Background
During school closures from around March 2020 onwards because of Covid-19, we produced a series of Mini Picturebook e-Lessons. These are lessons for children to complete with teachers and/or parents (carers) at home. They can also be used by teachers of key worker children learning in a classroom context.
The lessons provide simple guidelines for children to watch and listen to a picturebook being read aloud by the author/illustrator themselves. The lessons are suitable for primary English language learners (ESL, EFL, EAL) and children will be able to:
- engage with picturebooks
- develop their English language and especially their listening skills
- find out and research interesting facts and information
- enjoy meeting and listening to the creator of the picturebook.
Easy to follow action verbs such as ‘predict, act out, think, personalise’ make learning comprehensible and explicit.
The mini e-lessons contain suggested activities to pick and choose from depending on the age, language level and interests of the children and time available. The lessons can be easily adapted to suit their needs.
Children are encouraged to share their work with their classmates and teacher to make learning motivating and collaborative and to create a virtual community of learners.
We hope children will enjoy and learn and that these lessons offer some support for primary English teachers trying their very best to teach English online. Gail & Tatia for PEPELT
How-To
- Share the e-lesson link or QR-Code.
- Inform children they will follow these steps and support children as necessary.
| Step 1 The Cover | Step 2 The video read-aloud | Step 3 The video read-aloud | Step 4 Your Voice | Step 5 Your Work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Look at the cover to predict, research information and check key words. | Listen and watch (A) the picturebook creator reading aloud for general understanding. Tell children they are not expected to understand every word. | Listen and watch (B) the picturebook creator reading aloud to develop observation, listening and comprehension skills. | Add your voice to make personal, cross-curricular, and intercultural connections. | Share and evaluate your work with your classmates and teacher. |
Completing the evaluation sheet
Negotiate with your class whether the evaluation will be a personal activity or a shared activity with you and the class. Guidelines are below for the latter.Depending on the children’s age and level of English, allow them to use their own language or shared classroom language for their evaluation. This will enable them to give more detailed responses.
Part A: Personal response
Ask children to answer and complete some or all of the personal response questions and sentence stems. This can be done either as an oral or written activity and can be done individually, in pairs or as a class discussion.
Part B: Self-evaluation
Ask children to evaluate how well they did by drawing the corresponding face in the books. Lead a class discussion. Help children identify what they need to revise or understand better in their next learning journey. Once the children have gained some experience of how to reflect on and evaluate their own learning, they will gradually start asking themselves the questions independently.
Please note … Activities can be selected according to the age, language level and interests of the child. They do not have do do every activity. Adapt the lessons to suit the needs of your learners.
And finally … The author read-alouds can be listened to and watched purely for pleasure and enjoyment ! They will give children plenty of exposure to rich, authentic English. However, we do suggest you complete some of the Look at the cover activities to encourage children to make predictions about the story from the title and cover illustration, and to appreciate the picturebook’s different features.
PEPELT resources by PEPELT are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Picturebooks in European Primary English Language Teaching 