Unit 16. Children's literature in English.

Didactic application techniques for listening

comprehension; introducing and encouraging reading habits and appreciating the
poetic function of language
1. Introduction
2. Children's literature in English classroom
2.1. Divisions of tales in children’s literature
2.2. Great English story writers
3. Didactic application techniques for listening comprehension; introducing and encouraging reading habits
and appreciating the poetic function of language
3.1. Didactic techniques to improve listening skills
3.1.1. Training in listening
3.1.2. Listening learning situations
3.1.3. Listening lessons considerations
3.2. Introducing and encouraging reading habits (learning to read)
3.3. Approach to the poetic function of language
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
5.1. Legislation
5.2. Authors
5.3. Further reading

1. Introduction
People can more easily come into contact with other cultures and languages through travel,
communication or new technologies. This refers to globalization of the world which tends to use
English as a world language. This is why it is important to introduce English language learning at a
young age. Furthermore, in the last decades, the field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language
(TEFL) has experienced drastic changes triggered by the implementation of the Communicative
Approach whose final goal is the development of Communicative Competence (Hymes, 1972).

Our modern European society shows an increasing concern for population to have access to an
effective acquisition of foreign languages enabling people to satisfy their communicative needs. In
this sense, the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (Council of Europe, 2020)
provides a valuable framework with methodological guidelines and a common basis for the
description of objectives and content.

We must also consider that our State legislation, Organic Law 3/2020, 29th December, which
modifies Organic Law 2/2006, 3rd May, on Education and the Royal Decree 157/2022, 1st March,
which establishes the basic curriculum for Primary Education nationwide, together with the Decree
209/2022, 17th November, which establishes the curriculum for our region, includes transversal
elements, active methodologies, Universal Design for Learning and communicative approaches as
the axis on the new programming.

On the other hand, LOE with LOMLOE (LOMLOE from now on) along with Agenda 2030 and
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) point out gender equality, sustainability, diversity awareness,
children's rights and digital knowledge as the pillars on which education must be based.
 Considering the topic of this unit it is important to mention that Decree 209/2022 supports
reading habits in Article 5 about pedagogical principles. Literature is crucial for communication,
serving as a source of knowledge, entertainment and fun. It allows us to develop students' listening
and reading skills and appreciation of the poetic function of language.

2. Children’s literature in English classroom

The most suitable literary genres for primary students are tales, nursery rhymes, limericks,
riddles, songs, comics and jokes.

Storytelling develops oral recognition, concentration and cultural understanding. Using

simplified versions we could make our pupils read the same tales as native speakers at their age.

2.1. Divisions of tales in children’s literature

Here we find:
- Fairy tales: they are one of the most important divisions of children’s literature. We all
have heard of “Rapunzel“, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs“, etc.
- Animal stories and fables: animals in fables are enchanted and live in a world of human
beings. An example is “The Three Little Pigs“.
- Fantastic literature of travels and adventures: in these books, the victim-hero of a
fantastic adventure generally finds themselves alone under some kind of spell. A good
example is “The Little Mermaid“.
- Computing reading: it is a new book classification supported by LOMLOE with the
development of Digital Competence. Guzdial (2015) proposes using a learner-centred
approach to create computing education not only about learning but also about
learning how to be responsible and being aware of the correct use and safety of the
technology. Some examples of Primary education books to improve the responsible use of
electronic devices are “If You Give a Mouse an iPhone“ and “Good Night iPad“. Besides,
there is a wide variety of children's stories on websites such as www.pupilpro.com.

2.2. Great English story writers

Literature of our times is very accessible to our pupils, that is, we can find all these books
adapted to kids in libraries, webpages or on YouTube. Let us name some of the most popular
children’s literature books for the class.

Charles Perrault with “Cinderella“ or “Sleeping Beauty“. Then, a hundred years later, The
Brothers Grimm adapted some of Perrault's stories in “Grimm’s Fairy Tales“ which collects more
than two hundred tales. Some of them are: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs“, “Cinderella“ and
“Rapunzel“.

Hans Christian Andersen and his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes"
and "The Little Mermaid“.

Mary Shelley with her most famous novel “Frankenstein“.

Charles Dickens was a British writer who created “Oliver Twist“ and “A Christmas Carol“.
 Lewis Carroll wrote “Alice in Wonderland“ which is seen as one of the best novels of the nonsense
genre.

Pamela Lyndon Travers was a writer best known for “Mary Poppins“.

C. S. Lewis was famous for “The Chronicles Of Narnia“ with talking animals where battles are
fought by centaurs, giants and fauns.

Roald Dahl is known for writing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or "Matilda".

Theodor Seuss, better known as Dr Seuss, is the author of famous stories such as "The Lorax"
and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

Eric Carle has some famous books such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.

Jeff Kinney is the author of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid “ series.

J. K. Rowling is a famous British author of the Harry Potter books series.

David Litchfield is a multi-award-winning author and illustrator. One of his award-winning

books is “The Bear and The Piano”.

3. Didactic application techniques for listening comprehension; introducing and

encouraging reading habits and appreciating the poetic function of language
In this section, we will emphasize the skills of listening and reading as well as getting our pupils to
understand the beauty of literary language.

3.1. Didactic techniques to improve listening skills

Listening is an active oral skill involving receptive, constructive, and interpretative aspects to
understand spoken language. Teachers are key language models, but students also need to be
exposed to other voices through recorded and live materials. This exposure facilitates accurate
language usage and supports effective pronunciation teaching aligning with LOMLOE principles
for developing communicative competence.

It is crucial to bear in mind that students will be actively involved in listening activities if they
understand the task's purpose and they will be motivated if teachers use authentic and
meaningful listening activities (Harmer, 2022).

It is imperative to build our students' confidence in listening learning situations. To do this, we

must teach them listening strategies. The most important are:
- Predicting. We should encourage our students to predict what they think might come next
which is useful to better understand the text.
- Extracting specific information (scanning) and getting a general understanding
(skimming). In some situations, understanding the gist of the message will be enough for
communication, in others, they will have to focus on specific details.
- Inferring opinion and attitude. Stress, intonation and body language will help our students
discover meaning.
 - Deducing meaning from context. We should encourage our students to use their knowledge
and the surrounding context to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words.
- Recognizing discourse patterns and markers. Words such as “and, but, then“ give us clues
about what is coming next.

3.1.1. Training in listening

Language acquisition relies on rich language exposure so teachers must provide enough
practice in both intensive and extensive listening to develop efficient English listeners. Intensive
listening focuses on sound recognition and imitation, while extensive listening emphasizes
general familiarity with language features. For younger learners, storytelling is beneficial,
introducing new vocabulary and structures.

3.1.2. Listening learning situations

We can agree on the fact that speaking skills develop through effective listening. The
teacher's role is to create learning situations which help our pupils to be as involved as possible.
Some examples are:
- Listen and repeat with digital tools or the teacher.
- Listen and perform actions/follow instructions.
- Listen and draw/colour.
- Listen and guess, match or classify.
- Listen and extract information.

3.1.3. Listening lessons considerations

Dos Santos (2020) emphasizes the key steps for integrating listening activities in language
teaching:
- Choose an appropriate listening text.
- Check that related activities are suitable.
- Adapt the difficulty based on students' characteristics.
- Evaluate time allocation for planned listening tasks.
- Enhance understanding and engagement with visual aids (digital or paper).
- Determine the listening session procedure.
- Establish a favourable learning environment.
3.2. Introducing and encouraging reading habits (learning to read)

Teachers, vital in fostering students' reading interests aligned with LOMLOE, integrate
literature into language teaching to foster personal engagement and enrichment. Literary texts
allow students to go beyond the grammar of the target language. To develop reading interest,
teachers must:
- Act as a model reader.
- Create diverse literacy environments.
 - Foster discussion and social interaction that make reading interesting and fun, e.g.,
through book clubs.
- Involve learners in effective practices like guided reading and comfy reading corners.
- Use reflective practices, observation, and varied assessments to differentiate teaching.
- Choose appropriate texts suited to linguistic challenge and attractiveness for learners.

According to Graham (2017), a reading lesson comprises three stages:

- Pre-reading: the aim is to prepare the students for the task arousing their interest and
curiosity. This will create expectations and will give them a definite purpose for reading.
- While-reading: it is related to the identification of information while the learner is reading
a given written text. This requires active reading, as they should show understanding
through specific actions.
- Post-reading: it refers to the tasks we give our students once they have read to transfer
what has been covered to a different context. The type will depend on the purpose of the
reading.

3.3. Approach to the poetic function of language

The poetic function of language can be explored in foreign language classes through activities
involving poems, songs, chants and rhymes. Poetry, as a literary genre, employs language for
aesthetic purposes rather than solely communication. Students can learn stylistic elements like
rhyme, word order and alliteration for an appealing effect. Stylistics, including layout, is another
aspect of teaching. Students should understand that diverse purposes result in different text
formats (food packets, tickets, cards and invitations), fostering an awareness of the aesthetic
function of language.

According to Sebastian (2020), some reasons why poetry and songs are good for the
acquisition of a foreign language include:
a) Memorability. Fragments of poems often remain in memory long after communicative
competence has drained away.
b) Rhythmicality. Regular patterns of sounds and stress facilitate their acquisition.
c) Performance. Poetry and songs, unlike drills, offer the opportunity to express themselves in
a choral or individual form without feeling unnatural.
d) Ambiguity. Any poem means more than one thing. In teaching, each learner’s interpretation
is considered valid within limits.
e) Non-triviality. Poems provide meaningful content for learners, either affective or cognitive.
f) Universality. Poetry and songs are universal forms of language with themes common to all
cultures.
g) Playfulness. Learners can experiment with language and in one sense, the writing of poetry
is an ideal task due to tolerance of error.
h) Reactional language. Poetry and songs enable access to a type of spoken language use
called reactional whose main purpose is to evoke personal reactions.
i) Interaction. Divergent interpretations foster tension, promoting meaningful exchange of
ideas.
4. Conclusion
To sum up, considering the legal framework, it is imperative to address peace education, education
for responsible consumption, health education including affective-sexual education and emotional
and values education along Primary Education.

Additionally, the incorporation of transversal elements and SDG set by LOMLOE along with Agenda
2030 is essential in all areas of Primary Education, not to forget reading comprehension, oral and
written expression, artistic creation, audiovisual communication and the promotion of creativity
and scientific spirit. Besides, the teacher's main role is to guide students in achieving the eight key
competencies.

Throughout this unit, we have focused on the genre of tales in children's literature. All the goals
mentioned above are easily achievable through them. Children love stories and they make the
learning process more entertaining and closer to their experiences, but the language must be clear
and include repetitions, according to Brewster, Ellis and Girard (2002). Finally, we have dealt with
didactic techniques to improve listening skills to encourage reading habits and we have brought the
poetic function of language closer to the students.

These resources should be integrated into the programming design, rather than being isolated
activities so that the school documents will be useful tools to achieve our educational aims.

To end up with the topic we would like to mention a famous quote by Nelson Mandela that says,
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world“.

5. Bibliography

5.1. Legislation
Organic Law 3/2020, 29th December, which modifies Organic Law 2/2006, 3rd May, on Education.

Royal Decree 157/2022, 1st March, which establishes the basic Curriculum for Primary Education.

Decree 209/2022, 17th November, which establishes the curriculum for Primary Education in the
Autonomous community of the Region of Murcia.

5.2. Authors

Brewster, J., Ellis, G. and Girard, D. (2002). The Primary English Teacher’s Guide (new edition).
Penguin.

Council of Europe. (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning,
teaching, assessment. Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing.

Dos Santos, L. M. (2020). The Discussion of Communicative Language Teaching Approach in

Language Classrooms. Journal of Education and e-Learning Research, 7(2), 104-109.

Guzdial, M. (2015). Learner-centered design of computing education: Research on computing for

everyone. Springer Cham.
Graham, S. (2017). Research into practice: listening strategies in an instructed classroom setting.
Language Teaching, 50(1), 107-119.

Harmer, J. (2022). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Pearson Longman

Hymes, D. H. (1972). On Communicative Competence. In J. B. Pride and J. Holmes (Eds.),

Sociolinguistics. Selected Readings (pp. 269-293). Penguin.

Sebastian, M. F. (2020). Using songs as springboard to teaching poetry and narratives towards
improved comprehension. International Journal of Academic and Applied Research (IJAAR),
4(6), 72-78.

5.3. Further reading

www.cnice.mecd.es

www.educarm.es