To maintain the integrity of what members contributed, I have essentially kept the original input and not attempted to precis it (this can all too easily lead to misinterpretation). I have also added the country where the members are based (where known) so you can see the wide range of settings.

I have used the following colour coding:-

KEY: green = request for help; red = suggestions for coursebooks/stories; purple = dilemmas/questions/considerations; blue = hyperlink to websites

This discussion was started in May by Mark Petter from the Ukraine – request for help - who is proposing to do a classroom project with the hypothesis that ‘… course books and a large amount of course material aimed at teenagers is rather uninteresting and doesn’t engage them … The upshot of this is that teenagers, who are not the easiest people to please at the best of time, can find classes boring if the teacher only uses the course book and teachers can find it hard work ..’.

With this red rag, the discussion developed with the following input:-

Tim Priesack from Italy – ‘… the issue of course books for teenagers is not only whether they are 'not very good' but how they are used. Teachers often consider that course books should be taught and that the language content of a course finishes there. However, they should be considered to include the skeleton of the language. Teachers should, using their own creativity and supplementary materials, add the flesh. The important element in course book design is to ensure that the materials are stimulating to the young learner, student friendly. This can be a very difficult task when writing an internationally published course as teenagers in different countries have varying interests and cultural backgrounds. Locally produced materials that take into account national characteristics should be an answer although these often suffer from inappropriate linguistic content … Another factor to take into account is that often nationally produced text books are used in state education and parents want alternative materials to be used in language schools to supplement rather than repeat the lessons in compulsory education… use the text book as a framework for a course, examine each unit and plan appropriate supplementary materials taking into account the interests of the individual class. Keep an eye on the Common European Framework levels to ensure that all the important language functions are included and encourage the students to create their Portfolio Dossiers ..’

Gordon Lewis in New Jersey, USA– ‘…a course book is a resource. It makes lesson planning easier and provides a clear progression (hopefully) on which a teacher can measure the pace of the class being taught. Hopefully, a course book is full of good ideas stimulating to teachers and children … for beginning teachers, course books can serve as a valuable crutch as they grow and learn. Eventually, the beginning teacher will gain experience enough to critically pick and choose what suits them best …But course books also are important to the children themselves. A good students book is something a child can refer back to time and time again … Course books do not teach themselves. Similarly, they can never be everything to every student or teacher. I can remember who said it originally, but the following phrase has always guided my work: "We teach the children, not the program".

Lucy Mellersh in Germany - request for help – ‘ … I teach 3 to 8 year-olds using a task-based method and I don't introduce reading or writing in English. I haven't found a coursebook or any useful materials (everything I can find has "label the diagram" or "fill in the blanks") so I make my own…’

Mario Escobar in Peru – ‘ … Secondary school teachers (in Peru) seem to (find that this coursebook) appeals to teenagers, its called MY CHOICE and it is an adaption of a book called Your Choice & Your Choice Next used in Spain and produced by Richmond Publishing. What adolescents find interesting in the book is that the topics are appropriate to their age and interests; topics such as gender, racism and others are dealt with; projects work and self evaluation play an important role in the series; a true dictionary goes with the book …’

Trish Burrow in the UK (replying to Lucy) ‘ … 'Very Young Learners' by Vanessa Reilly and Sheila Ward? It's published by OUP and is a resource book of activities (making things/ chants/ vocab games etc.) you can use with this age group. It avoids an undue emphasis on the written word and has some really nice cross curricular tasks. Playway by CUP and Conrad and Co … books for younger children that focus on oral/ aural skills to develop language, …’

Helen Doron (replying to Lucy) – suggestion to visit http://www.helendoron.com/ for a complete language approach.

Opal Dunn – ‘ … how about using REALpicturestoryBooks in the same way as a mother reads to her child or a Nursery /Lower Primary teacher reads to native speaker children not yet ready/learning to read. Children will guide you towards interesting follow-up activities if you tell them what's possible - handwork, drama etc. The secret for success is in the selection of the right
REALBOOK …’

www. Opald@realbooks.co.uk

Mark Petter from Ukraine (replying to Lucy) – ‘…use 'Super Me' with this age group. The course is by OUP. It has student's book, course book, story books, cassettes and teacher's book. None of the books that students use contain words and teachers can introduce the written word as and when they wish to. The teachers book is good with lots of useful ideas and lesson plans. …’

At this point the discussion changed to consider story books replacing/supplementing a coursebook!

Eleanor Watts in the UK – ‘ … books written for L1 children can be extremely useful in teaching contexts where the children come from a similar cultural background to English children, can afford to have extra reading material and are exposed to a lot of English idiom from films, advertisements and TV … as someone who often works in low resource contexts … not sure they can take the place of a course book … identifying some dilemmas in replacing stories with coursebooks:-

1. The idiomatic use of language that L1 children take for granted can cause confusion to young learners in FL contexts where little English is heardoutside the classroom.
2. Culturally, they may not be appropriate - for example, talk of poo at school (the subject and title of a book reviewed in the latest issue) is taboo and offensive in many parts of the world, even if it is regarded as socially acceptable and rather charming in Europe.
3. In low resource contexts, the amount of language you can draw from one book cannot justify the expense. Neither children nor schools can afford to buy supplementary reading material.
4. They are difficult to use with large classes. If you have more than thirty children, they cannot read the text or see the details of the pictures if you read them aloud. It is unlikely that there would be enough money to buy multiple texts for everyone to see a copy.
5. Last but not least, it takes an exceptionally skilled teacher to frame a progressive course of English teaching from books that were not written to build up competence in a foreign language in a planned and progressive …would it be fair to say that REALBOOKS can only supplement the coursebook when they can be afforded, but can never take its place?’

Lucy Mellersh in Germany - ‘ … use picture story books (now I know they're called "Realbooks") as a central part of each topic-based lesson and it works very well. My main problem is that sometimes I have trouble finding one that fits my current topic as well as being suitable in other ways … being based abroad means that I don't have a great choice of English picture books in bookshops or the library. and I need at least one new appropriate picture story book each week … ‘

Sandie Mourao in Portugal (replying to Eleanor) – ‘ … REALBOOKs are for a developed society. It is sad to have to say/write this, but without a doubt it is the case … looking at a commodity which not only belongs to a westernized society for money reasons but for literary ones too. How is early literacy valued in underdeveloped countries, do Mummies and Daddies read their children stories at night before they go to bed? No, they most likely tell them a story, or their grandparents do, but there will be no luscious picture to show the child or pages to turn. Instead the language will be lusciously descriptive and evoke images which perhaps we as a developed society are no longer able to see? Sadly. your poo example is excellent, but we could extend this to much simpler and less taboo subjects. Teddy bears, food, transport... practically everything, in a lot of our REALBOOKs would be very difficult for many children in underdeveloped countries to understand in terms of pictorial representation. They would mean absolutely nothing to them.

My question would be is there a place for REALBOOKs in these underdeveloped EFL classes? I would argue no! They are wholly inappropriate! … a developed society but low resourced … large classes

… if a book was illustrated using bold shapes and colours, the images would be easier to see and children could see them, even if they
were four or five rows away from the teacher … you would be very fair in saying REALBOOKS can only supplement the coursebook when they can be afforded, but can never take its place. In a large number of contexts… I
feel very strongly that if teachers are given the tools to use REALBOOKs they can do a very good job of providing a a planned and progressive build up of FL competence … REALBOOKs can replace coursebooks … It would be far more appropriate to use a REALBOOK to supplement a course book. For many reasons…’

Wendy Arnold in Hong Kong - ‘ … care needs to be taken when choosing books, because books can be very Euro-centric and they carry a lot of western 'baggage' with them. That is that they make a lot of assumptions about their readers…’

Eleanor Watts in the UK – ‘ … perhaps part of me still kicks against the use of the term REAL. I've written stories for L2 children in India - both within the context of coursebooks and as little storybooks to be read for pleasure. I've consciously controlled language and idiomatic use of the language that won't make sense there. I've also set the stories within a cultural context with which the children are familiar. But the fact that I've controlled my language and not set them in a native English speaking context doesn't make
them any less REAL than L1 books for UK. In fact, I feel they are more real to the children who read them because the language and situations don't alienate them - as you both realise can happen in different cultural contexts.

I feel it's important as English becomes global property that we encourage the use (and production) of stories that are set in local contexts and in language that is accessible for the children who read them…’

Sandie Mourao in Portugal (replying to Eleanor) – ‘ … Opal Dunn has increasingly taken to adding <picture>, thus REALpicture BOOK. I think she is trying emphasise the importance of the illustration, which is what makes these books so fantastic to use. We are looking at pictorial literacy as well as normal literacy skills... learning to read a picture is all part of the learning to read process… By using the term REALBOOKs I am in no way saying that they are the only kinds of books to use... there is certainly a place for EFL stories... The stories you have written and which are available to your low resource groups are as real as anything …we are just looking at terminology which is necessary in a world of stories... there are so many different types!

When I train I always try to include using stories and I always look at three types of stories... Traditional stories,EFL stories, REALBOOKs

Janet Enever - ‘ … position myself as strongly (though not exclusively) committed to the use of picture story books. I'd like to introduce two elements that I consider central to the equation in the 21st century - motivation and globlalisation.

1) Motivation: all my work with teachers from all parts of the world - under-developed/'over'-developed, under-resourced/'over'-resourced or simply okay (!) has led me to believe that the priority in FL learning with children is a motivated teacher and motivated children. With these two elements - the most appalling materials seem to provide sufficient scaffolding (to both child and teacher) in developing a positive attitude/making progress in English - for me, these are the parallel aims of FL with young children.
I have to admit that all too often I have observed deadly lessons churning through the coursebook - whether with 6 or 60 children/in a hightech classroom or sitting in rows on benches - this is no way to introduce the first experience of an FL. Perhaps, because its easy to assume that the book has 'done all the work' such lessons can more easily become rather routine.
2 Globalisation: at both global and local levels I am constantly challenged on my pre-conceptions of what happens in classrooms. Both individual creativity and access to information on a hitherto unprecedented scale has resulted in teachers experimenting more and more. So, a number of my Chinese MA students currently talk of using picture storybooks frequently (remembering their classes are 60+!), whilst other teachers talk of designing their own picture storybooks, or even using locally produced books with a translation strip overlaid. A teacher from Hungary designs her whole curriculum around an on-going picture storybook that her class collaboratively develop each week. There seem indeed to be many ways in which teachers choose to integrate or prioritise the use of books with pictures in early FL learning - finding them both relevant and meaningful to children's lives.

My essential arguments for the use of picture storybooks in EYL relate to the aims of early start programmes. These I identify as broadly educational rather than narrowly defined as 'learning a language'. Thus, in the 21st century it becomes increasingly important to seek opportunities to integrate both intercultural awareness and visual literacy, to prepare the next generation for both increased global mobility and the application of critical literacy skills. It seems to me that Realbooks can fulfil these aims inspirationally - assuming motivation, of course....!

Niki Joseph – ‘ … isn't part of our job also transmitting culture? ( a very loose english speaking culture) and this can be done (maybe best done) with the use of real books. one example would be Halloween and witches being transmitted through the Meg and Mog books. I am a big fan of the Elllis and Brewster story telling handbook - it was excellent before and the new edition really is just superb … I'm not sure that a definitive syllabus can or should ever be done around books as there is the danger of doing them to death. I use Real books in conjunction with the course books - ie when they fit in...and usually i choose them after a structural input..

Wendy Superfine – ‘…. a list of books attached which can be used in most European or other literate contexts, some of which have been recommended by Opal in her Real Book news. However it seems obvious that the teacher must decide which books are appropriate for their teaching situation and whether they would use a story to extend the lesson in their course book .The teachers I have worked with are usually very enthusiastic about using stories whether they are traditional, Real books, or EFL readers . A successful exercise which I have used in a workshop session is for the teachers to select a book which they would like to use and to give the reasons and also to develop some activities to go with the story … compiled a table of some of these books showing the language content & topic links ...

CLICK HERE TO LINK TO BOOK LIST

Joan Brouwers – offered a list of suggested stories. REFER TO STORIES LINK.

Gail Ellis – ‘ … as a strong supporter of using storybooks and working in a context where availability and choice is abundant, I would certainly say storybooks can replace a coursebook. I would also say that this is true for 'low-resource' contexts. My experience has shown that storybooks provide a highly motivating resource that children respond to eagerly and positively.
Appropriately selected storybooks also allow the teacher to develop
all-round educational aims and address issues that matter rather than the
sometimes mundane topics we meet again and again in coursebooks. Using
storybooks will depend on a number of factors such as:
* the amount of freedom teachers have to select materials and design
plans of work
* time and resources available
* individual preferences and teaching style
* skills, confidence and experience in using a story-based approach

… (I) analysed different types of stories that can be used, the different learning opportunities they offer to our pupils and the amount of teacher support that is available in the form of print or on-line resources. These can be placed on a continuum according to the amount of time spent on storytelling/using the storybook and the degree of authenticity of language in the selected texts:
Weak form of story-based learning
Strong form of story-based learning

In terms of language, these range from storybooks where the language has been carefully selected, graded and sequenced to those where the authors, usually writing for mother tongue children, have had no linguistic or cultural restrictions at all.

At the British Council in Paris we run short ten-hour courses based entirely around one storybook. We look for stories from around the world in order to present our pupils with different cultural perspectives and illustrative styles. Little by little we are building up an interesting collection of books which so far contains lots of wonderful examples from British and American publishers, but also examples from Africa (Kenya Institute of Education/East African Educational Publishers/Phoenix Publishers) China and
India. The last story we used, Krishna and Sudama published in English by the Children's Book Trust, New Delhi, 1967, presented us with a challenge.

The story addresses the universal theme of friendship and best friends so as readily accessible in terms of content to our French learners. However, it is produced on cheap flimsy paper which has become dog-eared and yellowed over the years. The stunning illustrations, though, which we enlarged, had lost none of their vibrant colour and fascinating cultural details (clothes, buildings, jewels, head-dresses, landscapes etc.) so new and fascinating for children in France to discover. The story also provided the context to integrate other elements of Indian art such as Mehndi hand designs and Rangoli designs (ideal to consolidate the language for and concepts of shapes and colours). In terms of the language, we had to edit out idiomatic phrases typical of Indian English in the 1960s (It rained cats and dogs. krishna and Sudama got wet. They trembled like leaflets) which we felt were not really useful to the children at this stage in their learning. We also edited out some specific culturally-related vocabulary (Ashram, Vedas etc.) and shortened the text. The result, however, still retained a fresh and authentic feel to it for both teachers and learners.

In terms of language and subject content, initial selection of stories for a particular context is crucial to their successful exploitation. Krishna and Sudama proved to be as appropriate for children in France as I assume it is for children in India because of the strong story line about two friends. The detailed chart in Tell it Again offers a checklist of criteria linked to the main objectives of foreign language teaching to children (linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social and cultural) that we can use when selecting stories. There is also a traditional story from West Africa, The Clever Tortoise, in Tell it Again. This comes as a photocopiable story that the children can create into a book themselves.

There are many different forms of storybooks ranging from those described in REALBOOK News to those produced by the children themselves. One of my favourite quotes in Edie Garvie's book, Story as Vehicle, is the following:

The teacher is telling a story, but not the way I an Englishman would tell it. She is dancing it, singing it, acting it. She tells it with her face, her voice, her whole body. The class is completely caught up in the action: toes and shoulders wriggling in sympathy. There is a song involved: the whole class joins in without invitation.

Is there a book at all involved I wonder? This shows how stories come in many different forms and can be told in many different ways and with many different forms of support. The well-illustrated storybook is one form amongst many.

Regarding the cost of using storybooks, it is in fact an economic option. It depends on the methodology used. My principal use of storybooks is to develop listening and understanding through reading aloud and to provoke response thus enabling the development of predication, anticipation, surprise, etc. as the children do not know what is coming next. In this way, only one copy of a storybook is required for the teacher. Here we need to come back to the criteria checklist especially if you are working with large classes: are the illustrations big enough for all the class to see? As Sandie pointed out, simple black line drawings with vibrant colours work well. Others have suggested enlarging illustrations. Another economic technique is for the teacher to simply walk around the class showing pupils the illustrations. This also provides the opportunity for the teacher to repeat the text which generally speaking pupils love hearing over and over again, giving additional exposure to the language and focussing pupils' attention. An enormous amount of language can be drawn from one book leading to meaningful and purposeful outcomes including the possibility of written work etc. It is often difficult to know when to stop - but this depends on the book being appropriately selected for a particular group of learners in the first place. This methodology does not require one copy per pupil (ie class sets) usually beyond the budget of most schools even in Europe, but provides a technique which is very economical. For example, a course of 60 hours, would need 8 different books/stories a year, plus materials for children (ie paper, glue, pencils, crayons, etc.). Energetic and enthusiastic teachers will soon create story packs/kits around each story that can be used over and over again with other pupils.

It does take a great deal of skill to plan a programme of work around a storybook and even more to create a story-based syllabus. As teachers experiment, build confidence and develop they will gain this skill. Whether schools/teachers decide to use a coursebook or storybooks or a combination of both is, I think, a question of personal choice and balance. Furthermore, more and more support is available especially on-line which will reach teachers throughout the world. Since producing the chart attached, two further publications have come on to the market to support teachers, neither of which I have yet seen:

Using Realbooks in the ELT Classroom by Sandie Mourao
Telling Tales in English by Megan James and Wendy Superfine

CLICK HERE TO LINK TO STORY RATIONALE

Janet Envers – ‘ … Realbooks - to add some background to Sandie's helpful clarification of the term - the concept comes (in my memory) from UK mainstream primary. Following the early 1970's development of colourful picture story books (the Very Hungry Caterpillar was one of the first), increasingly primary teachers identified their potential motivational advantage for beginner readers, over the existing reading scheme books (e.g. Janet and John, Peter and Jane). 3 points relevant to EYL I would raise here:
1 Empirical research revealed the importance of story quality and artwork in motivating beginner readers to seek meaning (nothing new!) and thus progress towards fluency.
2 A key challenge to the controlled language principle of the reading scheme concept was revealed in the finding that children often learnt 'difficult' words such as parachute and tortoise earlier than more frequently used 'easy' words.
3 Meek (1988) in her seminal work, invites us to 'compare the textual variety of children's picture books with that of reading schemes.' she suggests that 'the interactions made possible by skilled artists and writers far outweigh what can be learned from books made up by those who offer readers no excitement, no challenge, no real help.'

My own experience has suggested that this genre now includes themes at a range of cognitive and language levels, with the potential to strongly motivate children operating in English as a first, second, additional or foreign language to seek meaning and hence enjoyment from books. In my view, some books using controlled language offer this, many do not. Conversely, many Realbooks do this, some do not! This is not to negate the role of reading scheme books - they are simply something different.

Ref: Meek, M (1988) How Texts Teach What Readers Learn.Thimble Press

Debra Smowton in Hong Kong – ‘ … I have trouble with the term 'real ' as is'n't every book 'real'? Vacca, Vacca, Gove, Burkey, Lenhart and McKeon in their book 'Reading and Learning to Read' [pub Allyn and Bacon 2003] page 408 talk about 'Trade books' They seem to define these as being, books published that don't belong to a basal reader scheme.

The other issue I have is, have we been tackling the issue of using books in the classroom , trade or real, the wrong way round. Rather than trying to find a book that 'fits' the grammar points we are working on why don't we choose a story book and introduce the themes, lexical sets and grammatical structures in the book. That way the students have a natural, authentic context in which to anchor everything + wonderful illustrations. I too have been using ' Tell It again by Ellis and Brewster . Ms Ellis and Brewster I would love to know how you chose the books for your book 'Tell it again'. I've used nearly all of the stories and the children love them. I've just finished 'Princess Smartypants' . What amazed me most was the language the children came up with for predicting additional problems and solutions for the tasks Princess Smartypants could set her suitors. I did scaffold this with lots of brainstorming [ good old Vygotsky's Z.P.D.]. It was far in excess of the language I would have expected. What I'm tying to say is I would have under estimated the knowledge the children bring from out side the classroom. They were capable of so much more that the narrow contexts in any course book! …’

Sandie Mourao in Portugal – ‘ … The term REALBOOKs is accepted by many as being authentic storybooks. Trade books is as good a word as any... note that we are looking at terms used in different countries, this often happens... look at ESL and EFL for example! As long as we all know what it is we are referring to I don't think it matters what they are called! … I personally like my children to hear a story which they will understand, at least some of it, approx 75% is the amount theorists have stated as being acceptable. If children are shown a story with a large number of lexical items they are unfamiliar with, it could well confuse them and put them off lstening to stories. What are they listening to? A bunch of sounds / words they don't understand - that's not very motivating! Yes, the illustrations are very supportive, but they can't tell you everything, unless of course it is a very simple story / text. It's far more motivating to hear something which has words and expressions you can understand, and small amounts which you can probably guess at... especially with illustrations and teacher's gestures. It's really motivating to realise that you have only been
learning English for a couple of months but that you can listen to a story and understand it first time round!

Using a REALBOOK should bring feelings of pleasure to children. We should be able to just read the story for enjoyment as a class together. We should be able to go back to stories we have shared and love them all over again. So to be able to do this we need to give the children a platform to start from, so that they can appreciate and enjoy the story and it's illustrations immediately.

I am involved in a book browsing project in two pre-schools here in Leiria. Opal Dunn has provided these two schools with three copies each of 10 different REALBOOKs. The objective was to read a story at the end of every English session and then leave this story in the classroom library for the children to access and even take home. I read the same story for 5 / 6 consecutive sessions and after each session it was noted that more and more of the story was being produced in chunks by the children, and that they were browsing it with more frequency from the library book shelf. I do not do anything with these books except read them, we don't work on the book in anyway. I have to admit that I was initially rather dubious that this would work, as I believe strongly that children should know some of the language in the stories. I therefore made a huge effort to pick a book which was as connected to the topics they were playing with, with me and their pre-school teacher, and that some of the words were known to the children. In most cases this happened and the results have been excellent BUT, I chose one book as it had something to do with food shopping, (we were playing with food words), and it has probably been the least successful in terms of children browsing and producing chunked language. It's called Going Shopping by Sarah Garland (Puffin 1995). Simple text and lovely illustrations, but very few nouns, just expressions like: In you go! Off we go! Jump in dog! In the shop! Down the road! etc. The children picked up none of these expressions, even though I have spent the same amount of time with this book as all the others ... no child has chosen to take this
book home, even though we have looked at it again and again and in fact used it to talk about driving in cars, wearing seatbelts, reading books in cars, dogs going in the back, shopping, helping Mummy etc. I think it has something to do with the language which appears in the story 1) there are very few nouns 2) it is not the kind of language used by the children in their day to day playing and learning, as this is what they need, to be able to make reference to this language and reuse in their contexts, together.

I think what I am trying to say in my round about way is that the children were not prepared (by me) in anyway to make the book their own, and so they didn't! They didn't have that platform to jump from! I could go on for ages about this and there is so much to write up and I have so much reading to do to support some of the findings, its mind boggling, but exciting too!

Livia Farago in Hungary – ‘ … the idea of ‘basing the 'all' the curriculum around an on-going storybook with the class collaboratively developing it each week’ interesting, and Janet referred to our work in Budapest, too, let me describe briefly the way we organize our work with 6-9 year old children around a story throughout the schoolyear. The story appears in a unique self-made class storybook. (To give you an idea of the book itself -we have whole series of them-, I’ve taken photos of two pages, but Yahoo groups refused to accept a picture sent as an attachment) The story appears as a key element of our complex art and language teaching course (LARK: Language and Art for Kids) Children have got art lessons in Hungarian and English lessons in English, but the programme operates on the basis of a joint syllabus. The story is introduced in the first lesson of the schoolyear, giving a clear context to our being together for the whole schoolyear. The story is developed continually by the teachers and the children both in Art and in English lessons. They participate in story-making in a very active and relaxed way while using their background knowledge and imagination. The content of the course is flexible. Before starting a schoolyear the teachers agree on a loose frame of the story, but as our experience shows (we have run the project since 1995) the children start to personalise the story very soon: invent new characters, add new details ... and get emotionally involved. Different tasks on the Art and English sessions are strongly connected to the story. Throughout the schoolyear the story, art activities and English lessons progress in parallel lines.

Storybook:
At the beginning of the school-year we start with a completely empty class storybook.. It is extended gradually with the development of the story and contains the storyline. After an important event in the story a new page appears in the storybook. We start " reading " the book only when the children are familiar with that stage of the story and have completed different tasks in the visual art and the English lessons. Reading the book is the icing on the cake. Every time when a new page is added to the book we read it together from the beginning. The children are always extremely excited about seeing the new picture-page, this is why they are ready to tell and retell the story many times. As time passes they are more and more able to join in storytelling. The safety of telling the story with all the children together encourages everybody to join in. The book provides a wonderful opportunity for the teacher to review different language points all the time and expand the children' s concentration span. Through this shared-reading experience teacher can make the technique of reading explicit, children have a chance to notice differences between letters and sounds. On the left-hand side of the book you find the story having pictures inserted within the text. These pictures act as prompts at earlier stages of shared reading. On the other side there is a whole-page illustration showing a key scene in the story. It also tends to generate interaction. By the end of the schoolyear most of the children are able to read/tell the whole story (it normally appears in two volumes by then) on their own and feel confident of reading script in English.

More information about Livia Farago's  English Through Arts and Cultures

Gail Ellis in France – go the the following link for the Teaching English website if you would like to see how we use storybooks in
our teaching centre in Paris.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/literature/children_lit.shtml

Sandie Mourao in Portugal – reference to an article written by Melanie Williams, Ready for Readers, which discusses readers in general and also mentions REALBOOKs.

CLICK HERE to USING READERS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM LINK

Scholastic also have an excellent set of teachers resources, for native
English speakers, but well worth looking at, called READ & RESPOND (starter) Here is the web page

http://www.scholastic.co.uk/teach_index.html

Each REALBOOK has a whole resource book all to itself, 30 plus pages of excellent and fun activities and tasks. Described as being <<a resource designed to help (the teacher) develop and extend children¹s response to stories in early stages of their literacy development>> they are for native English speaking children aged 5 ­ 7 years, but many of the activities are suitable for children up to age 10 yrs as FL learners. Titles used include:
Not, Now Bernard
The Shopping Basket
Peace at Last
Suddenly!
Mister Magnolia

There is also a READ AND RESPOND series for older children, which may be more suitable for the lower secondary you were requesting ideas for Wendy.

The scholastic website is: http://www.scholastic.co.uk/ follow links for
Teachers resources and the READ & RESPOND titles.

Carol Read in Spain – ‘ … 1. The term ‘real’: I also share the problems that first Eleanor and then Debra raised with this term. Is the ‘real-ness’ an intrinsic part of the book or story itself or does the book or story become ‘real’ depending on the contexts in which it is used, the purposes and uses to which it is put and the response that it gets? (This, by the way, is similar to the kind of debate that has long raged in ELT generally about authentic materials and, for example, whether or not they are authentic when used
for pedagogic purposes in class.)

2 A definition of ‘real’ in this discussion up to now has been a book or story that is written for L1 children for pleasure and enjoyment and without overt language control. If we take such a book or story to use with our L2 children for pedagogic purposes (which is what I think most of us usually do apart from e.g. the interesting experiment described by Sandie), can we automatically assume that it is ‘real’ for those children? Or does being ‘real’ actually depend on other things as well, not necessarily intrinsic to the type of book or story itself, but rather to the process, such as the children’s response to and experience of the story, and as a result of the story, and the scaffolding, interaction, participation, emotion, pleasure and learning that takes place.

3 It has often been directly stated or implied that stories in story books (ie trade books written for L1 children) are generally "a good
thing" to use whereas other stories (ie those found in coursebooks or readers) are generally "a bad (or definitely less good) thing". This is easily demonstrated by pointing to examples of wonderfully rich storybooks at one end of the spectrum and boring, mechanical, structural dialogues, masquerading as stories in coursebooks or readers, at the other. However, I believe (hope) that things may be changing (albeit slowly). Over the last four years, I have been involved in researching and writing a course based entirely on stories for very young learners in Spain. The aim of the project has been to combine what we (all of us) know about what works best when working with very young children in terms of stories and a storytelling, acquisition-based methodology into a course, with all that this also implies in terms of e.g. a clearly organised syllabus, logical progression, clear links to other areas of learning etc. etc.. This work has led me to believe that stories specially written for children learning English need not necessarily be any less ‘real’ than other stories, for the children, context and purpose for which they are intended. In terms of construction e.g. conflict, resolution etc, the stories are written in the same way as other stories. The syllabus also derives from the stories rather than the other way round. The difference lies in the common identifying features which I would argue, rather than making them necessarily ‘unreal’, are characteristic of the genre e.g.they are short,hey usually have a narrative pattern which involves repetitionthey include direct, interactive speech they include concrete nouns they include language chunks which can be transferred to other contexts etc..

4 Following on from the above, in my view, the ‘real-ness’ of a story is not determined by the thing itself, but is rather directly related to the process of what goes on around it and the quality of the children’s response i.e. whether or not it is ‘real’ to them. Two examples of stories which have proved wonderfully ‘real’ for my children spring to mind. The first is the storybook ‘Something Else’, a touching story about friendship and tolerance, which I taught a while ago to a group of very lively, Croatian ten-year-olds (and also by the way wrote the story notes as a ‘guest’ in Gail and Jean’s storytelling book). The Croatian children’s response was wondrous and electrifying – mature, considered, sensitive, wise and, as Debra said over Princess Smartypants, I felt they were capable of so much. The second example is a story about a gorilla from my course described above which I’ve recently taught to my four-year-olds. Their response in the classroom has been joyful – we’ve sung, chanted, acted out, made puppets and headbands, learnt about gorillas, related the story to our own lives, imagined other animals in the story etc. etc. and again, with appropriate scaffolding, the children have proved capable of so much. However, for me the ultimate proof of the story being ‘real’ for these children came the day I spotted them playing gorillas in the playground entirely by themselves, thereby showing that they had complete "ownership" of the story, had taken it from the English class and integrated it entirely on their own initiative into their own world of fantasy and play.

The point here is that these two stories are completely different in terms of provenance and genre but it’s the qualities and process of what goes on around them, that make them ‘real’ for the kids and really count

Paul East in Germany – offering suggestions for a website

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/

The Rosetta Project's collections currently contain about 2,000 antique children's books which were published in the 19th and early 20th century. We shall be putting these combined collections on line as funding permits. Our current goal of putting 2,000 volumes on line will create an online library of approximately 65,000 html pages. However, as we are still collecting books from around the world, we expect the Rosetta Project online library to eventually reach millions of html pages.

Donnatienne Binard from France - recommended a scary story from France.

Wendy Arnold from Hong Kong - ideas from Hong Kong about identifying and using stories.

See also The Place of Story-telling Language Teaching