Contents and Editorial

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Contents

 

Editorial – Janice Bland, Christiane Lütge and Sandie Mourão ii
Compelling Comprehensible Input, Academic Language and School Libraries –  Stephen Krashen and Janice Bland 1
The Page IS The Stage: From Picturebooks to Drama with Young Learners – Carol Serrurier-Zucker and Euriell Gobbé-Mévellec 13

From Picturebook to Multilingual Collage: Bringing Learners’

First Language and Culture into the Pre-school Classroom –  Emma McGilp

31

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as an Example of Teaching Visual Literacy – Marian Krueger

50

Recommended Venues: Story Museum Oxford – Cara Bartels-Bland

65

Recommended Reads – David A. Hill, Liesel Hermes, Fitch O’Connell & Christian Ludwig

69

Book Reviews – Alan Pulverness, Geoff Hall

76, 81

 

 

Editorial

We are delighted to welcome you to the third issue of Children’s Literature in English Language Education e-journal – CLELEjournal for short – which rhymes with freely, for the CLELEjournal is a freely available, blind peer-reviewed, open access e-journal. This issue of the CLELEjournal contains four articles and two new features, Recommended Reads and Recommended Venues as well as two book reviews.

There is an emphasis in this issue on the enormous flexibility of the picturebook in English language education, with perspectives from France, Germany and Scotland. The issue opens, however, with an article that argues the pivotal role of school libraries. Krashen and Bland’s ‘Compelling Comprehensible Input, Academic Language and School Libraries’ describes three stages to becoming fully literate, and explains the significance of compelling reading for high levels of literacy, namely the acquisition of academic language. The paper also considers access to motivating reading, and draws attention to the vital role of school libraries with certified librarians in supplying children and teenagers with compelling children’s and young adult literature.

Serrurier-Zucker and Gobbé-Mévellec’s article, ‘The Page IS The Stage: From Picturebooks to Drama with Young Learners’ details and illustrates the inherently theatrical nature of picturebooks. The authors describe a drama project in Toulouse, France, using selected picturebooks as an impetus for story and characterization. Inspired by the picturebooks, the young learners work on the expression of emotions with body language and voice, so that they enthusiastically embody and live the language they are learning.

Krueger contributes with ‘Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as an Example of Teaching Visual Literacy’ and explores the importance of teaching visual literacy, addressing the short-sightedness of educators ‘who feel less inclined to acknowledge the vital importance of visual literacy’. Krueger then evaluates perhaps the best-known picturebook ever created, and particularly the opportunities it affords for comprehending and interpreting visual images, as well as considering ideological implications.

The next article, McGilp’s ‘From Picturebook to Multilingual Collage: Bringing Learners’ First Language and Culture into the Pre-School Classroom’ takes us to Scotland where, as an increasingly multilingual country, English as an additional language is an aspect of the learning of newly arrived migrant children. McGilp introduces a multicultural picturebook project that is designed to recognise the value of the children’s mother tongue and their heritage culture, and to build bridges between home and the pre-school classroom.

With a view to exploiting practice and experience and exposing readers to different titles and discoveries within the world of children’s literature, we have introduced two new features to this issue, which will become regular additions to the CLELEjournal. Recommended Reads introduces works of children’s literature that have been tried and tested with English language learners, and found highly motivating – indeed compelling – as well as supportive of second language acquisition. The first instalment of Recommended Reads focuses on a highly unusual picturebook, an extremely interesting graphic novel series and two best-selling young adult novels, each chosen and introduced by an experienced teacher educator or writer. Hopefully these recommended texts will reach children as well as their educators!

Another new feature of this issue is Recommended Venues. Each CLELEjournal issue will introduce a selected venue that is deeply connected to children’s literature. These can be museums, world-famous libraries or settings of well-loved books. The first Recommended Venue is the fascinating Story Museum in Oxford, UK.

Finally, this issue of the CLELEjournal presents two book reviews. Alan Pulverness writes on Visual Journeys through Wordless Narratives: An International Enquiry with Immigrant Children and The Arrival‘ (Arizpe, Colomer & Martinez-Roldán, 2014) and Geoff Hall reviews Children’s Literature and Learner Empowerment. Children and Teenagers in English Language Education (Bland, 2013).

With many thanks – as ever – to our invaluable advisory board, our book reviewers, our contributors of articles, of Recommended Reads and Recommended Venues, our webperson, Ina Batzke, and our assistant editor, Bill Templer. Happy reading.

 

Janice Bland, Christiane Lütge and Sandie Mourão