Picturebooks as vehicles for the road ahead together

Picturebooks are a magical, multimodal form of children’s literature and, in the field of foreign language education, have been considered a rich and authentic source of meaningful input for over four decades. Although associated with younger learners, it is now widely accepted that contemporary picturebooks are not age limited, for a good picturebook will invite readers of all ages to use their critical interpretative skills to reflect deeply on the often-complex issues they find there. Carefully selected picturebooks are valuable as resources for integrating other areas of the curriculum such as contemporary citizenship. They can become the vehicles to support and foster the development of necessary competences for the three pillars of democratic citizenship - Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.

In my talk/performance I will be sharing picturebooks with you that present opportunities for integrating contemporary citizenship issues into the language classroom - issues which, until now you might not have considered as part of a language teachers’ roadmap. My aim is to (re)introduce you to the picturebook, to signpost the compelling and challenging themes it can embody and encourage you to take a less-travelled route towards intercultural exploration and civic engagement. I will challenge you to adventure along a different route, to contemplate the role of language learning in education today and to consider picturebooks as the vehicles to help you get there.

Authentic and Experiential: Principles of Creative Approach to Language Teaching

Global changes and social dynamics of the last years have affected the ways we think, learn and teach. Current need for maximum flexibility and smooth adaptability has brought language teaching to close collaboration with research. Referring to findings from disciplines such as Psychology, Neurology or Computer Science, language teaching has experienced major shifts and blended with a range of soft skills. Creativity seems to be one of the most prominent ones, a phenomenon we can hardly escape.

Creativity can improve teaching, provide new tools for collaboration and increase motivation for learning, which is why it can be beneficial for teachers to understand the nature of creativity and its various types. This talk is designed to familiarise language teachers with the Creative Approach to Language Teaching (CALT). It offers a practice-oriented insight into ways creativity fosters community-of-practice, a style of work based on shared understanding between teachers and learners where learning happens through interaction and knowledge and skills are co-constructed. The talk presents creativity in the context of several theoretical concepts and addresses questions of creative potential, processes, situations and barriers. A number of working examples combining authentic and adapted materials, synchronous and asynchronous activities, as well as online, hybrid and on-site techniques will demonstrate the wide range of possible applications to language teaching creativity has. The talk participants will be exposed to authentic creative situations, they will gain hands-on experience with some best CALT practices, and have an opportunity to reflect on their own creativity and identify creative skills that could broaden their teaching repertoires.