LA LITERATURA INFANTIL EN LA LENGUA INGLESA.

TÉCNICAS DE APLICACIÓN DIDÁCTICA PARA

ACCEDER A LA COMPRENSIÓN ORAL, INICIAR Y POTENCIAR LOS HÁBITOS LECTORES Y
SENSIBILIZAR EN LA FUNCIÓN POÉTICA DEL LENGUAJE

16. ENGLISH CHILDREN LITERATURE. TECHNIQUES OF DIDACTIC

APPLICATION TO IMPROVE ORAL COMPREHENSION, INITIATE READING
HABITS AND SENSITIZE IN THE POETIC FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE
0. INTRODUCTION
1. ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
1.1. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE APPLICATION OF CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
1.2. HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF BRITISH LITERATURE
2. TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR ORAL COMPREHENSION. INTRODUCING AND
ENCOURAGING READING HABITS AND APPRECIATING THE POETIC FUNCTION OF
LANGUAGE
2.1. READING
2.2. CRITERIA FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF LITERATURE TO CHILDREN
2.3. STRATEGIES TO ENCOURAGE READING
2.4. THE POETIC FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE
3. CONCLUSION
-BIBLIOGRAPHY-
LA LITERATURA INFANTIL EN LA LENGUA INGLESA. TÉCNICAS DE APLICACIÓN DIDÁCTICA PARA
ACCEDER A LA COMPRENSIÓN ORAL, INICIAR Y POTENCIAR LOS HÁBITOS LECTORES Y
SENSIBILIZAR EN LA FUNCIÓN POÉTICA DEL LENGUAJE

0. INTRODUCTION
Giving children access to all varieties of literature is extremely important for their
success. Teachers should help sts develop a love and passion for reading. Not only is reading
literature important in developing cognitive skills to be able to succeed in a school but it is
valuable for other reasons as well. Children’s literature provides an avenue for sts to learn about
their own cultural heritage and the cultures of other people. It is crucial for children to learn
these values because developing positive attitudes toward our own culture and the culture of
others is necessary for both social and personal development, as it is specified in the Decree
89/2014 of 1st of August.
Apart from that, literature helps sts develop emotional intelligence, encourages
creativity and it is a timeless tradition: a book is the major means of transmitting our literary
heritage from one generation to the rest.
Teachers should choose quality literature, in order to give sts access to the best books to
encourage these important values of literature and considering developmental domains.
Through this theme we will examine different strategies and didactic techniques in
order to introduce literature in foreign language classes not only for learning English and
developing c.c. but also to know cultural aspects and develop our sts’ artistic and literary
sensibility..
1. ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
What do we understand to be children literature? We can say that children’s literature is
what they can read, understand, and enjoy. Fernando Savater, in his book ‘ La Infancia
Recuperada’ (2002) explains how much he enjoyed, when he was a child, those tales in which
thing happen, stories in which the reader takes a risk… discovering a new world with the
protagonists. Savater states that children like stories about the sea, adventures, brotherhood with
animals… Anyway, adults must choose the books children are going to read: this is one of their
educational roles.
1.1. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE APPLICATION OF CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
When we speak about literature we usually think on written texts, but not only high
culture is literature. Long texts are difficult to understand, especially in Primary
Teaching.
There are some forms of literature which do not present the problem explained
above: poems and songs. They are short with a simple language. They add variety and
enjoyment to the class, and they are very useful for practising a specific grammar
structure. As we can see in theme 17, a poem or song goes home with sts and it helps to
stick in their minds. But there are other types of literature that can be extremely
attractive for children. Let us explain them:
LIMERICKS: they are 5-line poems with a distinctive rhyme pattern (3 beats in line
1,2,5 ; 2 beats in lines 3 & 4). This genre has been cultivated by famous authors like
Edward Lear in ‘Book of Nonsense’;
NURSERY RHYMES: are short traditional verses;
LA LITERATURA INFANTIL EN LA LENGUA INGLESA. TÉCNICAS DE APLICACIÓN DIDÁCTICA PARA
ACCEDER A LA COMPRENSIÓN ORAL, INICIAR Y POTENCIAR LOS HÁBITOS LECTORES Y
SENSIBILIZAR EN LA FUNCIÓN POÉTICA DEL LENGUAJE

TALES: other type of literary genres. They are brief. We can use traditional ones as
‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (by Perrault) or modern tales as ‘Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory’ (by Roal Dahl).
1.2. HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF BRITISH LITERATURE
English literature is very complete, the only that involves all the epochs and all the
genres. Let us see an overview on British children’s literature: we can start from the 15 th
century, with the translation of French fables by Claxton. In the 16th c., we find
chapbooks that include popular ballads, stores, anecdotes…illustrated with pictures (so
especially useful for F.L.T). In the 17th c., religious and didactic books predominated in
England. Literatures as fun or entertainment was considered as a sin. In the 18th c. & the
19th c. children started to be considered as ‘individuals with characteristics different
from adults’. Novels as ‘Gulliver’s travels’ (by Jonathan Swift) or ‘The Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe (by Daniel Defoe) were written to entertain. At the beginning of the
20th c. a large number of authors wrote literature for children due mainly to schooling
and the appearance of great number of publishing houses: a clear example is the
phenomenon of the series of Harry Potter, every child knows it and some adults enjoy
it, too… Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Virginia Wolf… other books were not thought for
children but also applicable for F.L.T.. J.R. Tolkien ‘The Lord of the Ring’, Joseph
Conrad ‘The Secret Agent’…All these books are not appropriate to be read by Primary
School sts, but some passages can be extracted, due to the rich descriptions of
characters and situations.
We can distinguish different types of literature:
FANTASY LITERATURE: it consists of a wide range of material. Enjoying
fantasy is about believing, and sometimes this can be complex: the fantasy exists only
because the reader believes in what s/he is reading. Coledidge called this ‘the willing
suspension of disbelief’ and it is absolutely necessary for the enjoyment of fantasy.
We can highlight some of the most important authors of this genre and their
most famous novels: Roal Dahl ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘James and the
Giant Peach’, Laura Numeroff ‘If you Give a Mouse a Cookie’, A.A. Milne ‘Winnie
the Pooh’, J.K.Rowling ‘Harry Potter Saga’, Julia Dondaldson ‘The Gruffalo’, Mary
Pope Osbourne ‘The Magic Treehouse’, Michael Ende ‘The Neverending Story’,J.M.
Barrie ‘Peter & Wendy’;
TRAVEL LITERATURE: it has a great value as literature. It typically records
the people events, sights and feelings of an author who is touring a foreign place for the
pleasure of travel: Daniel Defoe ‘Robinson Crusoe’, Jonathan Swift ‘Gulliver’s
Travels’, R.L.Stevenson ‘Treasure Islands’, Michael ‘A Bear Called Paddington’,
Mark Teibstein ‘Wabi Sabi’, Elisabetta Darri ‘Geronimo Stilton’, Jeff Brown ‘Flat
Stanley’