Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts.

- Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

Periods, authors and most suitable literary genres to be used in the

English class. Types of texts.

0. Introduction.

Even at the early stages students can in fact do a great deal with the
language: identifying sounds; produce them orally; recognize then in a
text. In short, even the very beginners can do something with the
language. We must build from that point by adding input which is neither
too advanced, nor too easy.

Cinema, music and literature are rich and motivating materials. If we

manage to know how to select and to present content in such a way that
it will both challenge and motivate them.

Our curriculum establishes two general aims which are related this topic.
They read as follows:

Objectives Assessment criteria

1. To understand easy written and oral texts… 7. To read with the help of the
teacher…

4. To read short and easy texts…

According to this it is clear that we can and, it is possible, we should use

literature in our classroom. The general aim of our approach to the
teaching of literature is to let our pupils derive the benefits of
communicative activities for language improvement within the context of
https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 1 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

communicative activities for language improvement within the context of

suitable works of literature.

We also have the following specific aims:

– Maintain our pupils’ interest and involvement by using a wide range of

pupil centred activities.

– Try and bring to life the printed page, exploiting as fully as possible the
interest that well-chosen literature has for our pupils.

– We must help our pupils value their own responses to the printed page.

We may find three types of justification for using literary texts. Each one
deals with a different type of content:

· Concepts: literary texts offer genuine samples of a wide range of styles,

register and text-types, they provide a rich context in which individual
lexical or syntactical items are made more memorable.

· Skills or procedures: the opinion gap between one pupil’s interpretation

and another’s can be bridged by genuine interaction.

· Attitudes: the genuine feeling of literary texts is a powerful motivator.

1. Periods, authors and most suitable literary genres to be used in the

English class.

1.1. The literary genres and figures in EFL.

The English language is certainly rich in literary figures and genres; and
the literary ages are full of intriguing aspects that students can find
extremely motivating. As long as we know how to select and to present the
content (keeping in mind Krashen’s model of “input + 1) – input just a little
above the students’ level – a great many literary figures can be
successfully used in TEFL.

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 2 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

1.2. Well-know tales and rhymes.

The following is a selection of authors, genres and periods that could be

used in TEFL.

Well-known tales. Well-know rhymes.

“The elves and the shoemaker”; “One, two, put on your shoe”;
“The tree little pigs” “The little red “Rain, rain go away”; “This is the
hen”; “The princess and the pea”; way”; “Old Macdonald had a
“Chicken Licken”; “The ugly farm”; “Hickory, Dickory, Dock”;
duckling”; “The emperor’s new “Baa, baa, black sheep”;
clothes”; “Sleeping beauty”; “Puss
in boots”; “Little red riding hood”; “Three blind mice”; “Insey Winsey

“Hansel and Gretel”; “Cinderella”; spider”; “Pussy cut, pussy cat”;

Beauty and the beast”; “Snow “Humpty Dumpty”; “Jack and Jill”;

white and the seven dwarfs”; “The “Eany, Meeny, Miny, Mo”; “There is

wizard of Oz”; “Ladybird”; a hole in my bucket”; “The house

“Rumpelstiltskin”; “Goldylocks and that Jack built”; “She sells

the three bears”. seashells”; “Thirty days

September”; “There was an Old
Woman who swallowed a fly”

When selecting a work of literature we must bear in mind that we want our
pupils engage interactively with the text, with classmates, and with us, the
teachers. To reach this we must follow these guidelines:

a) The text itself, and not information about it, is of central importance.

b) Our pupils must genuinely interact with the text, their classmates and
the teacher and not be mere recipients.

c) Our activities must be designed so as to enable our pupils to share their

personal experiences, perceptions and opinions.

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 3 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

d) Our activities must be varied and interesting.

e) The selection must be based on their potential interest for our pupils
and not in the literary qualities of the works.

1.2. Storybooks.

1. Criteria for selecting storybooks.

We can find many simplified storybooks which have been graded with
children learning English in mind. Most authors, however, consider that the
use of authentic materials can be more fruitful (real language and
motivation). We can also find authentic books with high-quality
illustrations which will play an important role in aiding comprehension.

a) Our pupils’ needs and abilities.

The chosen texts should always be appropriate to the age, interests and
goals of our pupils. In order to understand literary texts our pupils need to
be able to read at a reasonable speed for an extended period without
fatigue. This speed should, for extensive reading, be at a rate of at least
200 words per minute.

Our youngest pupils, those in the second cycle, will not be able to read at
this speed in English so we must use short, simple texts with illustrations.
We can also use reading techniques to improve our pupils’ reading
speed. These are normally divided into technical or practice methods.

· Technical methods: use a device of some kind to cover up the written

words as our pupils read, forcing them to speed up their reading. These
methods may be more useful for the Spanish language classroom.

· Practice methods are more suitable for the English class our oldest
pupils, as the texts they are able to cope with begin to increase in size, e.g.
texts followed by certain tasks, decrease the time allowed for reading.
https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 4 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

texts followed by certain tasks, decrease the time allowed for reading.

1. CRITERIA FOR SELECTING

STORYBOOKS (Ellis and Brewster).

Needs and abilities.

1. Content/subject matter. a) Relevant; b) Interesting; c)

Amusing; d) Memorable.

2. Visuals. a) Use of illustrations; b)

Attractive/colourful; c) Size; d)
Target culture.

3. Encourage participation. a) Repetition; b) Prediction; c)

Develop memory; d) Build
confidence.

4. Motivating. a) Relate to their experiences

and characteristics.

5. Arouse curiosity. a) Interest in getting to know

more about English language
and culture.

6. Create positive attitudes. a) Target language, b) Target

culture; c) Language learning.

We can see how these first criteria of suitability depend on each particular
group of pupils, their needs and interests.

b) Language difficulty: linguistic and stylistic level.

· Linguistic level:

If we want our pupils to enjoy reading a text we should bear in mind the
following points:

– the vocabulary and syntax of the text should be within our pupils’ grasp

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 5 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

– idiomatic language should be kept at a minimum

It would be absurd to use the masterpieces of children’s literature in our

classes. Unknown words should not occur more frequently than one or two
every hundred. We must also bear in mind complex structure. This may
also hinder comprehension as they will not see how one part of the text
relates to another.

Therefore, if both sentence structure and vocabulary must be at a level

they can understand, we will not be able to use classic children storybooks
masterpieces. In fact the only type of classic children’s literature we can
use will be rhymes and songs. We must use modern storybooks with
simple, short texts and meaningful illustrations.

Given the problems that lexical and structural difficulty pose, we may
need to assess linguistic difficulty in a systematic way. From the point of
view of EFL it would be better, as Hill suggests to use a cloze test:

THE CLOZE TEST

– We prepare a reasonably typical extract from the book and delete

words from the passage on a regular basis (every sixth or seventh
word).

– We instruct our pupils to supply the missing vocabulary, so we will

need 15 deletions to have validity. Obviously we assume we cannot
really use it with our youngest pupils.

– Average class results are:

a) More than 57 per cent correct: our pupils can read the text on their
own.

b) Between 44 – 57 per cent: our pupils can read it with us or with the
dictionary help.
https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 6 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

dictionary help.

c) Below 44 per cent: they cannot read the text.

· Stylistic level.

The use of unusual word order, divergent vocabulary, and son will produce
instances of foreground that cannot be appreciated if we do not have a
solid knowledge of what constitutes the linguistic norm.

It is useless therefore to choose texts of great stylistic complexity for the

early stages of language learning. Style analysis should be based on the
linguistic features with which our pupils are already familiar.

As a summary, based on Ellis and Brewster, we have:

2. CRITERIA FOR SELECTING

STORYBOOKS.

Linguistic and stylistic level

1. Linguistic level. a) Vocabulary; b) Structures; c)

Functions.

2. Stylistic level. a) Foregrounding of vocabulary

and structure.

c) Amount of background information required.

Our pupils’ understanding of a text can also be hindered by their lack of

background knowledge of English speaking countries culture. We must
therefore bear in mind the amount of time we will have to explain
background knowledge when choosing the texts.

It is clear that our pupils’ limited knowledge of the world will not allow us to
expand on most of these topics. Once and again we can obviously see
that the linguistic, stylistic and background knowledge which is required
for a fully understanding of most classic children’s literature works is far

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 7 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

beyond our pupils’ ken. Modern storybooks are also more suitable from
needed background knowledge point of view.

d) Educational and follow-up potential.

Once we have analyzed the previous aspects, we can finally ask ourselves
about the educational potential of the story in terms of: learning English
language and culture; learning about other subjects; learning about the
world; learning how to learn and also about the follow-up potential.

e) Conclusions.

The study of the previous sections enables us to come to the following

conclusions about the most suitable periods, literary genres and authors.

MOST SUITABLE PERIODS, AUTHORS

AND LITERARY GENRES.

1. Period. Mostly nowadays works but we

can also use traditional tales
with an everlasting appeal
such as “Little Red Riding
Hood”.

2. Authors. Traditional storytellers such as

Perrault and authors on the
Puffin or Early Bird series such
as Jack Kent, Raymond Briggs,
John Burningham or Roald
Dahl.

3. Genres. We can use small poems but

mostly storybooks.

We will now study how to use these storybooks in our classroom.

2. Using story books in the classroom.

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 8 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

2. Using story books in the classroom.

Understanding a story in English is hard work for our pupils, so the first
thing we have to pay attention to is how to help our pupils understand the
story.

SUPPORTING CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING

1. We must provide a context for the story and introduce the main
characters.

2. Provide visual support: drawings on the blackboard, cut-out figures,

flash cards,…

3. Explain the context, keywords and ideas in the mother tongue, if

necessary.

4. Identify your linguistic objectives.

5. Relate the story or associated activities to work in other subject areas

if possible.

6. Decide how long you will spend on the story.

7. Decide in which order to introduce or revise the language necessary

for understanding the story.

8. Decide when and how you will read the story.

9. If necessary, modify the story to make it more accessible to your

pupils.

10. Find out if there are any rhymes or songs to reinforce the language
introduce.

11. Decide follow-up activities to provide opportunities for pupils to use

the language in different contexts.
https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 9 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

the language in different contexts.

Once we have decided on the previous questions we can begin to plan a

story-based lesson:

· Planning story-based lessons.

There are many ways to plan a lesson. However, a predominantly oral

lesson normally follows quite a fixed plan with small variations. We may
have for example:

– Warm-up and review: informal chat to maintain rapport with our pupils.
We remind our pupils of what we did during the last lesson.

– Presentation: both of the aims of the lessons and subsequently of the

new language.

– Practice: controlled stage.

– Production: communicative stage.

– Final rounding-up.

2. Types of storybooks.

There is a wide range of texts that we could use for the teaching of English.
However, we consider storybooks as one of the most useful for that
purpose, hence, we will mainly focus on this type.

Ellis and Brewster have classified storybooks under three headings:

Narrative features Content Layout

– Rhyming words – Everyday life – Flap

– Repeating words – Animal stories – Cut-away pages

– Cumulative content – Traditional/folk/fairy – Minimal text

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 10 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

– Cumulative content – Traditional/folk/fairy – Minimal text

and language tales
– No text
– Interactive – Fantasy
– Speech bubbles
– Humorous

We have also made distinctions based on the level of difficulty but it is

even more important to distinguish between authentic and graded or
adapted texts. We prefer to use authentic texts if this is not possible, at
least we should use real-simulated texts giving suggestions to adapt too
difficult texts.

2.1. Authentic vs graded texts.

The main aim of all our teaching is to enable our pupils to reach
communicative competence. As the focus will be on assisting our pupils
to do in class what they will need to do outside, the materials to be used
will reflect the world outside.

Nunan describes authenticity as follows “authentic materials are usually

defined as those which have been produced for purposes other than to
teach language (video clips, recordings of authentic interactions, extracts
for TV…).

Authentic materials are easily justified on the grounds that specially

scripted texts are artificial. Manipulating these texts does not mean that
our pupils will comprehend and manipulate language in real
communicative situations.

However, especially with our pupils, who are beginners, it may be

necessary to edit authentic materials in a way. Edited materials can be
classified into simulated authentic and artificial.

A non-authentic text, in language teaching terms, is “one that has been

designed especially for learners” (Harmer). We can make a distinction
https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 11 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

designed especially for learners” (Harmer). We can make a distinction

here, however, between texts which have been made to illustrate
particular language points for presentation (artificial) and those which
appear to be authentic.

Manipulating and comprehending simulated authentic texts will help our

pupils to acquire the necessary skills they will need when they come to
handle authentic material. So we can conclude saying that the material
designed to foster the acquisition of communicative competence must at
least be simulated authentic.

We will finally see how we can adapt authentic texts which are slightly
above our pupils’ level.

2.2. Adapting stories.

When adapting a story we face a dilemma: if we simplify too much our

pupils will lose the flavour of real stories, so, what we can do is to try and
adapt stories without losing much of the original magic following Ellis and
Brewster guidelines.

ADAPTING STORIES

Vocabulary and general meaning. 1. Check unfamiliar content or

words.

2. Check idioms.

3. Check clarity

Grammar. 1. Check tenses.

2. Check use of structures.

3. Check word order.

Organization of ideas. 1. Check sentence length and

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 12 de 13
Topic 15A – Times, authors and genres suitable for application in teaching English class. Types of texts. - Oposinet 5/10/21 12:08

complexity.

2. Check time references.

3. Check the way ideas are

linked.

4. Check the way ideas are

explained.

Story length. 1. Check the number of ideas

in the story.

By following the previous criteria of selection and use of storybooks we will

intend to make the most of literature in the classroom.

3. Bibliography.

Children’s literature:

· The Cambridge Guide to English literature. CUP. Cambridge, 1990.

Methodology:

· ELLIS, G. and BREWSTER, J.: The storytelling Handbook for Primary

Teachers. Penguin. London, 1991.

· WELL-LOVED TALES SERIES: Loughborough: Ladybird Books, 1974.

Tags:

https://www.oposinet.com/temario-primaria-ingles/temario-1-educacion-primaria-ingles/tema-15-educacin-primaria-ingls/ Página 13 de 13