© 1991 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Using wordless picture books to promote second language learning
(PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) Assistant Professor in the Department of Language Education at the University of British Columbia and co-director with Bernard Mohan of a large-scale language and content project in the Vancouver School District. She was previously the Provincial Co-ordinator for English as a Second Language and Multi-Cultural Education for the Province of British Columbia and Co-ordinator of ESL programmes for the Vancouver School Board. Her research interests are in the planning and implementing of programmes for school-aged ESL children. She is particularly interested in considering ways to increase ESL students' academic achievement.
This article discusses one approach that I have found successful for teachers with little formal ESL training and few ESL text materials to help their primary-aged ESL students to develop wide and varied uses of English. The approach has proved effective in a situation in which almost half of the school population (in Vancouver, British Columbia) consists of ESL students, and in which, naturally, the great majority of teachers are not ESL specialists. The article discusses how wordless picture books can be used for both oral language and literacy development across a wide range of topics, thinking skills, and text-types. These books and the approach to using, them, will, we believe, work well in EFL as well as ESL settings.