A wordless picturebook in pre-primary foreign language education: Mediating deep discussions

Objectives for foreign language education in contexts of low language exposure tend to focus on the learning of discrete language items, ignoring the broader benefits which can include the development of a respect for others. Generally, picturebooks are selected for the words they contain and, too often, little relevance is given to the images, thus the sharing of wordless picturebooks is unusual in this particular context. Wordless picturebooks might also demand an elaborate verbalization and so, for learners with very low English proficiency, recourse to their L1 may be required. The empirical study presented here is being undertaken with a group of pre-primary children (4 to 5 years old) learning English in a low-exposure context in Portugal. With a view to fostering a positive attitude towards peers with different skin colours, a wordless picturebook, Colour of People by Mauricio Negro, was incorporated into a sequence of storytelling sessions in English. The objective was to discover whether the children were able to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of prejudice through interaction with this wordless picturebook. Data was collected from audio recordings of shared picturebook readlouds, the children’s drawings and a researcher diary. Results suggest that discussion around such topics requires extensive recourse to the L1 but that input in the L2 can contribute to children’s acceptance of difference in themselves and others. They also suggest that picturebooks with words and images may be a more suitable tool to facilitate this acceptance. Implications for classroom practices will suggest approaches to mediation and developmentally appropriate book sets