UNIT 15

TOPIC 15
PERIODS, AUTHORS AND LITERARY GENRES THAT ARE THE MOST SUITABLE
ONES FOR ENGLISH TEACHING.

0. INTRODUCTION

1. CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STORYBOOKS.

Psychological
Cultural
Linguistic
Stylistic

2. MOST SUITABLE PERIODS, AUTHORS AND GENRES.

Periods and Authors
Genres

3. USING STORYBOOKS IN THE CLASSROOM.

Reasons for using tales and stories with children
Using storybooks in the classroom
Planning story – based lessons

4. TYPES OF STORYBOOKS
Authentic Materials
Advantages and disadvantages of Using Authentic Materials

5. CONCLUSION

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0. INTRODUCTION
As teachers of English as a Foreign Language our main concern is to help learners acquire
communicative competence, as Hymes supports, it is more than acquiring mastery of structure and
form. It also involves acquiring the ability to interpret discourse in all its social and cultural contexts.
For this reason, and others that I will mention later, the use of literature in the EFL classroom can
provide a powerful pedagogic tool in learners’ linguistic development.
The educational value of using stories and the technique of storytelling has always been undisputed
throughout the world because stories comply to the major objectives in most countries for foreign
language teaching to young learners: linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social and cultural.
Our curriculum establishes two general aims which are related to this topic: understanding easy oral
and written texts and comprehensive reading of easy short texts.
The current national law of education, LOE modified by LOMCE, also talks about the necessity of
increasing the reading habits between our children, for that reason, one of the aims that must be
complemented since all school areas is fostering reading.
Also we have to take into account the Decree 89/2014 of 24 th February of Community of Madrid,
which establishes that one of the contents of the common block for all the stage: English Culture,
being children's literature in English one of the aspect to present.
The use of literature in the English Language Area is, no doubt, one of the most appropriate way for
motivating students to use written text not only for learning, but also for pleasure.

1. CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STORYBOOKS.

When selecting a storybook we must bear in mind that we want our pupils to interact with the text,
with classmates and with the teacher. Ellis and Brewster, give us the criteria for selecting storybooks:
Psychological criteria: The content of the story must be relevant, interesting and the illustrations
must be visuals, attractive and relate to the text in order to encourage children’s participation.
Cultural criteria: They must create a positive attitude towards the target language, target culture and
language learning.
Linguistic criteria: We must have in mind: the level of vocabulary, structures and functions
appropriate for our pupils and the story must contain elements of pronunciation such as rhyme,
onomatopoeia, rhythm or intonation.
Stylistic criteria: It is useless to choose texts of great stylistic complexity for the early stages of
language learning. We can ask ourselves if the story contains stylistic features that may hinder the
learning of normal language.

2. MOST SUITABLE PERIODS, AUTHORS AND GENRES

PERIODS AND AUTHORS
Because of the difficulty in defining children's literature, it is also difficult to trace the history of
children's literature to a precise starting point. In 1658 Jan Ámos Komenský published the illustrated
informational book Orbis Pictus; it's considered to be the first picture book published specifically for
children. John Newbery's 1744 publication of A Little Pretty Pocket-Book is considered a landmark
for the beginning of pleasure reading market specifically to children. Previous to Newbery, literature
for children was intended to instruct the young.
There is some debate as to what constitutes children's literature. Some would have it that children's
literature is literature written specially for children, though many books that were originally intended

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for adults are now commonly thought of as works for children, a prime example of this is Gulliver’s
Travels. Another example is that of Huckleberry Finn.
Many authors specialize in books for children. Other authors are more known for their writing for
adults, but have also written books for children.
I am going to continue with a classification of periods, authors and their work that may be suitable
for using in class:
- Middle Ages:
o Beowulf: VIII Century. Story of Beowulf, a Swedish warrior. Amazing adventures of
a hero and values such as loyalty that will be easily recognized by students.
o Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: IV Century. It constitutes a good introduction to
the Arthurian cycle. Knights and castles, treasures, magic …
- XVI-XVII Centuries:
o Shakespeare: Comedies such as “A Midsummer Night´s Dream” may be used, but
teachers should consider their own capacity to approach a classic.
- XVIII Century:
o Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe.
o Jonathan Swift: Gulliver Travels.
- XIX Century: This century is considered the Golden Age of English Children´s literature.
o Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland.
o Stevenson: Treasure Island.
o Kypling: Jungle Book.
o Dickens: Oliver Twist.
o Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers: classics such as Tom Thumb
or the Ugly Duckling.
- XX and XXI Century: This age is characterised by the spread of fact books (series), easy-to-
read books, adaptations of classics, graded reading and, in general, a vast production.
o IN GREAT BRITAIN:
 Beatrix Potter: The tale of Peter Rabbit.
 J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan.
 A.A. Milne: Winnie the Pooh.
 J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings.
 Enid Blyton: The famous Five.
 Roald Dahl: Matilda.
 Michael Bond: A Bear called Paddington.
 J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter.
o IN NORTH AMERICA:
 B.F. Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 Louse M. Alcott: Little Women.
GENRES
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The most commonly identified genres for children are the following:
Picture books
Picture story books
Traditional literature
Historical fiction
Contemporary realistic fiction
Modern fantasy
Non-fiction or informational books
Biography
Poetry
Most of the genres can be subdivided in a variety of categories. For example, within the genre of
picture books, there are:
Alphabet books
counting books
Mother Goose books
Nursery rhyme books
Simple concept books
Wordless books
Nearly wordless books
Toy books

I am going to look at some of them:

a) Picture Books: books in which the picture is as important as the text. This is a genre based on a
physical format. It includes picture books, illustrated storybooks, wordless storybooks, concept
books, and informational books. In picture books, both text and illustration are fused together. .
b) Traditional Literature: This literature is born of oral tradition, and is passed orally from generation
to generation. It often starts with the phrase "Once upon a time..." and often has a happy ending.
There are many versions of the same story. Good always conquers evil. Sub-genres of traditional
literature include fairy tales, folk tales, Mother Goose rhymes, legends, myths, proverbs, epics, and
fable.
c) Historical Fiction: It includes stories that are written to portray a time period or convey
information about a specific time period or an historical event. Setting is the most important literary
element, it may be real or imaginary. The plot events may be documented historical events or they
may be fictional. If they are fictional, it means that the author created the events for the telling of the
story.
d) Contemporary Realistic Fiction: They are titles dealing with the problems and joys of living today.
Titles can promote tolerance and understanding of others and their experiences. It extends children's
horizons by broadening their interests, allowing them to experience new adventures and showing
them different ways to view and deal with conflicts in their own lives.
e) Modern Fantasy: It is a broad genre with many types of books included in its spectrum. The Harry
Potter books fit well within the modern fantasy genre. The genre is often characterised by its use of
time travel, or imaginary beings from other planets, or animals that talk.
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3. USING STORYBOOKS IN THE CLASSROOM.

Reasons for using tales and stories with children
In general, we can consider that tales and stories are good didactic material because they present
vocabulary and structures within a context; there are repetitions of structures and vocabulary in a
natural way; the grammar included in them is normally simple to facilitate understanding; they help
students to make predictions as the story line is easily predictable; they introduce socio-cultural
elements; they develop children´s imagination, provide students with fun, what develops positive
attitudes towards the language learnt, make learning unconscious, develop receptive skills, listening
and reading, and give possibilities to develop productive skills as they can be the starting point for
follow-up activities.
Using storybooks in the classroom
When using storybooks in classroom it is necessary to take into account if the story is interesting;
appropriate; well-written; the plot is well-constructed, original and fresh; the dialogues are natural; if
the illustrations add value for helping comprehension and of course, if it is suitable for our teaching
planning.
Ellis and Brewster suggest the following guidelines, to help our pupils to understand the story.
 Explain the context and introduce the main characters.
 Provide visual support.
 Decide your linguistic objectives.
 Decide how long will you spend on the story.
 When will you read the story.
 Pupils must understand the aim of each lesson and how it relates to the story.
 Reinforce the language introduced with any rhyme or song.
 Simplify the language and content, if necessary.
 Find out if there are any rhymes or songs that pupils can learn to reinforce the language
introduced.
Planning story–based lessons
An oral lesson normally follows a fixed plan with small variations:
1. Warm–up. For instance, an informal chat or any activity which creates expectations on the
students about the new lesson.
2. Presentation. It explains the general aims of the lesson. It presents the new language.
3. Controlled practice. Pupils practice the new language in directed activities such as:
 Action game practising
 Picture dictation
4. Production. Pupils produce the new language in more spontaneously games, role – plays,
interviews.
5. Reviewing. We finally review the work covered in the lesson
Activities
We can mention some examples of activities:

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a) Before the story: prepare students to focus the theme of the book and the language that they
will need to understand and motivate them. Use warm-up activities such as little talks, brains-
storming, flash card games…
b) During the story: above all the children must enjoy the story. While telling or reading the
story stop to ask the children what they think is going to happen next. Make children join the
teacher repeating, mining or drama. Another suggestion may be that hey can also put pictures
related to the story in order.
c) After the story: traditional comprehension activities can be made such as asking and answer-
ing questions in the oral or written form, drawing, ordering paragraphs, writing key sen-
tences, making a mural or writing a book with other characters using the key sentences, act-
ing out the story, writing a letter from one protagonist to another, changing the end of the
story, changing characters…

4. TYPES OF STORYBOOKS
To have a better idea about the literature we can use in class, I would like to mention Ellis and
Brewster classification of storybooks. They are classified under three headings:
a) Narrative features:
 Rhyming word. “Pat the cat”
 Repeating structures. “Where’s spot”
 Cumulative content and language. “The fat cat”
 Interactive. “Spot’s birthday party”
 Humorous. “Don’t forget the bacon”
b) Content
 Everyday life.
 Animal stories.
 Traditional / folk / fairy tales
 Fantasy
c) Layout
 Flap
 Cut away pages
 Minimal text
 No text
 Speech bubbles
Authentic Materials
We may find lots of examples of these material whether authentic or adapted.
Most of the teachers throughout the world agree that authentic texts or materials are beneficial to the
language learning process because they have a positive effect on learner motivation, provide
authentic cultural information and exposure to real language, but what is less agreed is when
authentic materials should be introduced and how they should be used in an EFL classroom.

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Harmer (1991), defines authentic texts as materials which are designed for native speakers; they are
real text; designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language.
When using authentic materials we have to bear in mind that they often contain difficult language,
unneeded vocabulary items and complex language structures, which causes a burden for the teacher
in lower-level classes.
Martinez (2002) mentions that authentic materials may be too culturally biased and too many
structures are mixed, causing lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. There comes the
question of when authentic materials should be introduced and used in a classroom.
Aesthetic Language Function.
Using literature in our classes can help our pupils begin to realize how the use of rhyme, special
word order, alliteration and other stylistics effects have an appealing effect.
One area of stylistics we can work with our pupils is that of layout. Our pupils must begin to realize
that different purposes result in different texts formats. They should be able to use different layouts
for: invitations, food/seed packets, tickets, birthday cards or Christmas cards.

5. CONCLUSION
Literature is, first of all, to be experienced, to be enjoyed, to be appreciated and to be loved. Adults
involved in children education should motivate students, parents constitute the first model by reading
stories to them since they are babies and being readers themselves; teachers, have also a big
responsibility, reading stories in class and planning story-based lessons will make our children good
readers in future. Children love listening to stories, so we should use this from a pedagogical point of
view.
For children, storytelling is more important now than ever before. Today there is a vast array of
story-driven entertainment that competes for the attention of our children: television, comic books,
video games, and films, etc. According to psychotherapists, children need activities which require
their own imaginations to be active. Development of imagination is one of the most significant
functions of storytelling. Storytelling also teaches children a great deal about the use of language,
narrative form, how to interact with others, and how to live morally; it also can widen learners’
understanding of their own and other cultures, it can create opportunities for personal expression as
well as reinforce learners’ knowledge of lexical and grammatical structure. Storytelling between a
teacher and his/her children creates an atmosphere of open communication and a bond of trust.
The use of Internet nowadays give teachers the advantage of using real materials in the classroom,
but it is important to have always in mind the selective criteria explained in this topic analysing
carefully everything the students are exposed to and planning the lessons to get the most of the
materials selected.