Master 1st level in Design for children: objects, spaces, processes and experiences

This lecture will emphasise the value of picture books and oral storytelling in young learner pedagogy. The focus will be on authentic and predictable storybooks as instructional materials in primary language learning situations. The lecture will present a number of theoretical and empirical foundations for story-based activities in naturalistic and instructional settings of English language learning in multilingual contexts. Opportunities and challenges will be illustrated. The enhancement of children’s linguistic competence is one of the desired outcomes of storytelling, whose success partly depends on a series of well-employed facilitative techniques and materials. Commercial storytelling materials require an informed selection and often need to be adapted and supplemented with teacher-made and learner-made materials to cater for particular groups of learners in local contexts. Storytelling should finally be an effective and pleasurable learning experience for children and educators.