Using songs and stories to teach literacy in the bilingual classsroom where English is NOT the mother tongue

1. The importance of using songs and
stories to teach literacy in the
bilingual classroom
Jennifer Wilson

2. At the end of this session
you will:
1. Have learned how to identify a good
story book to use in a bilingual
preschool class
2. Have learned at least three new songs
to use in the carpet session
3. Have some activities to take away and
try out in your own classes..

3. Routines an essential part of
preschool classrooms
 Start
every class with your own personal
welcome song.
 Make it fun, fast and multisensorial
 Always bring your bag of tricks. (Puppets,
magnet board figures, realia)
 Talk about the weather, who’s missing?
The date, the colour song, the body song
an action song. Take out children in small
groups to sing a song each day.
 Tell a story

4. Keeping Kids on Task
 Getting
students attention.
 Keeping attention focused
 Routines and class rules
 Use total physical Response (TPR)

5. Criteria for selecting a story
book
 The
story should have a repetitive
element.
 The text should match the pictures.
 Should be cross curricular
 Text should be big enough to read
together
 Easy for children to retell. A simple plot
 The story should have a beginning a
middle and an end

6. What to do with the books
Big Books, little books, lots of books
Have lots of books available
 Shared reading on the mat
 Repeat the story
 Retell story and get the children to learn the chunks of
the story by heart
 Act out the story
 Retell the story making changes
 Always have visual support. Magnet board figures

7. Using a reading scheme
Using a reading scheme is another way of
progressing.
Oxford Reading Tree is my personal favorite for
non native speakers of English.
Follow the adventures of the Family

8. The same story can be used for
one or two weeks
 Good
story tellers do not read the story
to children.
 Good story tellers tell the story
 So you need to have practised before
reading it to the children
 Listen, Join in, Retell
 Use drama to help children get to know
a text. Act out the story

9. The Toys Party

10. Why use songs?
 Music
is an amazing tool for teaching
languages, especially to children. Good
songs will bounce around in a learner's
head long after their lesson is over. Young
learners pick up vocabulary, grammatical
structures, and the rhythm of the language
simply by doing what they already love to
do...singing. Kids take songs home to
share with parents.

11. What songs work for you?
Find songs that tie in with topic units.
 Always use actions to accompany the songs and
help understanding.
 Lean your favourite songs and build up your
repetoire
 Between 50 and 60 percent of the oral session
should be spent singing.
 It helps to build a passive vocabulary and helps
pronunciation and stress.
 Use youtube if you can’t sing

12. In a cottage in a wood

13. Great resources for songs
and stories
 http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.or
g/en/
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/
 http://supersimplelearning.com/

14. THANK YOU!