Response during picturebook read alouds in English as a foreign language

Abstract

This paper begins by discussing the picturebook and its picture-word dynamic and follows with a discussion of their relevance to teachers in a foreign language classroom. Thereafter, a theory of literary understanding is suggested, as a way to support foreign language teachers to interpret their learners’ responses to picturebooks and to help them recognize the relevance of response to the storytelling experience. The final section describes two picturebooks with concrete examples of the different ways that they enable and promote authentic responses, using the children’s linguistic repertoire, and through both the pictures and the words.