CLELEjournal (Nov 2016)
English Language Education and Ideological Issues: Picturebooks and Diversity
Abstract
This paper considers ideological dimensions of language education, and the contribution picturebooks narrating diversity and illustrating minority perspectives can make to this important aspect of English Language Teaching. It is argued that both representation of language and representation of the world must be taken into consideration in diversity-sensitive, intercultural education, and that children’s literature offers this opportunity. Criteria for a selection of texts featuring children in minority and refugee situations are suggested. Cultural identity, multifaceted subjectivity and agency – concepts important in children’s literature scholarship – are discussed, as these ideas are significant for understanding the situation of protagonists in minority situations both in the stories and amongst language learners in the classroom. Furthermore, with reference to Byram’s five-stranded model of intercultural learning, it is suggested that elements of intercultural education can be elicited through stories – either illustrated and modelled by the protagonists themselves or recognised, through empathy, by the young language learners. This is exemplified by the picturebooks Thunder Boy Jr., Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, How Smudge Came, I Hate English! and My Name is Sangoel.
