The Use of Children’s Literature in ELT in Brazil

Abstract

This article presents activities in which texts from children’s literature are used in English language teaching (ELT) in Brazil. These activities were used in classes of differing age levels and in two different types of school setting. Critical interculturality and languaculture are first presented as the theoretical basis of our pedagogical practice. Following the theory, three different activities using texts from children’s literature are then presented, demonstrating how texts such as these can aid in the teaching of an additional language. The first two activities were undertaken in a public school with young learners, the third activity was implemented in a language centre with adult students. Through these activities, the students were able to increase their grammatical and lexical knowledge of the English language as well as to interact with the languacultures of the texts. In this way, the English language classroom becomes an interculturally critical space in which learners can recreate their understanding of the target language.

Keywords

• ELT classroom
• critical interculturality
• languaculture
• children’s literature