

house with help of the picture book. Afterwards they use these new words for a writing

activity of the book, which is one possibility of how students can profit from various

sources combined by smooth transitions.

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10.2. Learning Objectives

Overall Objectives:

After this sequence of lessons, students should be able to

- summarize and interprete a picture book and relate pictures to the corresponding

text.

- express their wishes and expectations concerning pets and their home.

- describe both their favorite animal and their home.

- talk about furniture.

- act out short scenes based on the input of Kitamura’s Me and My Cat? (2009)

and their own ideas they work out in groups.

Lesson 1

After the first lesson, students should be able to

- talk about pets and favorite animals.

- briefly describe their favorite pet/ animal.

- describe a picture book’s cover: details in the drawing and general impression.

- make hypotheses about a picture book’s content.

- describe a cat with all its body parts (paws, tail, whiskers, …)

- describe a picture of a landscape (trees, houses, meadow, bushes, …)

- describe facial expressions (afraid, scared, excited, surprised, …)

- reflect on a boy’s character by looking at a picture of his room.

- improvise a short, guided dialogue.

- interpret the first double page of the picture book Me and My Cat?.

- put themselves in either the place of the mother or the boy in his cat’s body

(both characters of Me and My Cat?).

- reflect on the possible effect of exchanging bodies with an animal.

Lesson 2:

After the second lesson, students should be able to

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- reflect on the story’s progression by putting themselves in someone else’s body,

in this case the cat Leonardo.

- invent the progression of a story, the beginning of which is already known.

- act out short scenes in groups.

- reflect on the predictions they made before reading the book and describe what

they guessed right and wrong.

- guess the order of a story by looking at pictures and reading the corresponding

text.

- briefly summarize a story in the correct order.

- Extra exercise: Sts describe pictures and say what they like or do not like about

them.

Lesson 3:

After the third lesson, students should be able to:

- make assumptions about the story’s end.

- understand the ending of the story.

- compare their predictions with the actual ending.

- explain and use new vocabulary (furniture and the house).

- make a description of a room.

- answer questions about a short text on furniture and rooms.

- describe the favorite room of their home.

10.3. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

The descriptors listed below are a selection of descriptors taken from the CEFR (Council

of Europe 2011, 58- 84).

All Lessons

Overall Oral Production

Students at the A2 level:

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- [c]an give a simple description or presentation of people, living or working

conditions, daily routines, likes/ dislikes, etc. as a short series of simple phrases

and sentences linked into a list.

Listening to Announcements and Instructions

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an catch the main point in short, clear, simple messages and announcements.

Overall Reading Comprehension

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an understand short, simple texts on familiar matters of a concrete type which

consist of high frequency [and] everyday […] language.

Overall Spoken Interaction

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an communicate in simple routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange

of information on familiar and routine matters to do with work and free time.

- [c]an handle very short social exchanges but is rarely able to understand enough

to keep a conversation going of his/her own accord.

Conversation

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an participate in short conversations in routine contexts on topics of interest.

- [c]an use simple everyday polite forms of greeting and address.

- [c]an say what he/she likes and dislikes.

Informal Discussion (with Friends)

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Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an generally identify the topic of discussion around him/her when it is

conducted slowly and clearly.

- [c]an make and respond to suggestions.

- [c]an agree and disagree with others.

Lessons 1 and 2

Sustained Monologue: Describing experience

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an use simple descriptive language to make brief statements about and compare

objects and possessions.

- [c]an explain what he/she likes or dislikes about something.

Addressing Audiences

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an give a short, rehearsed basic presentation on a familiar subject.

- [c]an cope with a limited number of straightforward follow up questions.

Reading for Information and Argument

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an identify information in simpler written material he/she encounters such as

letters, brochures[, picture books] and newspaper articles describing events.

Identifying Cues and Inferring (Spoken & Written)

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an use an idea of the overall meaning of short texts and utterances on

everyday topics of a concrete type to derive the probable meaning of unknown

words from the context.

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Lesson 3

Overall Written Production

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an write a series of simple phrases and sentences linked with simple

connectors like ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘because’.

Creative Writing

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an write about everyday aspects of his/her environment, e.g. people, places, a

job or study experience in linked sentences.

- [c]an write a series of simple phrases and sentences about their family, living

conditions, educational background, present or most recent job.

Overall Reading Comprehension

Students at the A2 level:

- [c]an understand short, simple texts containing the highest frequency

vocabulary, including a proportion of shared international vocabulary items.

10.4. Information about Selected Tasks

Lesson planning is a challenging task, especially for new teachers. For this thesis, I had

the opportunity to test my skills in designing lessons for a school type I had never taught

at before and which is barely mentioned at university, as our studies mainly concentrate

on the lower grades of grammar school (Gymnasium) or on schools for higher education

(e.g., HLW, HTL or HAK). However, after finishing our degree, we are entitled to teach

in an NMS as well. Today, both students of grammar schools and students of an NMS

should reach similar levels, but as there has been a separate training for teachers until

64

recently, the NMS still educates all children, whereas grammar schools demand a certain

level from its students before admitting them.

This fact made me reflect on how I could teach a class that might consist of

students with various levels. In the end, I concluded that all lessons should be built up

similarly. All students should get a chance in being able to follow each lesson and to

profit from my teaching. Furthermore, they should be introduced to as many topics as

possible without losing track, therefore, smooth transitions between topics can be helpful.

Even if we learn extensively about individualization and differentiation, most focus is put

on how to develop isolated tasks or just add some exercises if some students finish early.

But as their individual characters and interests should be served, I tried to build in rather

free sections where they could decide on their own in which direction their ideas might

develop.

Therefore, I started the first lesson with letting the students draw their favorite

animal. The children should produce something familiar and be challenged by briefly

explaining the characteristics or special features of their animals. Looking at pictures

always is an important stage when teaching visual literacy to children, , but drawing

pictures themselves and giving reasons why they chose a certain motif and what they

wanted to express is another level. “In short, it implies a movement for the student from

‘low order’ thinking (mainly knowledge recall and comprehension) to ‘high order’

thinking (mainly application, synthesis and evaluation)” (Butt 2008, 11).

For the second lesson, I planned an acting activity, for which students knew the

starting point of the story and were asked to continue the story. In addition, I did not only

want them to invent a continuation, but to act out their ideas in short scenes of about five

minutes. Drama activities have already been described above and including such an

activity should offer the students new perspectives on how to interpret a story’s characters

and how to put themselves in another person’s place. Speaking English during their

preparation and the actual acting activities let the students experience the foreign

language in a more natural environment and requires a rather spontaneous use of

language, especially because the students do not have enough time to learn their texts by

heart.

The third task I want to comment on are the pictures and posters I use to introduce

new vocabulary to the students. The ordinary way of introducing new words happens via

65

activities in students’ books, which was one of the reasons for me to decide on something

new. This vocabulary activity was not only used to introduce new words but to try to

stimulate the students to become more active, not only mentally but also physically. The

learners had to work together in their groups and move around the classroom to discover

all the words needed for their worksheet (see below: Handout 4 and Group Worksheets).

The last activity was to write a text by using another text as a model. The students

had the possibility to gather all vocabulary needed during the previous exercise and by

reading the short text given, they had a model they could follow. I deliberately chose this

exercise from their textbook, as I did not want to interfere with the teachers’ original plan

with my sequence and because it perfectly fit into the lesson. It should furthermore

demonstrate how a student’s book can be integrated into daily lessons without strictly

following its structure.

66

10.5. Sequence of Lessons

First Lesson

Topic: Pets

Abbreviations: T … teacher BB … blackboard

st … student PB … picture book (Me and My Cat?, Satoshi Kitamura, 2009)

sts … students

Activity Description Interaction Material Time

Introduction

T introduces her-/himself to the sts and welcomes the

class to the new lesson.

T asks the students to introduce themselves and tell if

they have a pet or would like to have one and if they have

a favorite animal. Each st receives a self-adhesive name

badge to write his/her name on it and puts it on his/her

shirt.

whole class

(lockstep)

self-adhesive name

badges

5 min

67

Tune-into-topic:

Personal

approach,

Repetition

finishing the task

T asks sts personal questions about pets. Possible

questions: Do you have pets? Which animals can be pets?

Do you have to feed them and how often? What do they

like most? Do they want you to pet them or play? If you

do not have a pet, why would you or would you not like

to have one?

“Take a sheet of paper and draw your favorite pet, you

can also invent an animal. Be ready to present your pet in

class. Talk about its size, color, characteristics, … “

T asks who wants to briefly present his or her drawing to

the class and tell the most important details about their

favorite animals.

solo work

whole class

(lockstep)

PB/ Scans, BB

15 min

Lexical pre-

teaching

Brainstorming

68

a.) Searching the

title page

b.) Introduction to

the story by

reading and

T asks sts what they can see on the title page (tp) of the

PB and brainstorms new vocabulary with them. Possible

questions can be: What can you see on the tp? How does

the boy feel? Why does his cat sit on his head? What can

you see behind the boy? What does the boy wear? What

does his cat look like?

New words are collected on the BB; examples:

- parts of a cat’s body: paws, head, whiskers, tail,

fur, …

- facial expressions: afraid, scared, excited,

surprised, …

- clothes: shirt, pullover, jacket, …

- landscape: trees, houses, meadow, bushes, …

T turns to the first page of the PB where the witch comes

in and bewitches Nicholas and his cat. T reads out the

short text to the students.

whole class

(lockstep)

whole class

(frontal)

PB/ Scans,

Blackboard (BB)

10 min

69

showing the

first double

page

c.) Predicting and

guessing the

boy’s identity

and the role

all characters

might play

T asks sts to discuss in class what will happen after the

witch leaves and to characterize Nicholas judging from

his room (Hobbies, habits, …). These ideas will be

briefly discussed in class to allow the T to give the sts

enough guidance.

whole class

(lockstep)

Spoken

Interaction

T hands out worksheets. According to the phrases and

suggestions on the sheets, Sts should improvise a

dialogue between Nicholas’ Mother and Leonardo in

Nicholas’ body (pages 3-5 in the PB).

Volunteers can act out their dialogue in front of the class

at the end of the activity.

pair work

handout 1

10 min

70

Reading

T reads out the next pages and asks what sts can see in

the pictures until the page when Nicholas ends up in front

of the mirror and he realizes that he is caught in his cat’s

body.

whole class

(lockstep)

PB/ Scans

5 min

71

Second Lesson

Topic: Me and My Cat?

Abbreviations: T … teacher

st … student

sts … students

PB … picture book (Me and My Cat?, Satoshi Kitamura, 2009)

Activity Description Interaction Material Time

While-Reading

activity

a.) prepare short

scenes

T welcomes students to the lesson and asks if anyone can

remember where they stopped the previous lesson. After a

short summary the lesson can be started.

The T asks the students to form groups of four to five to

discuss what Nicholas, in the body of his cat, is going to do

the whole day long and what might happen to him and take

some notes not to forget any ideas. T has to tell sts that they

whole class

(lockstep)

group work

handout 2,

writing material

30 min

72

b.) acting out

scenes in

front of class

should not use any “Meow”- conversation, but real words,

in advance.

(If sts have difficulties forming groups or the T does not

want them to let them form groups themselves, grouping

activities like counting from one to four in class or other

possibilities can be used.

As classes will be held in team- teaching- teachers can help

sts to prepare.

Then sts should agree on the best idea and act it out in a short

scene (only 2-5 minutes).

After every scene a short discussion and feedback by the

whole class follows.

whole class

(lockstep)

73

If enough time is left, T asks sts whether they remember

their predictions from the first lesson on the story’s

progression and let them reflect on what was different.

Reading

extra activity:

describing

pictures

To find out what really happened during Nicholas’ first day

as a cat, sts get into 4 groups and try to put the pages into a

meaningful order. 2 groups receive the beginning of the

extract and the 2 other groups the ending (6 cards each). T

tells the sts to be ready to briefly summarize their part of the

story, so that all other sts who treated the other part of the

story get to know this part as well. It would be best if they

told the story all together by, e.g., deciding who would start

the story and who would continue.

If some sts finish early they choose a card and explain to

their neighbor what they see in the picture and what they like

or do not like about the picture.

When they have finished, one group summarizes the

beginning for the others and another group the ending.

group work

pairwork

cards with scans

of PB pages

10 min

74

Third Lesson

Topic: Me and My Cat; Furniture, Rooms (Vocabulary)

Abbreviations: T … teacher

st … student

sts … students

PB … picture book (Me and My Cat?, Satoshi Kitamura, 2009)

Activity Description Interaction Material Time

Introduction

Predicting &

guessing

STs predict and guess what could happen next and if

Nicholas’ and his cat’s situation will be reversed in the

end. T asks questions like: What will Nicholas’ mother

do when she finds out that something is wrong? Will

she be angry, sad or frightened? Will she call the

doctor? Can you think of any other possibilities?

whole class

(lockstep)

PB/ Scans

5 min

Reading

T reads out the rest of the story to the class and asks

for details and vocabulary in the pictures.

whole class

(frontal)

PB/ Scans,

handout 3

10 min

75

Furthermore, sts should tick off the correct ending to

the sentences on handout 4.

single work

Post-Reading

Activity

Pictures of the book are used to discover new

vocabulary.

expert groups: Sts are grouped into four groups.

There they become experts for the furniture of one

room. They are asked to find the words in the

classroom (posters) and fill in the words in the empty

spaces on their pictures.

When they have found all the vocabulary, T asks the

sts to fill in the words.

extra activity:

Sts choose 4 more words from the posters and write

down short sentences (the sentences are shown to a

teacher when finished).

group work

sheets, pictures,

posters, handout 4

20 min

76

Sts are regrouped. In these new groups there should be

at least one expert for each room. In their new groups,

they share the vocabulary they found.

Reading Activity

Writing Activity

Sts read the text on p. 14, Nr. 11 and answer the

questions.

Sts choose one room and write a short text about it, as

given on p. 102.

Furthermore, T explains to the sts to review the

contents of this lesson and try to integrate the new

vocabulary into their texts.

single work

single work

Student’s book,

More! 2, p. 102,

Nr. 11, 12

5 min

Homework

77

11. Overview of Lessons

11.1. Lesson One: Pets and Introduction of Me and My Cat?

11.1.1. Handout Lesson One

Handout 1: Dialogue - Talk to your neighbor!

Nicholas’ Mutter sagt ihm, dass er aufstehen muss um in die Schule zu gehen. Eine/r

spielt Nicholas, der eigentlich Leonardo ist und der/die andere seine Mutter. Als Mutter

erklärst du Nicholas, dass er nun aufstehen muss und sich für die Schule fertig machen

muss. Spielt den Dialog zu zweit durch! Ihr könnt die Wörter im Kästchen verwenden!

- to wake up, to get up, to have to go to school, not to be late for school, to be tired

- Mother tells Nicholas: to go to the bathroom (Badezimmer), to wash, to brush your

teeth, to get dressed, to behave normally, not to act like a cat

- Nicholas tells his mother: to want to meet friends, to stay at home, to want to have

some fun

- Mother wants him to have breakfast, not to eat the cat’s food

- Nicholas doesn’t want to go to school

- Mother takes him to the school bus

78

11.1.2. Reflection

Already at the beginning of my first lesson in this class, I was positively surprised by my

co-teachers. As I had the possibility to teach at an Austrian new middle school (Neue

Mittelschule), I was able to gain more experiences in team teaching. Teachers at this type

of school teach the students’ main subjects as a team and, thus, can better meet the

students’ needs when it comes to personal problems or further questions concerning the

teaching content. During our meetings in advance we agreed that I would act as the main

teacher and they as helpers in the background. This is how team teaching is implemented

mostly at this school type, as two main teachers would otherwise possibly interfere with

each other’s teaching. As they plan their lessons together, both teachers are up-to-date

and can therefore act as a supporter for each other and the students.

At first, one of the class teachers, introduced me briefly to the class and told them

that we would spend the next three English lessons together. As I was mostly teaching

upper forms during my last internships and most students there were not really impressed

to see new teachers, I was positively surprised by their reaction. Many of them started

asking about what we were going to do. So, I introduced myself once again and told them

that I had budgies (which are little birds) as pets and a horse. Then I asked students to

introduce themselves and to tell me whether they had pets or would like to have one

and/or their favorite animal. Afterwards, I handed out self-adhesive badges, on which

they could write their names and attach them to their shirts. The students were very

talkative from the first moment and every student tried to stay involved. The name-badges

turned out to be a good idea, as it was much easier for me to address them during activities

for which they had to leave their places.

After our short introduction round, I started to introduce the students to the topic

we would be treating the following days. As I had already asked them about their pets, I

wanted them to give reasons why they would like to have a certain pet or why they liked

the pet they already had. In retrospect, I can conclude that I could have aimed my

questions concerning their pets more towards the topic we were talking about later on as

I had the feeling that the transition could have been smoother.

The repetition of the words they had already learned and noting down unknown

or new terms was useful because this increased the chance of the students noting the

79

words down correctly. During this section my co-teacher’s help was highly useful as she

already knew the class and, thus, was able to divide the words into new and already

known.

The next step I had planned for the lesson was letting the students draw their favorite

animals and, although I thought that they would mostly choose the pets they mentioned

at the beginning of the lesson as a motif, I was surprised that many of the students drew

unicorns or other animals they did not own but wished to own. The unicorn was by far

the most popular motif: for the students, unicorns have a magical and extraordinary

appearance. According to the students, unicorns were their favorite animals because they

might fulfill wishes and amaze everyone with their beauty. Some students even added a

rainbow to their drawing to underline the animal’s extraordinary character.

Nevertheless, some students also chose rather ordinary motifs for their drawings

like a girl who drew a horse. As riding was her favorite hobby and she loved a horse’s

strength and simultaneously its sensibility, she decided to depict it. Another child drew a

cat, which also seemed to be the most common pet in class. It was funny to notice that no

child who had a cat as a pet drew one. Only the ones who did not have a pet, but wanted

one, decided to draw one. This could be interpreted as a common. Children often envy

others for owning something they cannot afford or have. Discussing this in great detail

would go beyond the scope of this thesis though (see drawings below). The aim of this

activity is mainly to raise their awareness for the meaning pictures can express. The

unicorn was, thus, the most interesting motif they chose, as unicorns can have various

meanings: from the magical creature that might fulfill any dreams to a strong and

mysterious animal that could protect from danger.

Although all students presented and handed in a drawing, some struggled to get

started at first. They were afraid not to be able to draw well enough so they needed come

encouragement. At the end of this task, I let some of them present their animals to the

class and then asked them to hand them in and whether they agreed that I could copy them

for this thesis. This question caused some of them to ask whether they could bring them

back the next day to improve their drawings a bit. If I would ask for drawings in another

lesson I would try to give the students some more time and let them all describe their

animals at least to their neighbors.

80

After these introductory activities, I showed the title page of the picture book to

the students. As I did not have a sufficient number of copies of the book and the class was

too big to only hold up the picture book, I had prepared the book’s double pages as scans

and, therefore, every student could easily follow. While letting them look at the title page,

I asked several questions concering the boy, the cat and the background. I was surprised

how much these pupils could say about it. Even though I had to direct them towards

certain details, they did not struggle to talk about the boy, his expression, his clothes and

about his cat. After a few more hints, they could even describe the landscape in the

background, and, furthermore, we worked on new words we needed to describe Leonardo,

the cat.

Even during the predicting and guessing activity most students participated and

presented their very creative ideas and theories. This was not the first time during this

lesson I was surprised about the class’s engagement and motivation, as I was told that I

was going to teach the most difficult class of this age group.

One more activity of this lesson should be mentioned at this point: the short

dialogues the students should carry out with their neighbors. I had prepared handouts

which should guide them through this activity for which they should improvise a short

dialogue between Nicholas in his cat’ body and his mother in the morning, shortly after

the boy and his cat had exchanged bodies. Once more, my two co-teachers were very

supportive as we could listen to as many dialogues as possible and support all students

whenever they needed help. As the aim of this activity was to give the students an

opportunity to train their conversational skills within a frame, I chose to give them clear

instructions and phrases. The students did very well during this activity and many of them

even wanted to present their dialogues in front of class. Experiencing such lessons, all my

doubts concerning team teaching were eliminated. Certainly, not all teams of teachers

would be able to work together, but if certain combinations of teachers work out, it is also

the students who highly profit from it, as teaching becomes much more interactive and

even problems or questions of single students can be solved.

81

11.1.3. Example Drawings

Drawing 1 Unicorn

82

Drawing 2 Horse

83

Drawing 4 Cat

84

11.2. Lesson Two: Me and My Cat?

11.2.1. Handout Lesson Two

Handout 2:

Group work

Discuss what Nicholas, in the body of his cat, is going to do the whole day long and

what might happen to him. Take notes not to forget anything!

Maybe he:

- plays at home

- meets other cats or animals

- eats

- sleeps

- …

Notes:

Acting

Agree on the best idea and prepare to act out a short scene (2-5 minutes)!

- Use real words – no “meow”.

- You can think about how to move.

- You can choose one person who explains to the audience what happens (a

narrator).

- You can write down what you want to say.

This is followed by a short discussion and feedback by the whole class.

85

11.2.2. Story Cards

86

87

88

11.2.3. Reflection

At the very beginning of the lesson, I realized how important it was to continue the topic

after one day. Even at this point, some students already had difficulties remembering what

we talked about 24 hours before. Of course, students have to handle at least about five to

six different subjects a day and, therefore, it can become challenging to remember every

detail. Thus, teaching them on three consecutive days was a great benefit.

After a short repetition of the previous lesson, we continued with the next activity:

preparing and acting out little scenes. Getting together into groups was no problem, but it

was only when the students started their planning process that I realized that two groups

had difficulties finding a way to organize themselves. If I had known the class better, I

would definitely have grouped them myself, as a mixture of good and rather weak

students would have helped them work out a scene. Although we were three teachers to

support the groups during this activity, the two groups had difficulties while presenting

their scenes as well. Nevertheless, I was proud to see how much fun the students had

while acting and even if they made little mistakes every now and then, all of them tried

their best and played their roles with great enthusiasm.

All in all, the students as well as the teachers were highly motivated to discover

new activities and the teachers promised to plan similar activities more frequently as the

students do not only profit concerning their language skills but might discover how much

fun learning and using a new language can be. The handout for this activity can be found

below. It should give the students a guideline what I was expecting of them to create and

as I heard from them, it served the purpose very well as it left enough room for their

creativity but provided enough scaffolding.

The second activity I chose for this lesson was to put the second part of the story

in the correct order. Therefore, I divided it into two more parts and two groups worked

on each part. As the class was already divided into four groups, I decided to let them stay

there because a re-grouping would have cost too much time.

The story cards I used for this activity were a copy of the book’s pages and, thus,

each of them consisted of a picture and a short text. I planned this activity in order for

them to find out what really happened to Nicholas in his cat’s body. While walking around

the class and listening to the students, I realized that most of them ordered the cards only

89

by looking at the pictures. Even though this was possible for part of the story, they mixed

up several cards. If they had read the text in the first place, they might have finished after

five minutes. It was interesting to observe how all groups forgot to read the short texts.

Only after I had told them to read the text as well, they easily identified the correct order.

As the groups treated two different parts of the text, I told them at the beginning

of the activity to be prepared to present their part to the other groups. I spontaneously left

them to decide whether only one student told the story, or they did as a group, and in the

end, I think this was a good decision. Only one student of both groups told their parts as

they would not have had enough time to discuss who would tell which part. Hence, this

made it easier for them.

For this lesson, I had only planned two activities. As especially the first one’s length

was very difficult to estimate, I planned some additional task not to run out of activities.

As I remember, only one group of students needed one more activity to fill about five

minutes until the rest of the class was finished. Thus, planning tasks for only 40 minutes

is very useful when adding some activities for students who finished ahead of time. The

rest of the 50 minutes of each lesson were filled by starting and ending the lesson and

additional organizational matter.

90

11.3. Lesson Three: Me and My Cat?; Vocabulary Work

11.3.1. Handouts Lesson Three

Handout 3: Me and my cat? – Reading (last part)

Pro Doppelseite gibt es einen Satz als Zusammenfassung. Kreuze das passende

Satzende an!

1. Leonardo in Nicholas‘ body …

o still acts like a cat.

o acts like a normal boy.

o falls asleep.

2. Leonardo in Nicholas’ body …

o plays with everything he can find.

o does Nicholas’ homework.

o helps his Mom doing the washing-up.

3. Nicholas’ Mom …

o does not care about what Nicholas is doing.

o is working hard and doesn’t see what is

happening.

o is wondering why her boy is acting like a cat.

4. The doctor says that …

o Nicholas is very ill.

o Nicholas has transformed into a cat.

o Nicholas is just a little bit tired.

5. After the witch has left, …

o Nicholas’ Mom has changed into a cat.

o everything is back to normal.

o Leonardo has become a dog.

91

Handout 4

Bedroom Living Room Bathroom Kitchen

92

11.3.2. Group Work Sheets

Nicholas' bedroom 1

93

Nicholas' bedroom 2

94

Kitchen 1

Kitchen 1

95

Bathroom 1

96

Living room 1

97

Living room 2

98

11.3.3. Vocabulary Posters – Furniture and Objects

Bathroom 2

99

Bathroom 3

100

Living room 3

101

Living room 4

102

Bedroom 1

103

Bedroom 2

104

Kitchen 2

105

Kitchen 3

106

11.3.4. Homework Text

These homework texts were the final task I asked the students to do at the end of the third

lesson. I was not able to collect and correct the homework texts myself but was happy to

receive the texts from their English teacher as copies. Some of them had already been

corrected and some had not been marked. I will comment on mistakes they made, but the

vocabulary the students used will be my main focus. I introduced new vocabulary

concerning a house’s interior and, therefore, I will emphasize the quantity and quality of

its use.

The instructions for this homework were taken from the student’s book More! 2-

Prüfexemplar (Gerngross et. al. 2017, 102). As stated above, this sequence of lessons was

planned as a transition between two units of the named textbook and, therefore, the new

material had to be adapted carefully. Still, I had to expand the instructions for this

homework to shift the students’ focus to integrating the new vocabulary they had learned

into their homework texts, rather than concentrating only on giving emotional reasons for

their choice of their favorite room.

Homework Instructions

107

Text 1

The first text has a convenient length, some the of the vocabulary of the lessons is

included but still there are some flaws:

- “make my homework” → “do my homework”

- “a withe orange lamp” → “a white and orange lamp”

- “wale” → “wall”

- “surcel” → “circle”

- “a orange sofa” → “an orange sofa”

- The word order of the last phrase.

Despite these mistakes, some new words can be detected: “lamp”, “sofa” and “mirror”.

Additional vocabulary this student used to describe his/her favorite room had been

learned in the previous lesson and, thus, cannot be counted. In my opinion, this student

could have potentially included some more new words. There are many possible reasons

why this was not the case, one might be that I should have pointed out more directly to

the students to use the new vocabulary they had learned during the last lesson, or another

reason might be that he/she simply forgot to review what we had talked about.

Homework text 1

108

All in all, this text fulfills the task requirement and as the mistakes that were made

do not interfere with the text’s comprehensibility, it also corresponds to the author’s A2

level.

Text 2

The second text I have chosen for this paper contains fewer mistakes than the first one

and its author also included more of the new vocabulary, even though it still could be

more. The mistakes that were made:

- “wrardrobe” → “wardrobe”

- “make my homework” → “do my homework”

As already mentioned, this student only made two mistakes and used new vocabulary like

“desk”, “sofa”, “comfortable bed” and “wardrobe”. Furthermore, he/she used the

sentence connectors expected at this level correctly and compiled a good, coherent text

with an appropriate length. To summarize, although all these requirements were fulfilled,

the student could have used more of the new vocabulary, as it was the case with the

previous text.

Homework text 1

109

Text 3:

The third text could be ranked between the first and the second text because the

length and the description itself fulfill the requirements, but there are still some mistakes:

- “hous” → “house”

- “most time of the day” → “most of the day”

- “watching at my phone” → “playing with my phone”

- “and do my homework” → “and doing my homework”

- “on the weekend” → “at the weekend”

- “except my desk” → “except for my desk”

The overall word-choice and description of the room looks wonderful for me but there

are quite a few mistakes and the student did not use more sentence connectors. The

vocabulary that was chosen from the previous lesson is rather dissatisfactory as only two

words were included and they might have even been familiar before this lesson: “bed”

and “desk”.

Homework text 3

110

Regarding these examples, a general conclusion can be drawn: despite some

mistakes in two texts, the overall use of new vocabulary did not fulfill my expectations.

Each text succeeded in describing the students’ favorite room, but the reasoning behind

why they loved the described rooms most mainly consisted of personal reasons rather

than mentioning the objects their rooms were equipped with. As all three texts have this

detail in common, the instructions should have been clearer.

111

11.3.5. Reflection

As in the second lesson, after welcoming the students to the lesson, I started with a short

repetition of the previous sessions and then we read the last part of the story. To make

sure that they all understood what happened during this part of the story, I designed a

little exercise the pupils had to do after every double page (see Handout 3). As I was not

entirely sure whether this exercise was doable for them, I was quite surprised when they

connected the sentence parts quickly and correctly. It even would have been possible to

challenge them a bit more. Still, it sufficed to see if they understood the content.

After this first activity another groupwork activity followed. All in all, I was

pleased about how it worked out, but I should have distributed the handouts only after

they had finished the first part of this activity. The group posters would then have gained

more importance. The activity itself was great fun for the pupils and they really seemed

to enjoy searching for words all over the classroom (see below: handouts and posters). In

addition, they were much faster than I had thought and did not have any difficulty in

carrying out what they were told. During the second part of this activity, which was

planned as a jigsaw puzzle, the students had to share the vocabulary they discovered in

their previous groups with their new group members. In case they had any difficulty, I

asked them to explain the words in English. Here, teaching as a team was of great help

once again, as we could listen to the students exchanging vocabulary and were surprised

to hear the majority of the students speaking English. Although this activity offers much

room for learners and some might have had some difficulties in finding words they had

never heard of before, it was satisfactory to see how the students cooperated and how

better students tried to help others.

As they were quite fast during this last group activity, I was lucky to have one

more activity prepared. It was a reading activity from their student’s book More!2

(Gerngross et. al. 2017, 102).

As a homework, I asked the students to write a description of their favorite room

at their home similar to the reading activity we did at the end of the third lesson. As this

lesson was my last one in this class, I asked their class teacher to collect them and to send

me copies. I was happy to receive copies of most students’ texts.

112

This third lesson was a satisfactory conclusion to a successful sequence of lessons.

Before leaving the class, some students asked if I would come back to teach them and

gave me positive feedback on the new activities and ways of learning they had

experienced during these lessons.

What was definitely new to the students was the liberty during certain tasks and

the possibility to move around the room freely. Although they had already experienced

some lessons during which they had to fulfill certain tasks individually within a certain

period of time, a certain degree of supervision and control through the teachers had always

taken place. This does not mean that all support or control of the teacher should be

avoided, but students should be taught to work independently too. During such tasks, the

teachers should act as a resource and support rather than being the controller. All teacher

roles have already been mentioned and should be applied accordingly. Furthermore,

students should learn to set their own goals and to realize what they are working for and

how they can use their knowledge acquired at school for life.

113

12. Cooperation with Teachers and Students

The cooperation with both teachers and students worked out very well. I had the great

opportunity to start teaching whenever I was ready and even had the chance to visit them

before teaching my own lessons. Observing the students and teachers during a regular

lesson is very helpful to find out which exercises and other activities may fit them best.

During this first acquaintance, I was very curious at the beginning as I was told

that this was one of the rather challenging classes, but as I prefer diverse classes with

various personalities, I was even more motivated to adapt my lessons to them.

Furthermore, it was a great opportunity to demonstrate how many different personalities

can profit from one lesson, if the activities are chosen carefully.

Although my time was limited to three lessons in this class, I was happy to receive

their homework texts via email and, thus, could include them in this thesis and use them

for my reflection on these activities. During the lessons, I was able to profit from the

school’s teaching situation because there are always two teachers available for main

subjects. During the group activities and phases of preparation, this was very useful, and

all students received help and support wherever and whenever needed.

After the sequence of lessons, I asked the two English teachers for a short meeting

in order to ask for some feedback. Both teachers only had positive feedback, although not

everything worked out smoothly during the lessons. They even asked for the material to

be able to use it themselves in other classes. One of them tried out parts of the sequence

and now tries to implement similar tasks in her teaching. As I tried to offer the students

phases during which they had to work independently, both teachers realized that it was

necessary and useful to let the students gain their own experiences and discover how to

use a new language themselves. Guided learning of a foreign language is the right way,

but not everything should be explained by the teacher; students are mostly curious

children who love to discover new things by themselves. We only have to give them a

chance to do so.

114

13. Conclusion and Outlook

Ian Tudor makes an important point when it comes to teaching students: “The goal of

language teaching is not to iron out differences among learners but to work with them in

a constructive and educationally informed manner” (Tudor 2001, 15). As this thesis

demonstrates, literature can contribute to facilitating the progress of an English language

learner. Most schools mainly concentrate on fulfilling the requirements of the national

curriculum and thereby forget focusing on the students’ and teachers’ needs. It is not only

the students who are quickly annoyed by the ever-same structure of text books, but it is

also the teachers who should try out new activities and projects every now and then. The

introduction of national and international frameworks of reference may guarantee most

students a certain level of language skills after having taken their A-levels, but this only

serves the average student. Numerous students are stretched to their limits due to the

monotonous styles of teaching and teaching for testing, which might also affect their

foreign language enjoyment and motivation.

Introducing new styles of teaching, which tend to be some years old already, but

which are often still ignored, by literature can contribute greatly to many students’ coping

with learning problems. As described in this paper, the communicative approach and

organizing lessons into tasks can help students discover a new language on their own

while still having a certain framework for orientation. Literature is such a useful resource

for teaching in EFL classes: the subject material of a whole school year could, for

example, be organized into blocks of topics which could then each be covered by a book

or film. All skills that have to be acquired during this time could then be assigned to the

blocks and activities concerning the various topics that should be discussed and developed

in class. Some schools already structure their school year according to topic blocks or

something similar, but time plays a crucial role in this development. Designing activities

and completely new projects consumes too much time to be developed for every school

year.

Another reason for the lack of reading at schools and especially in lower grades is

that national curricula do not require the introduction of literature in the EFL classroom.

Neither literature nor films are usually seen as an effective tool to teach new grammar or

vocabulary. Skills seem to be the most important part in learning foreign languages

115

nowadays. Textbooks often include short texts or even corresponding DVDs with film

sequences, but most of this material is not authentic, but has exclusively been produced

for this purpose. Even though literature written for a certain target audience might be too

difficult to be used in class, teachers can draw on children’s literature, comics or picture

books to make integrating them a fruitful teaching and learning experience.

With every selection, teachers must be sure to be able to arouse their students’

curiosity and interest. As literature provides an endless offer of different authors, topics

and styles, this can be challenging, but it is feasible. In this thesis, mainly children’s

picture books have been described, but as picture books for grown-ups are becoming more

and more popular, teachers can even use this resource for English courses for adult

audiences. Drawing and reading pictures should always play an important role. Although

we are living in a visual world where we are constantly surrounded by advertisements

and other pictures, we sometimes struggle to discern their meaning. Besides, drawing

itself becomes less popular, maybe due to technical devices or simply a lack of creativity.

But drawing helps to develop one’s visual literacy and helps to learn how pictures can be

read. Most students avoid drawing outside art class because they fear not to be good

enough. This fear, moreover, plays an important role at school. The fear of failure often

prevents students from contributing to class and, therefore, from making progress. Letting

the students draw their favorite animal during the sequence of lessons was a great

opportunity to take some of their fear away. At the very beginning, they did not even want

to show me their pictures, but after explaining to them that it is not about the best picture

but only to facilitate their imagination, they were even willing to show the pictures to

their classmates and describe what they drew.

Another way of planning new projects or blocks in class would be to include

students’ ideas and ask for their contributions. Although this approach will not cover the

designing of new tasks or organize the introduction of new skills to the students, easier

aspects, such as bringing material or their own ideas into class, could be done by students

themselves. Even if some students might need extra motivation to fulfill such tasks at the

beginning, with every successful project that has been carried out as a class or group, their

engagement will grow, they will become more independent and they will finally have fun

learning a new language.

116

Another important point when teaching a foreign language is to make sure the

students can communicate with native speakers without searching for words or feeling

uncomfortable. Learning a language is a long process and only with extensive practice

the requirements of, for example, the A-levels can be met. Oral as well as written exams

test the students’ knowledge and skills. Many students feel prepared for the written exam,

mostly because countless sample tests and exercises similar to the national methods of

examinations exist. The oral exam, nevertheless, is something many students fear. For

this exam as well as for the written exam, official requirements and formats exist, but as

practicing them in class requires extra time for each student or pair of students, these

dialogues and monologues cannot be trained as intensely as all written forms. Introducing

other forms to train speaking can be useful in this context. One possibility are drama

activities, where students can either learn a role by heart or improvise a dialogue.

Although learning by heart has fallen into disrepute in recent years, it can contribute

greatly to the process of learning a new language, as it can facilitate a learner to improve

their understanding and feeling by citing phrases by heart. This topic would, however, go

beyond the scope of this thesis.

The sequence of lessons presented in this paper should demonstrate how teaching

could be varied by introducing new resources, in this case picture books, into class. The

execution of these lesson plans has shown that even classes with high diversity can profit

highly from such contents. Some weaker students were able to defeat their fears when

speaking up in class and improved their comprehension of the language through these

new approaches and good students were able to work on their language skills. All learner

types should profit somehow from each lesson and thereby acquire a foreign language.

Regardless of the school type or students, teachers should develop a diverse and

supportive learning environment and try to counteract students’ anxiety and boredom to

keep them motivated and to foster their enjoyment in learning another language to make

them flourish. .

117

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122

List of Images

Teaching Material:

Handout 1:

Kitamura, Satoshi (2009). Me and My Cat? London: Andersen Press. Print.

Story Cards:

Kitamura, Satoshi (2009). Me and My Cat? London: Andersen Press. Print.

Handout 3:

Bedroom:

Bed. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/immobilien-ikonen-marketing-home-

2081607/>. Digital Image.

Bedside table. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://www.americanaf.org/cartoon-night-stand.html>. Digital Image.

Balanced-arm lamp. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/lampe-schreibtischlampe-birne-

3338289/>. Digital Image

Desk. 20 December 2017. Web. 13 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/314055774011444478/>. Digital Image.

Chair. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<http://clipart-library.com/clipart/2077591.htm>. Digital Image.

Living Room:

Sofa. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/536561743099419334/>. Digital Image.

Armchair. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<http://www.auto-mirage.com/sessel-clipart.html#>. Digital Image.

Rug. n.d. Web. 13 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/543387511276644904/>. Digital Image.

Table. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

123

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/473440979568079918/>. Digital Image.

Cupboard. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/473440979568079918/>. Digital Image.

Bathroom:

Bathtub. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://www.pinclipart.com/pindetail/xJbRib_awesome-bathtub-and-shower-

cartoon-tub-bath-tub/>. Digital Images.

Toilet. n.d. Web. 15 April 2018.

<http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/man-on-toilet-clip-art-clipart-

69891919>. Digital Image.

Basin. n.d. Web. 15 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/photos/granite-sink-bowl-faucet-porcelain-335746/>.

Digital Image.

Mirror. n.d. Web. 15 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/353743745726805808/>. Digital Image.

Towel. n.d. Web. 15 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hygiene-bathroom-wc-toilet-736051/>.

Digital Image.

Kitchen:

Fridge. n.d. Web. 14 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/immobilien-ikonen-marketing-home-

2081607/>. Digital Image.

Sink. 23 June 2016. Web. 15 April 2018.

<https://openclipart.org/detail/253185/kitchen-counter-and-sink-from-glitch>.

Digital Image

Oven. 7 May 2011. Web. 15 April 2018.

<http://www.clker.com/clipart-stove.html>. Digital Images.

Cabinet. 18 January 2018. Web. 13 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/238831586473737133/>. Digital Image.

Microwave. n.d. Web. 15 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/509469776593019487/>. Digital Image.

124

Group Handouts:

Nicholas’ Bedroom 1, Nicholas’ Bedroom 2, Kitchen 1 Part 2, Bathroom 1 Part 1,

Living Room 1: Kitamura, Satoshi. Me and My Cat? London: Andersen Press, 2009.

Kitchen 1 Part 1. 12 August 2016. Web. 16 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/illustrations/kitchen-vintage-retro-1585748/>. Digital

Image.

Bathroom 1 Part 2. 7 September 2016. Web. 16 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/illustrations/bathroom-bath-antique-rug-vintage-

1651810/>. Digital Image.

Living Room 2. 12 September 2017. Web. 16 April 2018.

<https://pixabay.com/photos/living-room-couch-interior-room-2732939/>.

Digital Image.

Furniture Posters:

Bedroom 1. n.d. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/257760778650301310/>. Digital Image.

Bedroom 2. 9 January 2018. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/459719074456183514/>. Digital Image.

Bathroom 2. 8 February 2018. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/366058275960439935/>. Digital Image.

Bathroom 3. n.d. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/485896247290996680/>. Digital Image.

Living Room 3. 20 December 2017. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/698058010969572333/>. Digital Image.

Living Room 4. n.d. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/423127327484353247/>. Digital Image.

Kitchen 2. 19 January 2018. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/238831586473737133/>. Digital Image.

Kitchen 3. n.d. Web. 10 April 2018.

<https://www.pinterest.de/pin/324259241912577367/>. Digital Image.

125

Homework Instructions:

Gerngross et al. More! 2: Student’s Book- Prüfeexemplar. Eds. Johanna Schmölzer and

Christina Freudenschuss-Heigl. Helbling Languages, 2017. Print.