Children’s Literature and English Teaching Sherri Wei Fall 2007 Mon 13:40 – 16:30 LB 301

Questions What is children’s literature? What is purpose of language teaching? Why children’s literature for English teaching & learning? How do teachers integrate children’s literature into current curriculum and lesson planning?

Course Structure Children’s Literature English Teaching Literary Analysis & Cultural studies Multiculturalism Multiple Intelligence Reader Response Theory Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development Language Learning Theories: Second Language Acquisition Constructivist Vygotsky’s ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) TESOL Methods : CLT Content-based Task-based learning Whole language approach Genres : fairy tales, fantasy, Nursery rhymes poetry & Non-fiction

The Historical Development of Language Teaching Methodology Situational Approach TPR Cooperative Learning Content-Based Learning Task-Based Learning Pre-Method Methods Era Post Method Era Based on Richards & Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching 2001 Grammar Translation Audio-lingual Situational The Direct Method The Oral Approach Communicative Language Teaching The Lexical Approach T P R Suggestopedia The Silent Way Community Lang. Learning

WH Questions What is the features of children’s literature? What are the genres of children’s literature? What is the purpose of children’s literature? What are the values we want to pass on to our children? How do we perceived children? How do we teach with/through children’s literature? How do we plan lessons integrating children’s literature? What does it mean to learn a language? What is the relationship between teaching and learning a language? How do we acquire a new (second / foreign) language? What kind of English are we teaching? What is the role of English outside of the classroom? How do we design curriculum and plan lessons in this particular context? What Why How Who Where When

Grading Policy In-class & Online participation 10 % Book talk or Author study (pair) 10% Journals 20% Group Presentation 20 % Observation paper (Individual) 20 % Thematic lesson plan (Group) 20 %

Tentative Schedule 9/17 Course Orientation 10/1 Traditional children’s literature 10/8 Fairy tales The witch must die? 10/15 Fantasy vs. Reality Reader-response theories 10/22 Picture books Ruby Bridges & Salem witch hunt Whole language approach 10/29 Poetry: Shel Silverstein Constructivists: Vygotsky & Piaget 11/5 Media and popular culture as context for CL Reading behavior observation 11/12 Media and popular culture as context for CL Reading behavior observation 11/19 Content-based Language Teaching Lesson planning: Graphic Communicator 11/26 International Literature English as an International Language 12/3 Author Studies: Eric Carle, Kevin Henks, Dr. Suess 12/10 Thematic Unit: Christmas 12/17 Integrating drama into story telling 12/24 Bibliotherapy Missing May & Tuck Everlasting 1/7 Thematic Unit Presentation 1/14 Course evaluation

Personal Profile Your name Self portrait Contact info ( and/or phone number) Courses taken related to this course [both linguistic & Literature] Your motivation & expectation of the course