Teaching Reading Skills With English Children’s Literature

=== dfd3e34e0066170f45687593859e61b54acb4116_508972_1 ===

Argument

Stories have always pleased children of all generations. They constitute a major contributor to the child's broadening horizon.

Stories highlight the features of the characters giving the child the opportunity to learn how to distinguish the beautiful, ugly, good from evil and follow the positive characters.

Ch. Perrault, talking about the educational role of the stories that he has created so masterfully said: “No matter how simple and easy it seems, these stories exist, they are born, no doubt, among the children with a desire to be as the good, which end up being happy, also at the same time the soul is born evil with the fear of what they might happen if it would follow the wicked’.

In planning the stories one has in mind the fact that children are watching and talking with their parents and infers that some of them perform some actions at the urging of adults and others cannot refrain from certain actions which are prohibited.

The work done to follow and use teaching techniques (illustration, layout, tape recording, using computers, filmstrips, handling puppets, etc.) is designed to activate more children, making them co-participants, acquiring the sensitive and ethical message sent.

The child allows you to step into his world if you know how to support him and if you know how to choose what he enjoys.

In my research I realised that what the child wants must be expressive, aesthetic and well done, all of which have been adapted as requirements which are irreplaceable in making the training material. Vivid colours draw the images used in movement and expression and by making the frameworks and characters. Also, by highlighting the expressiveness of the characters in different situations, each array transposes the child into a world of beauty that must be understood and felt.

In addition to the stories, one must use drawings of postcards and paintings made from fabric, other materials from nature and drawings made by the collage technique, enriching the teacher's portfolio with this “magic satchel’.

Through the powerful emotional impact of the text, the stories are a true moral universe of features, creating a favourable environment for the development of language and thought. They produce a strong impression on the imagination and sensitivity of children, and when the “magic satchel’ is open, they see their face and those around the world which is transposed in tabs with a picture or pictures that give a voice to the magnificent and illustrative tales of childhood.

Teaching students to write and speak correctly their native language is proof of patriotism, and learning and practical application of the uniform rules of the language is also a patriotic duty of the students, a sense of love and respect for their national language.

The continuous learning of the Romanian and English language is a duty belonging to every citizen of that respective homeland.

The element of continuation and preservation of the national Romanian and English science thesaurus was inherited from generation to generation and continuously enriched. Without a proper assimilation of the Romanian and English language, one cannot conceive the future intellectual development of children in school and their appropriate training to other disciplines and social work.

In this paper, I have discussed an issue that concerns us all teachers or should concern us, which is to find the most appropriate method to discover the creations of childhood’s message and how is his reading content perceived by secondary school children.

We concluded that the teacher is the one who gives life to the methods and the quality of training, depending on the pace and quality of the entire educational renewal, including technological work. Stories must be presented and used through a wide area of multiple methods and teaching options; it occupies a central place in how to make children vibrate at the beauty in life and art.

The teacher, who is a connoisseur of children, forms methods of education, and who loves his job and loves children, has the noble mission to establish mobility and flexibility training and the development of intellectual abilities such as: creative imagination with its variants, creative thinking (flexibility, fluidity), conduciveness to learning through research, discovery through intellectual effort and the creative type.

To combat the errors surrounding students, certain measures must be taken, such as: explaining the meanings of new words at every age level and vocabulary, using games, and specifying the restrictions to use regional terms and phrases.

Introduction

School has the noble mission to prepare children, youth for social age. But the social life presupposes the existence of language. As stated by I.D. Lăudat “one cannot participate fully in society without mastering this instrument of liaison and social progress’ (Lăudat, I. D., 1973, p. 23).

Language serves to acquire theoretical and practical knowledge in the various disciplines, moral formation of the students’ profile, in the moulding and modelling of the consciousness younger generations.

The harnessing content in terms of formative educational lessons is one side of the educational reform surrounding priority. As a means of communication, language is learned in successive stages: first the family, then in institutions for secondary school.

Literary criticism among the great humorists is located on a branch of the world; humour is an important note to childhood’s creation. He is a highly original writer due to his peasantry humour. The art of oral storytelling is easily found in its expression, the style is loaded with popular wisdom of expressions.

Childhood’s creations are the most popular among children. His story books remain a means of culture and education, even in the age of modern technology, computer and internet. His stories can be considered as educational games, with a simple composition, a focused action and a profound moral teaching. Children exploit these teachings in any language and literature classes.

Some students may be accustomed yet with small text narrative technique and adopting a moral attitude to the facts of the civic character. Regarding small children, teachers need help to choose, to decide, to express their ideas freely in a fair and consistent language in terms of lexical and grammar. The emotions and feelings of children at small ages occur spontaneously and alive, the joys and sufferings of children live intensely positive in characters, moving smoothly from one feeling to another.

The teacher should show flexibility in the selection, organization and planning of the learning content as well as the adaptation of the content in the age of the children, their needs and interests.

At the same time you have to be creative and encourage the students' creativity in communicative activities. The image of a loved and esteemed teacher due to his work always remains in the consciousness of students, regardless the age.

Childhood is registered as a personal collector, but as an original writer transmitting through both childhood memories and stories, testimonies and a wise way of thinking and living off his people, an unparalleled literary language that retains the popular background as the most valuable asset.

The vast work of childhood stories offers a monographic picture of the English society in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the sense that social media has captured the most diverse and specific types of these realities: country houses usually wretched palaces, shops, small workshops of craftsmen, inns, schools, debtors (related strictly biographical episode ) – all in order to create a believable image of the English world a century and a half ago, in which the characters are conditioned and dominated largely by the  environmental aspect (social and economic forces), age and heredity. It is a universe in which the measure of all things is on money, wealth and hence position in society, issues that slow (even abolished) feelings.

For an English teacher (but for any other format, generally speaking), it has become effective and it involves a constant effort to achieve flexible processes and products, but quality, core values and reconfigurations practice dictated that we could work on our own, it challenges this by adopting an attitude of lucid selectivity in achieving its methodological construct while it becomes a requirement clearly defining our contemporary teacher.

Linguists show that there is a certain teaching strategy applied for all the concrete educational activity by being a teacher, the nature of the strategic decision and the quality of decision is determined by the pedagogical skills of the teacher.

Other linguists encourages teachers towards specific items in a variety of models, showing that any research which was conducted over the last decade has revealed that any particular model to be superior to others in determining success in learning, as measured by scores on various tests because this is not really their mission, but of teaching students how to learn and how to think in different ways. Also, teachers can turn to several models in order to harmonize teaching styles preferred by their students’ learning manner, but simultaneously may try to broaden their repertoire beyond their style of learning and thinking.

Chapter I

The importance of studying language and literature during secondary school

The education of our mother tongue is the soul of all because the knowledge one will acquire rests upon the notion of what makes a man a useful member of our society. It is for people specifically how the reflection of ordinary reality and proper material for the materialization of thoughts and feelings the main means of communication, influencing and coordinating actions in relationships and their manifestations, the most valuable tool of knowledge. Therefore, the language can be considered one of the most important factors of cohesion in the spiritual development and social progress.

Our mother tongue is spontaneously acquired during the first years of life, throughout the social life in the relationships between children and adults, the practice representing the initial stage of language learning. Subsequently, its improvement is achieved by the many and varied contributions of which the most substantial and effective part is taken by the school.

The study of the English language and its literature has a very special significance in shaping the multilateral school youth. Without the proper acquisition of the English language one cannot conceive the future intellectual development of school children and their proper preparation in other disciplines as well as a link to social activity.

The formulating functions and the main objectives of the English language and literature as a school subject in the middle ought to be remembered, first just as an instrumental function, which works in all English departments: reading and writing, oral and written communication.

The importance of this function follows from the fact that in order to achieve them, almost half of the total number of hours of the educational framework plan for the affected class is learning, reading, writing, communication. The following classes, even if the number of hours for the English language and literature study is small, it is maintained at about one third of the total hours in the educational framework plan, and a chief objective improving techniques of intellectual work remains.

Under the new curriculum, the central objective regarding the study of the English language and literature in secondary education is the development of basic oral skills and written communication with children and their familiarity with literary and non-literary texts significant from the point of view of students. It also aims at structuring the students a set of attitudes and motivations that will encourage and support further study of the English language and literature.

The current syllabus in English Literature replaced the three compartments of the object-reading, reading and communication – with a communicative-functional model suitable not only for this specific subject, but also how to structure itself in child's proficiency communication. Specifically, this model requires the integrated development of capacities of perception and oral expression, respectively receiving written messages – reading / reading – and written expression. Moreover, communication is nothing but the concrete operation in fusion with four skills (receiving oral messages, speaking, receiving text message reading and reading / written expression).

Textbooks were revised and deletions were made, replacements, restructuring texts, passages, and illustrations. Based on the new programs, alternative textbooks (two, three, sometimes four for each compulsory) were developed and are currently used in the classroom.

The development and implementation of the curriculum components will cover a longer period of time, especially since it is the first time that the curriculum suffered major changes. Therefore, it is expected that the implementation will always be accompanied by a discussion of the results, but also some progressive corrections are required from time to time. The initial and on-going training of the teacher will be enhanced so that it does not just accompany in order to precede dynamics in the special curricular process.

In each class the new material is based on knowledge acquired by students in previous classes about the topic. As a result gradual learning process on the one hand exercises and strengthens and systematize knowledge included in previous class programs, on the other hand is extended continuously from one class to another in the sphere of knowledge, developing skills and correcting expression.

The unified vision of compulsory education, basic procurement cycle (at the end of each lesson, each student will have acquired new knowledge regarding the topic in question) and development cycle occupies a well-defined function and specific tasks. Instructional activities – small class teaching activities organically integrated unified system of training and education of school youth and targeting perspective, the formation of the student’s personality, armed with some basic elements of culture, science, art and contemporary art.

For the first four grades, familiarizing students with the tools for intellectual work primarily with reading and writing, is the essential content of the whole business, the basic function. This is the specific role of secondary school – considered a prominent contemporary teacher – to provide solid base properties of various cultural tools without which all further development would be doomed.

Learning to read as a main tool for learning and training activities of students is a prime objective of a school. It can be said that the whole development of students, both in school and in life, depends on the extent to which they have mastered the tools of intellectual work, first reading, to the point that they will be self-ways. The training and development of the student’s ability to orient in a text which was read is an essential task of secondary education. Establishing the reading technique is subordinate to the task of teaching students how to use the manual generally, in other words, to teach them how to learn.

The greatest number of hours in the framework of secondary school education is enshrined in the four years of study, just reading, which is a discipline of education in the curriculum area ‘Language and Communication’, with clearly defined objectives, and the content and an appropriate methodology.

For secondary education, it is essentially a harmonious development of every child’s personality, in order to provide children with an education on the natural, cultural, and social aspect of these children with the basics of reading, writing, calculation and perhaps information processing.

The fundamental purpose of teaching the English language and literature in Romanian and English schools is the formation of correct habits of speech, clear and nuanced, oral and written. Their content is widely varied regarding the reading lessons horizon and circle of knowledge of children; they form a large number and a wide variety of ideas and concepts.

The explanatory reading of literary texts containing a child is an important source of knowledge of reality. Literature in general is a form of knowledge of reality through art and image. The distinguishing feature of literary works as forms of knowledge of reality, is that they give us a synthesis of reality and artwork shows us the essential and general materialized particular individual, but typically, influencing, not only thinking but also having feelings of consciousness. The texts of the great classics are valuable, influencing the imagination, feelings and thinking of the children.

The literary reading of textbooks has a great educational influence on pupils. Many literary texts reflect the moral traits of the new man, love of work, courage and ability to overcome any difficulties. Met in some works, in the heroes of their age, children see in them friends, they are close and they understand them, and whose deeds can be compared with theirs. Children found in such texts answers to questions of interest to them; they put on a place their beloved characters.

One of the main aspects of the student expression is vocabulary. Therefore, the interest in this problem has increased. Throughout elementary school, the language learner develops from one class to another, so that by the end of the fourth grade, it has doubled its vocabulary since enrolling in school. An important role in speech development the pupil plays is offered by others, especially by the teacher. In daily relationships with the children, the teacher must use clear speech, expression and smooth to exert a positive influence on schools.

The contact with the literary work leads to the formation and consolidation of a correct reading, intelligent and expressive, enrichment, activation, and tinting child vocabulary, learning the correct grammatical structure of the language, by improving the manual work as the main tool of individual work. Enriching vocabulary involves progressive enlargement of the sphere of knowledge of students, their experience of life is the acquisition of new acquisitions to help build and develop their verbal behaviour. Ever since secondary school, the child have mastered the English language broadly, the system that speaks English, but the acquisition of new words and their proper use remain a permanent goal throughout life. At the end of school, based on the study of literature, students will get to the purpose of aesthetic value judgments in general, the works of art that come in contact, and especially on the literary aspect.

The program in English Language and Literature mentions that at the end of the fourth grade, students will be able: to master the mechanisms of correct reading of words and sentences, read a current, properly paced speech, gain expressive reading, respect punctuation, logical breaks and use of accents, read consciously; specify the proper sense of the word and the figurative texts studied, using them in new contexts; tell oral narrative texts on the main ideas and master techniques of writing and story summary.

The detection criteria correct understanding of the literary content is intertwined with the ability to explain their individual. Throughout the school years, students can acquire the ability to formulate their own opinions, to state preferences and unwritten coordinates of a value system within the confines of artistic ideal that is consistent with social progress.

Focusing on the characteristics of the process of reception of literary and training aimed at value judgment, the study of literature is part of the overall action to optimize education and specifically advocating reunification formative learning, helping thus school to extend their knowledge, enrich spiritual life and life experience by engaging in the process of knowledge affection, feeling enlightened by reason.

From this perspective, taking into account the specific characteristic value of judgment, it is particularly important as the teachers in the teaching of literary texts from different literary genres and species, to have a summative assessment, in teaching English literature to be able to inform on how students move from teacher assessment issued to that the personal preferences of some states argued works. It is equally important to know and how the assessments made by students in the style of various genres indices take into account certain general aesthetics in the light of which express personal preferences and value judgments.

Furthermore, communicative fluency does not imply loss of grammatical accuracy, instead, they are interrelated.

The Grammar Translation Method

It is the classic method considered simple and effective (Stern, H. H., 1996, p. 453); whose main objectives are the study of grammar, the vocabulary and literature.

The approach is deductive, focusing on conscious learning. Ability to perceive written messages and written expression ability are the most practiced skills.

The teacher’s roles are: manager, coordinator and evaluator of student interaction in class taking place, especially between teacher and students (front approach). Correcting students is very important because the emphasis is on accuracy.

The Audio-Lingual Method

It was developed in the USA during the Second World War. The main objective is that students learn to use language in a communicative automatically.

Vocabulary and grammar are presented as dialogues that are learned through repetition and imitation. Grammar is taught inductively. Exercises that develop the ability to perceive written messages and the ability to express oneself in writing are based on communicative activities.

The techniques used are: dialogues, role play, rehearsal, grammar and vocabulary and the language of the students are not used.

The teacher is the one who controls it offers students and the language model; students are imitators of this model. There is interaction between teacher and students and between students. Errors students are not considered essential. The rating is oral.

Presentation, Practice, Production

This is the British version of the audio-lingual method, notes (Harmer, J., 2004, p. 80). It consists of three stages. In the first step the teacher introduces language elements to be assimilated.

The third stage concerns the use of language and assimilated presented in an original and authentic to students.

Just as with audio-lingual vocabulary and grammar is taught inductively. Communication comes first, language being used. The teacher is the one who coordinates. Because it is a method based on communication and assessment is still that way.

The Direct Method

The inventor is C. Berlitz method. Its main objective is to teach students to communicate in a foreign language. No translation is allowed, the teacher using real world images, pantomime to suggest meaning. Language is not used at all.

Grammar is taught inductively. Students practice vocabulary in context. All four dimensions of teaching are developed: oral expression ability, the ability to perceive oral messages, the ability to perceive written messages and written expression ability. The techniques used are: conversation, reading aloud exercises, compositions, and repetitions.

The teacher’s role is to be a partner of the student. Interaction takes place between teacher and students and between students and students. Self-evaluation is often used. There is no formal assessment; it takes the form of an interview and drafting a written text.

The Silent Way

It is a method introduced by C. Gattengo basic principle stating that teaching should be subordinated to learning. Students have an active role, being responsible for their own learning. They practice a lot, the main areas that the focus is pronunciation and grammar.

All four dimensions of teaching are developed: oral expression ability, the ability to perceive oral messages, the ability to perceive written messages and written expression ability. Native Language is used only when necessary.

The teacher’s role is to help students. The teacher is silently but very active; speaks only to give some suggestions. There is interaction between students. Mistakes are considered normal; students are encouraged to be self-correcting. The emphasis is on continuous assessment.

Suggestopedia

The inventor of the method is G. Lozanov. The method consists in applying the study suggested pedagogy developed in order to help students overcome barriers to learning. The main objective is to accelerate the learning process using mental powers. Students stay as comfortable as possible (loose stools, music, a pleasant atmosphere). They get new names and new jobs, along the course and even creating new biography.

There are two stages of the lesson: one receptive and active one. Students participate in various activities: read, interpret dialogues, practice games, dramatizations.

Grammar is not considered very important. Language of students is used if necessary. Mistakes are not corrected immediately, focusing on fluency. There are no formal tests for evaluating the student’s performance in the classroom.

Community Language Learning

The method comes from learning advisors, developed by C.A. Curran, who saw teachers as linguistic counsellors. The main objectives are learning the language in a communicative and learning about their own learning. Emphasis is placed on communication, development, pronunciation, the ability to perceive oral messages, the ability to perceive written messages and discussion of grammar elements. Students’ native language is used so that they feel safe. Interaction takes place both between teacher and students and among students. The teacher’s role is similar to that of a counsellor who supports and encourages students. Mistakes are corrected by the teacher. The assessment consists of an oral or written test at the end of the course.

The Total Physical Response Method

It is introduced by J. Asher. Method attaches great importance to developing the ability to perceive oral messages. One of the most important goals is for students to enjoy the learning experience. The method aims to reduce stress in language learning. The initial part of the lesson lies in modelling the teacher giving orders, making actions with students. In the second phase of the lesson, students demonstrate that they understand the commands.

In the initial stage the teacher talks and the students respond non-verbally; later roles are changing. The mother tongue is used only at the beginning, being the coordinator of student teacher, the students were his imitators. Students will talk when they feel they are ready. The teacher is tolerant of mistakes students. The assessment consists of checking understanding and realizing activities.

Communicative Language Teaching

The main goal is fluency to students. The focus is on communicating the ‘real’ (Harmer, J., 2004, p. 85.) All four dimensions of teaching are developed: oral expression ability, the ability to perceive oral messages, the ability to perceive written messages and written expression ability. Grammar is learned through practice.

The language of the students is not used. The techniques used are: discussions, debates, role plays, written communicative activities, drama etc.

The teacher’s roles are that of a facilitator and a manager of student activity, but also their partner, especially the interaction taking place between students. Materials are authentic and interesting. Errors are tolerated, especially during communicative activities where the emphasis is on fluency. Students are assessed both orally and in writing.

Aspects of teaching and reception of stories during secondary school

The study of the English language and literature in compulsory education aims to develop oral and written communication skills of students and their familiarity with literary and non-literary texts significant from the point of view of small and medium school ages. It aims also to structure the students a set of attitudes and motivations that will encourage and support the study of English language and literature.

Any act of learning is conducted with good results by employing personal effort of the learner. Note that the instrumental function of reading, as a school subject in secondary school, has as main objective the students’ acquisition of knowledge.

Training the students’ ability to orient the text read, according to his specifics can be provided by explanatory lecture. Reading components offer multiple resources for recovery. The explanatory full text content reads, regardless of genre or species to which it belongs.

Most of the texts read textbooks or reading books for secondary school falls within a genre and species or literary passages containing replicas of different categories. The texts of the most numerous and accessible to secondary school belonging to the genre is epic and generally creates difficulties from a didactic point of view.

The textual approach is necessary to know the relationship between the author and the reality expressed by specific modalities. For secondary school, age is suitable for the narrative texts that meet accessibility requirements and develop themes within the knowledge of children. The closest to children are texts with actions in a fantasy world where anything can happen, with twists, which, ultimately, good will overcome evil, whatever form it takes.

Students are familiar with this fairy tale reading class in the fourth grade. Without resorting to a definition, without recourse to notions of literary theory, first reading (which can be repeated until the appropriation summary of the content), it is determined that the text that narrates something (an event, action). Students can ask questions:

– Who says? (The author).

– Who commits the acts, incidents recounted by the author? (These are the individual and collective characters).

This may, at first, as it’s a text that says something which arises the characters participating in these events. The child can understand the text, if led, to intuit action, carrying the more or less drama. He seeks the conflict between good and evil in fairy tales, where these two contradictory elements are well defined and honestly enjoyed good success, being always with the favourite hero.

There is thus an active, determined, might say, the innate tendency to want the triumph of good. This natural tendency of children can be used as a starting point for understanding how the author of the fairy tale, gradually organizes running the action, until the climax, which naturally attracts most children and then to the outcome that gives full satisfaction of the triumph of good over evil.

An important role in understanding the epic text has its exposition that provides the natural and the main characters during the action. The texts of these elements appear clearly from the beginning. Often, time is of no interest, because the facts and characters depicted are generally valid, the manifestations of fundamental human attitude towards life.

Often, though the plot is a brief moment of the subject, which determines the conduct of the action, sometimes even outcome. This time is usually immediately after establishing the place and time of the subject and his determination is meant to guide further the students’ attention on the course of the action.

The texts read by young school children, the activity is often reduced to one or two main ideas. Sometimes it is broader, encompassing many times.

The analysis of involvement shall be directed further to the reception and understanding of the main plot, which is the most exciting part for any reader. The analysis of the main plot offers great educational resources marking the peak moments of emotional experiences. The outcome may include or be supplemented by teaching, a maximum or a proverb, arising from the wisdom of our people, the concept of health on life, it remains the same: reading explanatory. It is a combination of reading along with explanations leading to the understanding of the text message.

Features in teaching the narrative text

An effective strategy must be simple and a dynamic adjustment for specific situations that may arise, to leave room for the creative intervention of the teacher. The activity performed by young school children requires tact and mastery of the didactic skills of the teacher, respect for age and individual peculiarities to blend the three dimensions of learning: instruction, training and education.

School age is the most conducive to accustom the child with books, of an appetite for them, stimulate and develop the imagination, vocabulary, thinking, spontaneity, creativity. The child begins to see the world with the eyes of a primitive man, for that fantastic explanation of the phenomena of nature, life and society is the most accessible. The child inherits fantastic thirst of the first people, and the story gives the first elements with which will make a picture of what is called the world of men.

By listening to stories, the child translates into the beautiful world and fabulous lives to the fullest in every moment, identifying with the character. Even if the child will soon exceed the stage where we believed the story will portray the truth, it will always remain an integral part of childhood. The child stays true to the popular stories, separating the nostalgia of them when their belief in the miraculous apart.

Many teachers were asked if in an age where science gains far outweigh the Millenary dream of mankind is useless to tell them fairy children. What effect can the “magic carpet’ have on the imagination of a child who knows the plane? What size will his astonishment reach, chasing the hero in his wanderings on the seabed? What effect would that have on the mirror’s magic, you know the TV?

Despite the invasion of modern technology, the story remains in the hearts of the children. Great storytellers themselves have realized its educational potentialities.

Charles Perrault says in the preface to his volume of tales (1695) that those at an early age have not clarified the concepts of good and evil, so it is necessary to coat childhood filled with magic and mystery of the story and fairy tale. They stir up the desire of children to compare with the best and also the fear of evil wicked falling because of their wickedness. Meaning that any method of education is to provide concrete ways of achieving effective operations in detail that rendered them in the act of teaching the teacher and students in the act of learning. This role they have teaching methods that are part of the method. The method could also be defined as a set of organized processes. It describes a method meant to present this series of processes integrated into a single flow of action.

The value and effectiveness of a method lies in the quality and efficiency of processes which it brings it together. In a method, processes can vary in number and position can change places without affecting the purpose intended.

The variety of processes makes the method more attractive, interesting and effective. The relationship between method and process is dynamic. There are situations when a method serves as a method in another method, as well as situations when a process becomes an independent method.

Educational methods and procedures are used in all disciplines, including Romanian and English, neither old nor new. Active methods may renew to meet the demands of modern education, and modern methods may become the traditional time. No method of education can be declared passive or active before being experienced. Any method rests a degree of activation. No method is universal. Importantly, however, to consider to what extent corresponds to the ontogenetic development and more significantly, to what extent is appropriate content that you submit and purpose which it seeks.

In recent years methods have been criticized reports, showing that it would have made the student in a passive element. Over 90% of school learning activities are conducted orally: teacher story, explanation, demonstration, and the student were forced to listen. Despite these limitations, verbal methods cannot be excluded completely. They can be customized and combined with modern methods, complementing each other.

Next, I will present some traditional and modern methods used in teaching narrative texts, showing their role and importance in the development of small vocabulary, by inspiring them to enjoy reading and stories.

Explanatory reading

Teaching students to orientate the text read, according to his specifics can be provided by explanatory lecture. Components of reading explanatory offers multiple resources to exploit fully the contents of a text read, regardless of genus or species to which it belongs. General methodological approach to reading comprehension involves the following components:

Preparatory work for reading;

A full reading of the literary text (usually reading model): reading the excerpts and explain unfamiliar words and phrases;

Analysis of fragments.

Removing the main ideas (development plan ideas):

Generalizing conversation;

Final reading (selective roles):

Creative activity in connection with reading material (didactic game, motion game song, etc.).

Forms of self-involve classes, read:

I will present and comment on the forms of self-involve in the order of reading explanatory menus stages:

Full lecture can be done independently, students reading the text beforehand to study it. In general, the texts belonging to the epic genre can be given, to be read independently as homework.

Home or in the classroom, students can be given independent charge of mapping the fragments, focusing on the main points made ​​by (logical criterion).

This step is performed in the second hour of reading. Each fragment represents a logical unit in the structure of the entire reading. Usually the text's narrative delineates the criteria defined fragments, or their internal structure or the conduct of the action itself. Content (thematic ideas, etc.). Can be removed after reading the full text, setting out:

– What is the main idea of the text?

– What other ideas is also drawn from the action?

Fragmentation of literary texts work can and must be realized through previous training: Let the main ideas formed either by the teacher or by the authors of the manual; main ideas are given only for a part of text fragments, asking the students to identify suitable fragments for each idea. The rest will be delimited text fragments through personal effort of the students.

In fourth grade, students should divide themselves or by the teacher given text. The manual provides no guidance fragments sharing.

A productive form of labour techniques familiarizing students with reading the book is going. The teacher gives each student the task to read the text silently to select words and phrases us (value expressive). It's better to ask students to indicate the synonyms unfamiliar words and phrases (referring to a school dictionary), introducing those to new contexts.

An effective form of self-involve is selective reading, the teacher asking students to read certain passages or passages usually very educational and artistic value. Those involved are used as answers to questions or topics of teaching formats for analysis of texts. Both questions and topics should seek effort thinking from students. Through data themes, aims equally to reading and writing. An effective form of written matter is the copying of certain parts of the text. Any written theme must be preceded by practicing the act of reading.

Conversation is the method of teaching, teaching capitalization consisting of questions and answers. It is a word that means the exposure, but more active than this.

Heuristic conversation is such as to lead to the discovery of a new student. Some contemporary authors even suggest a form of learning through guided discovery. In the form of a series of questions and answers at the end of which result, as a conclusion, the truth or a novelty for the student involved in the learning process.

Conversation examiners (catechetical) whose main function is finding the level at which the student knowledge at a time. It differs from the heuristic in the sense that it is not mandatory formation systems or series of questions and answers.

Conversation in actuality is really active, multi-directional, called conversation-debate. Requirements are addressed on the one hand students, i.e. they can be involved in the discussion only when you have (a) the information involved in the problem, (b) the method should investigate the scope of the debate and (c) the ability to understand the points the views of others.

Storytelling is an expository method in which an oral form of narrative or description which are portrayed through facts, events and happenings distant in time and space, natural phenomena, geographical landscapes, etc., that a student cannot know otherwise. The aim is to provide an amount of intuitive images and representations on which can then be developed certain generalizations. The teacher must be an excellent storyteller using an expressive language, with appropriate intonation and gesture, showing approval and admiration for events organized. The story may be accompanied by photos, drawings staff, power point, making the students to follow the events tense.

Childhood’s works recount with great pleasure by children in reading classes. In class, students tell by pictures or texts after reading the teacher.

Role play or role playing is a method of application and use teaching psychodrama, psychotherapy method created by J.J. Moreno in 1921 and entered into circulation, especially after 1934. Nowadays, role play is considered an active teaching-learning method based on simulating the functions, relationships, activities, events, systems. Students are regarded as some actors of

Social is preparing and forming certain abilities, beliefs, and attitudes. I think that role play can be introduced in the lesson at all times when the teacher deems it necessary:

– In the introductory part of the lesson, if they are to familiarize students with certain actions;

– During the lesson, to restore or capture the attention of students;

– At the end of the lesson, if the game is aimed at verifying or systematize a set of knowledge, skills and abilities.

Role play occupies a special role in active learning.

This method enables pupils cognitively and effectively putting them in different situations. They interpret certain roles, imitating characters. Reveal the correct or incorrect behaviour in certain situations. Check the correct behaviour and collapse the wrong format.

Modern methods in addition to traditional ones, helps the student to seek, to search, to find one or group knowledge to appropriate them, to find solutions to problems, process knowledge, to reach reconstructions and re-systematization of knowledge. There are methods that teach the student to learn to work independently and in groups.

Usefulness of education is an essential component of improving the educational process is most closely linked to the personality of the teacher, the teacher’s mastery of his creative spirit of initiative and his commitment. A fundamental orientation to refine the methods of education which consists in understanding the methods must also be a learning tool for teaching the child not only because the current requirement is to equip children not only with knowledge but also methods of knowledge reality with effective learning strategies, techniques specific activity of acquiring knowledge.

Classroom experience, we found that applying these methods may not be effective without relying on traditional methods ignored lately. Many teachers and teachers in their teaching focus on modern methods, active and refuse and refuse to recognize the importance of old classic without which the assets would not be effective.

Approaches, methods and techniques of teaching language skills

1. Behaviourism – Audiolingualism

L is a “taken for granted’ passive process, a mechanical process based on the stimulus (hearing spoken chunks of language) – response pattern (identification and organization of these into sentences, i.e. recognition and discrimination of sounds and words, recognition of intonation patterns, rhythm, rather than understanding of meaningful language stretches). The techniques used mainly consist in repeating, imitating and memorizing of prefabricated language, while totally disregarding cognitive processes.

2. Cognitivist – Total Physical Response, The Natural Approach

L is considered a more dynamical process of cognitive nature. Therefore the development of L skills focuses on comprehension (as a cognitive process) premised by the idea that understanding language facilitates learning (rather than acquisition). In point of techniques, learners are exposed to large amounts of listening material while asked to decode meaning and perform simple selection tasks (Audiolingualism); listening is immediately followed by production (The Natural Approach).

3. The Interactionism Approach (The Socio-Cultural Turn): CLT, The Post-Communicative Turn

The interactive, social and contextualized perspective of language learning focuses on connected speech (discourse) rather than on isolated pieces. There is also a shift from controlling on formal aspects of language to content and meaning, too communicative intent (purposeful listening). Information processing, while listening (sequential order of input, perception, recognition, and understanding stages) is coupled with a constructivist stance: listeners actively construct meaning according to their own purposes for listening as well as their own prior knowledge and experience. Prior knowledge is identified to schemata, further subdivided into content schemata (topic familiarity, cultural knowledge and previous experience with a particular field) and formal schemata (knowledge about text types – stylistic conventions as well as the structural organization/variety of formats). The socio-cultural context has gained ever increased importance in language learning as the process does not take place in a social vacuum. Admittedly, special attention is paid to the effects that status relationship between participants had on language behaviour (level of formality). In fact, it is pointed out that listeners engaged in face-to- face interaction must pay attention to this variable in order to determine which type of verbal behaviour should be appropriate when delivering a response. Nonverbal language is equally part of the social context in which listening occurs: body postures, body movements, facial expressions, facial gestures, eye contact, and the use of space by the communicators) as well as non-verbal paralinguistic elements: tone, pitch of voice, etc. Consequently, an understanding of all these aspects would provide important clues for interpreting what is being listened to and, in turn, facilitates the whole process of listening comprehension. Besides, there is the question of the cultural load (intercultural pragmatics) – different interpretation of non-verbal language, formulation of different speech acts and politeness issues, such as the directness-indirectness continuum.

To sum up, listening is considered as a middle vehicle for language learning, achieving a status of significant and central importance in both language learning and language teaching fields.

Listening skills and intercultural communicative competence

Activity

Select a representative scene from a film, brought in by the learners, which shows a given cultural topic. Prepare a series of questions divided into three phases (i.e., pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening) with the aim of activating, developing and reflecting on their cultural knowledge of such a topic while practicing their listening skills.

Visual listening

Pre-listening phase

– Do you think the topic of (…) is representative of the target culture and of your own culture? Why or why not?

– Which ideas come to your mind when thinking about such a topic?

While-listening phase

– Can you identify elements such as pauses, changes of intonation, tone of voice or periods of silence that involve cultural meaning?

– Which is the setting of the scene? Does it involve particular implications for the development of the situation?

– What is the participants’ relationship in terms of social status and power? Does such a relationship affect their communicative interaction? Would such interaction be different in your own culture?

– Which non-verbal means of communication can be identified (i.e., body movement, facial expression, eye contact, etc.)? Are they different in your own culture?

Post-listening phase

Reflect on the scene you have just watched and in small groups discuss the cultural differences that would arise if the same situation were to take place in your own culture (Uso´-Juan, Martınez-Flor, 2006, p. 41-42.).

Chapter II 
Creatures in children's literature 

To delve into the definition of the fantastic involves immersing himself in an ambiguous world, characterized by its eclectic nature. A universal concept, for all

Understood, but that responds to very diverse and varied definitions, all of them attempts to surround a fact subordinated to the imagination, whose borders are rewritten, expanded and retracted in each new work of the genre. Wittgenstein's sentence, the limits of my language are the limits of my world, it is extrapolated to the fact that the limits of fantasy are in the mind of the writer-reader to enter into them.

Many are the definitions that have been elaborated to try to concretize the essence of this term, and many are also the replicas that seek to besiege the imprecise limits of the same. Tolkien, as a recognized author of this genre, stated in his text "On fairy-stories", that the liberation from slavery of fact

 Observed is given through fantasy, that which is above the laws of nature, at least, those known so far. Todorov, for its part, an indisputable reference in any study of the fantastic, sees in the vacillation of reality, in the vertigo of events that escape sight and understanding, a narrative genre that moves Between the representation of the strange reality and the wonderful, and is articulated on a doubt raised and maintained by the narrator and communicated to the reader, about the reality or unreality of what is narrated. The French author will distinguish three types of content in his theory:

Fantastic, wonderful and strange. So the fantastic responds to the hesitation experienced by a being who knows only the natural laws, against a

Seemingly supernatural and inexplicable punctual event. The wonderful will refer to those supernatural (or magical) events that take place in alternative or secondary worlds, away from a "primary" real world, and where magic is the law. And, finally, he will understand the strange as those supernatural and / or extraordinary facts that finally find a rational explanation, being a mere illusion of the senses.

These three terms are mixed in some works and others, shaping the universe of the imaginary. However, the distinction between one and literature for children under this categorization. Therefore, Nikolajeva separated terms in search of a much more accurate definition in the world of children's literature: "Fantasy for children would probably fall under the category of the marvellous in his theory, since the young reader is supposed to believe what he is told, while the essence of fantasy for Todorov lies in the hesitation of the protagonist (and the reader) as confronted with the supernatural –which is anything that goes beyond the natural laws" (Nikolajeva, Maria, 1988, p. 39.).

As children we live the time as in another dimension, or rather their expression and feeling appears before us in a greater magnitude, which does not happen soon as enjoyable as it may be. All a privilege. Only time is variable, it decreases as we grow up, not only because it ends at any moment, but because it is appreciated differently, it is more appreciated and is uselessly hoarded – as happens to the people around Momo, dear girl who has Known to listen with generations of readers – to a point where we could make an important decision for life: that no one will tell us what to do, this or that or that there, as says the illustrator Patricio Betteo giving voice and reinterpreting a The mythical character of children's literature, Alicia: "we must take care of all our minutes, which are ours, and we must use them only in matters exclusive to our will." How wonderful to have such luxury.

Before arriving at the moment when there is no turning back for the perception of things, infancy gives room for the possibility of timeless episodes, daily but without rules – I take for example Elephant and Pig in We are in a book, by Mo Willems – fantastic adventures in which sleep, magic, unusual creatures and the surrounding territories richly invade the conventional world. All this often accompanied by a great sense of humor from authors like Rick Riordan, David Walliams, Wendy Meddour or John Dougherty.

For a long time in western stories involving children there have also been realistic stories, where everything is not possible but friendship and integrity, freedom and decision are discussed, stories that unfold in an adventure course overcoming difficult contexts; For example, racism and family and social abuse in the surroundings of Huckleberry Finn and his friend Jim, who are fleeing downstream from established norms, something natural in the spirit of children and youth.

And the youthful experience turns even more to exploration, to the alternate universes, to the supernatural, to the sense of existence and to what science and culture could offer in the future if we start to speculate, to figure out what the Reality if we have such or such cosmological or dystopian occurrences – as in the fickle futuristic story of Illuminae, Kaufman and Kristoff – various concepts that in some cases have managed to sneak into real technological inventions of human civilization.

On a plane of certain darkness that inhabits us, tales come to mind between magic and family memories, subtlety and complexity, survival to sleepy powers that are about to revive, mysterious beings who do not give way to Our unconscious or even to our understanding: an ocean almost as unfathomable as the explosion of the firmament, as it happens in the stories imagined by Neil Gaiman, who conceives parallel and sometimes shattering unrealities for his readers, boys and big.

Of course we can not leave aside the romantic aspect that is seen in many of the stories directed at children and young people, as in the nice case of Agu Trot, Roald Dahl's account of a secret, sweet and tenacious love , And ingenuity to achieve the reciprocity of the beloved; Or Jandy Nelson's intense disenchantment with the passions of Jandy Nelson's The Sunshine, whose narration probes through the abysses of lost halves of love from various bonds, but recreates itself in the ecstatic impulse and recomposes its characters thanks to the pleasure of Artistic creation that makes them experiment.

There is an extensive repertoire of authors and titles that bring from curiosity to fun, touching the suspense and planning on the passage from childhood to adulthood.

Up-to-date classical monsters, traditional and renewed ghosts, abandoned houses and midnight screams allow boys to project their fears and live them safe, in stories that today seek to incorporate new fears and appeal to humor.

From antiquity to the present, adults tell their children stories constructed with situations and terrifying scenes. Consolidated by the versions of the brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, versioned by other authors and the Disney cinema, the children listen, read and look on the screens terrible stories, to which have also added new monsters and vampires remixed. In the 21st century, horror stories enjoy excellent health.

Accompanied by father or mother, the child who reads – or the one who is read – is safe from horrible spells, punishments. "In stories of terror the child unconsciously projects his fears, his fears, his anguish, his pain, his anger that, through fiction, they become tolerable and allow to face reality," summarizes Rowinski.

But in addition to situating events in distant places or times, classical tales display infinite meanings through their well-known and studied functions: conflict of irreparable appearance, prohibition as the motor of transgression, challenge, hero's trials, Threat of life, magic object, possibility of finding allies, marriage and happy ending, among others figures, all analyzed by Vladimir Propp in Morphology of the story (Fundaments), a classic of literary theory. Through these functions, the classic stories allow us to project the fears (also classic) of the small reader: "Fear of darkness, death, to be devoured, to be abandoned by parents when a brother is born: every reader arms Through the scenes of fiction their own reading, which also always resolves with a happy ending, "says Judith Rodriguez, a psychologist specializing in childhood, who encourages to continue reading stories of fairies and ogres.”The classic stories also install a game, a" as if ", which allows to put together a different reality from the story. In that sense the game and children's fictions as part of the game are subject," says the specialist.

Why so many world-famous children’s are books British or American? Other countries have created great classics or a series of them: Denmark, for example, has Andersen's fairy tales; Italy has Pinocchio; France gave Babar to us; Finland created Moomintroll. However, the list of famous children's books written in English would easily occupy the rest of this note. One possible explanation might be that in Britain and the United States many people never finish growing. Sometimes the staging of maturity is very good but, deep down in the heart, they remain children and long for the pleasures and privileges of childhood, which they once enjoyed. They have reason to do so. In most countries being a child of school age is nothing special. For the first four or five years, she pampers and consents to both boys and girls, but then, they are often expected to become miniature adults as quickly as possible: responsible, serious, and concerned about their future. In the English-speaking nations, by the On the contrary, since the end of the eighteenth century poets, philosophers and educators have argued that childhood has something unique and wonderful; That to be young is to be naturally good and noble. It is perhaps no coincidence that the romantic glorification of youth that took place in the 1960s and early 1970s was not more noticeable in the United States and Britain; nor that American politicians invariably talk about our children whenever they want to give an emotional touch to their presentations to voters. Because childhood is considered a superior condition, many Americans and Britons are reluctant to abandon it. They tend to consider that they remain children for much longer than would be natural and cling to childish attitudes and entertainments. On vacation or in the privacy of the home they quickly return to earlier stages: they wear baby clothes, have fun with childish games, and sometimes read books for boys. Something similar can be said about the authors of this class of books. Whatever their nationality, children's fiction writers often continue to think and feel like children. They are spontaneous, dreamy, imaginative, and unpredictable. E. Nasbit spent many hours building a toy city with cubes and cooking utensils, and then writing a book about it: The Magic City.

Laurent de Brunhoff, who for many years has gone ahead with Babar, the series that his father created, is currently over 70 years old, but still climbs the trees with childish pleasure and skill. James Barrie spent his summer vacation, already an adult, playing Indians and pirates, and Lewis Carroll preferred the company of children to that of adults. Being people like this who writes so many classics for children, it is not surprising that often Take sides for children against adults. His books are subversive in the deepest sense of the word. They tease the adults and strip their ambitions and failures. They suggest, subtly or openly, that children are braver, more interesting, and more intelligent than they are, and that they have to disobey the rules they impose on them. Joanne K. Rowling, the Scottish author of the latest British children's classics – Harry's books Potter, which in addition to being brilliant have incredible success – clearly continues this tradition. It creates a universe in which children have special faculties, while adults are silly, cruel, or both. The secret power of his hero adopts some traditional forms of the popular tale: flying brooms, transformations, spells and concoctions. This, however, can also be read as a metaphor for the strength of childhood, full of imagination, creativity and humor. Like other famous children's authors, Rowling feels very close to her own childhood. Actually, I do not have to make any effort to think that I'm eleven years old again, he recently told Time magazine. The Harry Potter stories are inscribed in a contemporary Anglo-American tradition that starts with Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and resumes splendidly to writers like Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner and Diana Wynne Jones. Jones' excellent Charmed Life, like Rowling's books, runs in a school for witches and sorcerers for children that run in an enchanted castle. But what differentiates Rowling's books from her predecessors is, in part, a prolific and festive imagination reminiscent of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. More important still is the fact that his is a completely imaginary world with which the author shows a deep and constant commitment. Rowling has been imagining and developing her fantasy universe for six years before even beginning to write the first book in the series. He has already planned seven Harry Potter novels, one for each year Harry spent at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Witchcraft, an institution that, it seems, is located (like JK Rowling) somewhere in Scotland. Harry, Rowling's hero, is a witch by birth, but at first he does not know. When we meet him, he is already ten years old and his is the classic situation of a Cinderella: a poor and helpless orphan whom everyone despises and mistreats. He lives with his uncles, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, a very unpleasant couple, in a country reminiscent of Britain in the 1960s or 1970s, before there were Internet, digital phones and interactive video. The Dursleys live in a town called Little Whinging. Like most of their neighbours, they are Smuggles, people who do not have magical powers. They hate the mere mention of the supernatural and refuse to give Harry information about their dead parents. They were rare, no doubt, and in my opinion the world is better off without them, says Uncle Vernon. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia are as cruel to Harry as any stepfather or fairy-tale stepmother: they give him crumbs to eat and dress him in rags; they compel him to sleep in a dark closet full of spiders under the stairs and break their correspondence. Even worse, it is his son Dudley, an obnoxious, gluttonous and spoiled braggart who, with the help of his corpulent and hateful friends, turns into a Real hell the school life and homeland of Harry. For an imaginative child, the world is full of smuggles-people who do not understand; who invents stupid rules and does not want to know anything supernatural or unexpected things. The story of Harry also incarnates one of the most frequent childhood fantasies: the one that holds that the adults and brothers with whom he lives are not really his true family; that he is somehow different from all of them and has special gifts. Harry has an external mark of those gifts: a ray-shaped scar on the forehead, the result of his first confrontation, still an infant, with the evil Sorcerer Voldemort, Whose name most people fear even, pronounce. As in many folk tales, you can guess how a character is from his name. Voldemort, for example, combines the ideas of robbery, tomb and death in the English and French languages. The name of Harry Potter, for its part, refers not only to a craft aspect (pot, potter, potter, and potter), but also to English literature and history: Prince Hal and Harry Hotspur, brave, charming and Impulsive of Henry IV of Shakespeare; And Beatrix Potter, creator of another classic hero also charming and impulsive, the Rabbit Peter. At the beginning of each story, Harry Potter lives in exile at the Dursleys' home. Then, magic through, is rescued and enters another world, in a universe in which imagination and audacity have their reward. A huge and comic Londoner called Hagrid introduces him to a magical Britain, one of whose entrances is the back door of an old London pub, the Leaky Cauldron. After a shopping tour in which Harry visits a goblin-run bank And acquires some unusual school items, including a pointed hat for daytime use and the Basic Spellbook, board a special train bound for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which leaves the nine and three-quarters platform of the Kings Cross Station. The train and platform are, of course, invisible in the eyes of muggles. The Hogwarts School operates in a huge, ancient castle and very well equipped with towers, dungeons, ghosts, secret passages and enchanted mirrors and paintings. Among the subjects taught are Divination, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures. In many ways, however, Hogwarts resembles a classic English boarding school that, to keep pace with the times, is mixed and multiracial. The four houses that make up the establishment compete enthusiastically in the sport of school, Quidditch, a kind of cricket mix, football and hockey that is played on flying brooms and in which Harry stands out for his dexterity. As in many American colleges, the school population is divided into bold, geniuses, good guys and dangerous. Harry and his two best friends live in the house of the daring, Gryffindor, where, according to tradition, live the true brave. The Ravenclaw House emphasizes wit and learning, while Hufflepuff's boys are fair and loyal … and are not afraid of work. The bad guys live in the Slytherin House, whose students use any means to achieve their ends. Harry is a hero and also a local sports star, so it also attracts fans. But it is modest and so much admiration and attentions are as uncomfortable as to the own J.K. Rowling. But the boy has more serious problems than his shyness. The plot of each book focuses on the attempts of the dark forces to destroy it. As is customary in modern fantasies, from Lord of the Rings of Tolkien to Star Wars, there is always a lurking and powerful figure who wants to dominate the world. These characters often have something in common with the rebellious angels of Milton: at first they seem impressive, even convincing. There is something admirable about his longing for knowledge and power, while his followers, who only drive fear, ambition and revenge, are utterly repulsive. Harry, of course, always manages to escape from his enemies, but he is making it harder in every book. Rowling notes that, as time go on, the stories will become increasingly bleak. There will be deaths, he told Time magazine. Volume three is no longer so easy to determine whose side everyone is on. Those who at first seem friends may be enemies, and vice versa; And those who are good but weak can end up doing evil as a result of their own fear or foolishness. In the latest volume appearing in the United States, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Scabbers, a nasty but inoffensive looking rat, Turns out to be an evil sorcerer who, even when he takes the human form, has a pointed nose and very small, moist eyes. Rowling describes her characters with psychological subtlety uncommon in children's books and also in much of adult fiction. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a ragged goblin named Dobby is permanently torn between loyalty to his master and his desire to save Harry's life. Every time he is about to reveal his master's plans, Dobby bangs his head with the first thing he finds on hand and repeats I, Dobby bad!

One of the attractions of Potter's books is that good characters are not perfect. Harry stands out in the Quidditch game, but he is a student of average performance, not like his friend Hermione, who studies for fun and is a bit of a prude. Hagrid, the adorable giant, has real weakness for dangerous magical creatures: he considers the dragon he has as a pet and the huge spiders that live in the Forbidden Forest; they are tender and beautiful animals. The Brits, of course, are famous for their love of animals, and perhaps this is Rowling's sly commentary on some of the peculiar and even dangerous pets occasionally encountered by visitors to Britain. While Rowling's infant heroes are imperfect, They are generally smarter and more audacious than adults. Several of Hogwarts' most sympathetic teachers, while affable and wise, often have no idea of ​​what is going on around them. Others are weak and incompetent, or complete failures, such as the attractive Professor Lockhart, a true media addict who claims to have starred in the magical prowess of other, less photogenic sorcerers. Some go further and may even sell themselves to the Forces of Darkness or their representatives. Judging by the long series of reviews and essays that hailed the publication of the Harry Potter books; its appeal is wide and diverse. They can be read, for example, as a celebration of a pre-industrial world: Hogwarts Castle is lit by torches and heated by fire. The mail, in addition, is in charge of owls of different sizes, among them very small owls that only are used for local distributions.

As with most of the very good children's books, we can all find in them something that interests us. In the New York Times Book Review, Pico Iyer considers the stories to be nothing more than half-dramatic stories about life in an English boarding school (Eton, in this case), designed to train an elite in a system that other mortals can not follow. Just as at Hogwarts, he maintains, we are in an alternative reality in which none of the usual rules was valid. On the other hand, A.O. Scott thinks that being a sorcerer is a lot like being gay: you live in a hostile world governed by codes and norms to which no sense is found, and at a certain age you discover that there are other people equal to one.

Joanne Rowling herself, like Harry's, fits into the classic folk tale tradition. As we all know now, when writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was a young, single-haired, long-haired single mother who lived in Edinburgh thanks to public assistance. As he had no heating in the house, he put his little daughter in the pram and walked down the street until the baby slept. Then he would enter a bar, ask for a cup of coffee and start to write.

2.1. Michael Bond – A Bear called Paddington

According to Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture gives us the following definition of this toy: «Teddy bear is a toy bear filled with soft material which is a very common British and American child’s toy”. 

Teddy bears conquered the hearts and minds of children and also adults worldwide. Still, after all they are soft, cute and funny! They not only look nice, but also they warm the soul and calm when you're sad.

In the 21st century, on television and in video games there are a lot of characters that look very aggressive. Teddy bear is associated with warmth, love and a happy childhood.

These soft toys are popular in every country. However, Britain is clearly superior to many other countries in their love for them. In our project I will tell about the most famous British creatures. Each of them symbolizes something special. For example: characters of a books and cartoons, symbols of Olympic Games, cities or Charity Funds.

Paddington Bear was invented by English writer Michael Bond in 1958. The prototype of the character was bought by Mr. Bond as a present at Christmas in 1956. Teddy was wearing a funny hat and a traveling cloak. This gift inspired Michael Bond to write a series of stories about the funny and restless bear Paddington, who arrived in England in a box of oranges from Peru. He was named in honor of the station in London, where he discovered the Browns family. Bear had a small suitcase and a sign "Please look after this Bear." In October of 1958, the world saw the first book, "Bear called Paddington". The success was great. Mr. Bond wrote more than 20 books about Paddington. They have been translated into 40 languages. For more than 50 years of his life the good-natured bear is the most popular character in England.

The parents who are the most aware and accepting of the fantastic being are Mr and Mrs Brown in A Bear Called Paddington. Almost immediately upon the discovery of a small talking bear on the platform at Paddington Station in London, they agree to take him home to live with them: as Mrs Brown observes at the end of the first book, ‘It’s nice having a bear about the house ‘Though Paddington remains an animal in appearance and movement, he is more like another child in the family, whose peccadilloes are excused because he is different. Incongruity is the moving force of the stories. 

2. 2. Roald Dahl – The Big Friendly Giant

Roald Dahl despised adults almost more than the small heroes of his books. The purity without edges of the smallest, however, seemed fascinating. That contagious laughter and an endless imagination inspired him to create adventures where the elders were no more than obtuse antagonists. There we have Matilda, with parents fascinated by coupons and junk TV, or the incapable companions of the children in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

"I'm lucky enough to laugh at exactly the same jokes as the boys laugh at, and I think that's why I'm successful with them," Dahl said. Part of that charm lay in the words that were invented to make children's concerns more accessible.

The author coined 500 terms according to linguistic resources like those that Shakespeare used in his day and popularized more than 8,000 expressions. The publisher of the University of Oxford published in May a compilation of these words in the Roald Dahl Dictionary, but now they have gone a step further. As a tribute to the centenary of his birth, the most erudite dictionary of the world has included in its official version six Dahlismos and four other clarifications of his phrases made

You may laugh when reading Roald Dahl, but you can also learn a lot about how language works. When we grow up, it's easy to forget how much fun it is to play with words, but the beloved children's author never lost that playfulness.

Although grown-up readers can appreciate his inventiveness, it is clear that children came first for Roald Dahl. He wouldn’t include a pun that went above a child's head, and his wordplay is always aimed at entertaining them.

The book in which he is at his most linguistically playful is undoubtedly The BIG FRIENDLY GIANT . Language is a central theme in this book. It includes over 300 words that he invented, from 'biffsquiggled' to 'whizzpopping', in the language known as 'gobblefunk'.

Roald Dahl’s inventions are rarely pure nonsense words. He often starts with a word that children will know, then changes the ending or blends it with another word to make something that is new and funny, but that children can still understand. So for example, wonderful becomes 'wondercrump', and kidnap becomes 'kidsnatch'.

Sometimes he uses common English suffixes like –ful, –some and –wise, to make words like 'murderful', 'rotsome' and 'maggotwise'. At other times he adapts the meaning of an everyday word to make an 'extra-usual' one. For example, to whoosh means to move very quickly, and he makes this into 'whooshey' which describes a very strong smell (as if the scent had whooshed right up your nostrils).

Roald Dahl also loves what are called portmanteau words, where you blend two or more words together to combine their meanings. This is a common way of forming words in English. Take for example brunch (breakfast plus lunch), motel (motor plus hotel) and smog (smoke plus fog). In the invented language of gobblefunk, something 'delumptious' is both delicious and scrumptious; and giants don’t swallow and then gulp, they do it all at once in a single 'swallop'.

The invented words are not just in The BIG FRIENDLY GIANT . There is a whole bestiary of imaginary creatures which Willy Wonka needs to make his magic potions in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, including the 'proghopper', 'slimescraper', and 'wilbatross'. Roald Dahl doesn’t explain exactly what these animals are or what they look like, but that is part of the fun. Does a 'slimescraper' collect slime to eat, or is it covered in slimy skin? Does a 'proghopper' look more like a frog or a kangaroo? It can be great fun for children to try to describe or draw these creatures, and to invent their own names using the same techniques of word-building.

Like Dickens, who was one of his favourite authors, Roald Dahl delights in creating names that hint at the nature of his characters, and often his nastiest characters have the funniest names. We get inkling from his name that greedy Augustus Gloop will come to a sticky end in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and that Aunt Spiker in James and the Giant Peach is far from gentle and cuddly. In Matilda, the villainous headmistress Miss Trunchbull’s surname suggests a mixture of truncheon and bull or bully, so fits her perfectly; and the school that she runs, Crunchem Hall, sounds like 'crunch 'em', which is what she would like to do to her pupils. Dahl also uses one of his favourite techniques, alliteration, to create memorable names for both good characters (Willy Wonka and Bruce Bogtrotter) and bad (the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean in Fantastic Mr Fox).

As well as making up words that are fun to say, Roald Dahl loved making jokes from puns or mispronunciations. The BIG FRIENDLY GIANT uses lots of spoonerisms, which are made by swapping the sounds at the start of two words, so he says 'catasterous disastrophe' (for disastrous catastrophe) and 'jipping and skumping' (for skipping and jumping).

The most elaborate example is one where he brilliantly works his own surname into the mispronunciation 'Dahl’s Chickens' (for Charles Dickens), whose books the BIG FRIENDLY GIANT loves to read.

All this playfulness is enormously valuable. Roald Dahl’s writing can instil a love of language and wordplay that will stay with children through their lives. It encourages them to appreciate the richness and variety of language, but also to look at it critically. Why after all do we say frying pan, not 'sizzlepan' like the BIG FRIENDLY GIANT ? Why do the words that start with 'grob-' or 'trog-' always mean unpleasant things?

Children can also pick up literary techniques like alliteration and simile ('dead as a dingbat', 'fast as a fizzlecrump') and onomatopoeia ('lickswishy' and 'uckyslush'), which can help them be more creative in their own writing. Roald Dahl once said that he didn’t want his readers to get so bored that they decided to close the book and watch television instead. His joyfully inventive use of language is one of the ways that he ensured that would never happen.

2.3. A. A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of many children's books that appeals to both adults and children. Certain brands of sarcasm, punning, and "creative" spelling by Christopher Robin and various animal characters in the novel are laughable to both children and adults. Many forms of humor involve character and story actions. These forms of comedy are recognizeable to individuals at various levels of print literacy (graphophonemic comprehension). However, Winnie-the-Pooh is rich in visual print jokes (misspellings, homophones, etc.). These jokes are only fully understood by a reader that can comprehend the alphabetic codes and graphemes of the printed English language. Jokes also involve a second form of literacy–an advanced literacy of social actions, expectations, and maintenance that are required to understand the comic situations and the social consequences of character's behaviours and actions in the novel. Comedy then, can be a great aid in teaching for understanding. Graves pinpoints the place of cognitive and the social research in learning since Perkins' call for teaching for understanding first appeared. Graves reports the following: [i]n the world of learning, the cognitive revolution and schema theory are now part of the old guard, while constructivism, situated learning, and sociocultural concerns are just a few of the new features of today's learning landscape. […] A large part of [teaching for understanding] and its importance is the realization that in some ways schooling is not going well even for our best students, that all too few students attain the deep level of understanding critical in today's world .

It should be noted that the terms and concepts of child-reader and adult-reader, or child literacy and adult literacy, are not easily definable; we will speak only of an advanced or advancing literacy or reader, always using Perkins' idea of teaching for understanding and Graves' sociocultural comprehension as the framework for advancing literacy and referencing advancing (rather than advanced) readers. Although the goal of this article is a theoretical positioning of comedy as a useful, unique tool for teaching and evaluating reading practices, we, the authors, will also offer basic suggestions on how to turn a pedagogical theory of comedy into useful classroom plans. Because of the choice of Winnie-the-Pooh as a text, as well as this article's interest in literacy levels in which learners struggle with context, the examples and applied pedagogy will focus on age groups within Pooh's readership and reading level. However, because the context and incongruent frames of comedy in comic texts present potential problems to any reader's social literacy, communication literacy, semantic knowledge fields, and contextual framing, the pedagogy outlined in theory could be applicable to comic texts at any level of readership.

Current work in the field of literacy studies covers a broad expanse of issues. Briefly, these issues can be defined as orality's relation to literacy, the adoption of primary and secondary discourses, social learning, the psychology of learning, and psycholinguistic and cognitive research. Although this list is reductive, the list will suffice as context for a discussion of literacy, or, rather, literacies, in reading the Pooh stories. In understanding the differences in audience and interpretational strategies for child and adult, we shall turn to Gee's work in primary and secondary discourse adoption. Gee's research exemplifies the current models of literacy in two ways. First, his definition of literacy involves social practices in what Street defines as the ideological model" of literacy. This is a model which synthesizes the technical and cultural features of literacy into a relationship where literacy models do "not attempt to deny technical skill or the cognitive aspects of reading and writing, but rather understand them as they are encapsulated within cultural wholes and within structures of power. This model leads to what Swzed has referred to as a plurality of literacies, and this plurality is of utmost importance when understanding the comedy of communication and print literacy mistakes in Pooh. As will be explained in detail later, comedy works from dual cognitive schemas–the implicitness of the expected event and the incongruence of the unexpected event. Both the expected and the unexpected must be understood by the reader to get the joke. Thus, the cognitive process can explain the psychology of laughter. However, because cognitive schemas based in personal and cultural experience and knowledge are triggered, students' social literacies, or the lack of, are the pedagogical core of comedy because the cognitive frame depends upon the social knowledge and understanding (social literacy) to get the joke. Gee distinguishes between primary and secondary discourse acquisition, allowing general categories and criteria that apply well to the progress of a less advanced reader and their instructor who is teaching for understanding’. Gee's transition from primary to secondary discourse explains the process of becoming socially literate for both the more advanced and the less advanced reader.

Literacy studies identify a primary discourse, learned in the home, which allows one to interact with others and negotiate the criteria that comprise one's environment (physical, mental, emotional, etc.). Beyond this most basic aspect of socialization and acculturation, and thus beyond the kinship group, individuals develop secondary discourses for non-familial institutions and peer groups. These secondary discourses are constructed through cultural, regional, religious, and economic influences. Examples of these institutions and groups include schools, churches, agencies, organizations, and businesses that "command and demand one or more Discourses" be mastered fluently for apprenticeship and eventual membership.

Gee refers to these as the capitalized version of Discourse to mark such membership. (The authors will use the de-capitalized discourse to mark such membership and literacy.) One way to mark discourse adoption would be a reader comprehending the unexpected social and linguistic performances and choices in the literary action (and thus the humor) of the Pooh stories. Such literacy is constituted by an advanced understanding of social behaviours, routines, or consequences. Together these constitute social discourses. Recent research into reading utilizes Gee's distinction of acquisition and learning. Acquisition is informal and happens in one's routine, natural environments. Learning is a formal process involving "explanation and analysis" that "involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching.

Gee, Knoester, and others argue that reading practices and secondary discourse adoption should not be left to acquisition; rather, secondary discourse adoption must be an active part of formal learning. As this article argues in the next section, comedy theory suggests that an advanced, literate understanding of a discourse would be based in understanding the comic reversals of a particular discourse or discourses.

Since the introduction of cultural theory and social constructionist philosophies in the teaching of reading and writing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, critical literacy has become an emphasized component of the close reading process. Critical literacy dovetails with social literacy. Each is based upon the relationship of the individual/learner with the ideologies they or others are beholden to in particular contexts. Pedagogies based in critical literacy typically ask students to identify how identities are constructed and how hierarchical power relationships are structured, empowered, and enacted. Such pedagogies are commonly based upon cultural theories relating to gender, race, and class. These pedagogies build reading skills that provide a variety of reading positions for the student that also empower the student and promote equality and tolerance. Naturally, readers must first decode print and understand information and narrative; however, once information and narrative are understood, the ideological implications of their social discourse are open for discussion.

Winnie the Pooh is one of the best known characters in children's literature, which few know is that the inspiration of the popular work of Alan Alexander Milne was actually a bear from Canada, donated by the captain of the Army Veterinary Corps Canadian to London Zoo.

The story began in 1914, during World War I, when veteran Harry Colebourn decided to cross the Atlantic with a small bear from Winnipeg, Canada.

The then puppy was about four months with the Canadian troops.

Originally, the bear was named Winnipeg but was then simplified to Winnie.

"Christopher Robin had a teddy bear and changed his name to Winnie. Alan Alexander Milne was inspired to see the boy playing with the bear Winnie and other stuffed animals that had all sorts of adventures in the woods behind the house, "explains Mattick.

Winnie spent about 20 years at the London Zoo. During that time, it enjoyed great popularity among visitors.

"A lot of articles were written about how friendly and well-trained I was, I let the kids come up to them and did tricks for them. It was a very popular attraction for many years."

For Mattick, the friendship between Winnie and Christopher Robin was real.

"Christopher could access it, it was almost a pet. It seemed to be a true and unique friendship," he said.

Lindsay Mattick wrote a book about her grandfather's relationship with the bear named "Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear."

Chapter III 
The supernatural phenomenon in children's literature

All human activity has political nuances, and we can say that the anarchic and healthy sense of the marvellous (in masters such as Poe and von Arnim, as well as in specialists like Lovecraft) has fallen into the hands of dangerous filmmakers and literary journeymen whose aim is To destroy the aesthetic and activist value of "that artistic fear that belongs to the domain of the poetry". We believe it was Robert Aickman who said that the ghost story was the conspirator's last refuge (Murneau and Fritz Lang would not have denied it), and "shivering providers" such as Stephen King, Ann Rice, Coppola and other alarming names, Have transformed into an insipid but convenient article of consumption.

In this macabre dance the critics have not been left behind, and thus we have the priests of the esoteric sciences of linguistics, semiotics and psychoanalysis pumping them to investigate the phenomenon of terrifying literature, or to compete with it.

The perplexity we have mentioned in the first few paragraphs does not imply, of course, a disregard for horror literature in general and Lovecraft in particular. Rather, it is a fear of overvaluing (and therefore vulgarizing) something that is admired. Walter Scott had warned us long ago that the rope of terror must be pressed very occasionally, for is in danger of breaking. H. P. Lovecraft, in his remarkable essay on the subject, says something similar when he asserts that the fantastic "is a narrow but essential branch of human expression." This little book cool breeze between so much learned verbiage – possesses several virtues, but it reveals above all the fervour and the passion of its author for a subject dear to its life of artist. Even more admirable then, the balance and lucidity that it shows when exposing its aesthetic of the literary terror, the historical development of the sort and the critical comments on a considerable amount of writers. Seventy years after its conception, it remains the best compendium on this subject, along with Louis Vax's book, "Fantastic Art and Literature".

3.1. Jill Murphy – The Worst Witch 

Fear is one of humanity's oldest and most powerful emotions, and the most ancient and powerful fear is the fear of the unknown. Very few psychologists deny it and the fact of admitting that reality forever confirms supernatural tales as one of the genuine and worthy forms of literature. Against them all darts are fired from a sophisticated materialism, which so often clings to the emotions of experience, external events, and a naive as well as insipid idealism that opposes aesthetic motivations, advocating a purely didactic literature , Capable of illustrating the reader and "raising" him to an adequate level of affected optimism. However, despite rejection or indifference, fantastic tales survived, developed and reached their fullness, sheltered from their origin in a basic principle as deep as elemental, whose (although not always universal) spell is irresistible to the true sensitive spirits.

The scope of the spectral and the macabre is usually quite limited, because it requires a certain degree of imagination and a considerable ability to evade daily life. And there are relatively few human beings who can release themselves enough from the chains of the daily routine to correspond to the intimations of the hereafter. The narratives that deal with the feelings and common events or with the sentimental and trivial deformations of such events, will always occupy the first place in the taste of the majority: this may be just as these daily circumstances make up almost the whole of human experience.

The Worst Witch is a children's novel written and illustrated by Jill Murphy. The protagonist is Mildred Hubble, a young witch who is the worst student in the Academy for Bruges by Ms. Cackle. Mildred is very nice and enthusiastic and tries to get things right, but she tends to get carried away and do things without thinking, which causes her to get involved. Director Cackle generally understands and supports her, while Mildred's potions teacher, Professor Ogrum, wants to expel her as the worst witch.

3.2. L. Frank Baum – The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is the name by which is known the fictional character of the books of the series on the Earth of Oz, of the American writer L. Frank Baum that assumes the role of sorcerer to dominate Oz and to be recognized. The magician appears in the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as a resident of the Emerald City, founded by himself in the Land of Oz – a fantasy world populated by various peoples and dominated by the evil witches of the East and West. The sorcerer appears as an old circus performer, who had been an illusionist magician and would reach Oz in a hot air balloon out of control. Arriving there, to protect himself from the witches, he pretended to be a powerful sorcerer creating many tricks to appear to be truly a sorcerer. Wanted by the girl Dorothy Gale is revealed its secret like fake magician. After defeating two other witches, the magician attempts to return to the real world with her, building a new globe – but this accidentally moves away without her. The wizard returns to Oz, next to Dorothy, and a donkey in the fourth book of the series – although the Earth of Oz proper does not appear in the entanglement, since both, with the boy Zeb, a horse and a new friend of Dorothy – a cat named Eureka – face new dangers and adventures in a sub-world. In this volume, Baum reveals that Oz worked in a circus called Bailum & Barney, which in addition to three stalls, had a zoo.

In Kansas lives Dorothy Gale, an 11-year-old student living on the estate of her uncles Henry and Em. After Dorothy's dog, Toto, 'attacks' Mrs. Gulch, she files a lawsuit that allows her to get a court order to put Toto 'to sleep'. Despite Dorothy's request, her uncle’s feel forced to comply with the law. Then, Gulch decides to take Toto and put it in a basket inside its bicycle. However, the dog runs away and runs back to his home. Fearing that Gulch returns to catch Toto, Dorothy escapes. In the street, Dorothy meets Professor Marvel, a false fortune teller who leaves Dorothy fascinated with her false gifts. He understands that Dorothy fled from home and subtly persuades her to return. However, when Dorothy and Toto return, an enormous tornado appears, that moves by the plains towards the property.

The settlers Zeke, Hickory and Hunk run with Em and Henry for a shelter, closing the doors before Dorothy arrived, who did not have time to protect themselves with them. Dorothy runs into the house, when a piece of window is blown away by the wind flying through the room and banging on her head. Then she discovers that the house has been dragged from the ground by the cycle and is being directed towards the centre of the tornado. Looking out the window, Dorothy watches as the force of the winds raises the animals on the farm, a man paddling on a boat and even a sick woman.

Dorothy also sees Gulch pedalling her bicycle, but suddenly she turns into a horrible witch riding a broom and wearing a pointed hat. The house begins to descend, turning to the ground and landing with a rumble. Apprehensive, she opens the door to the house and her eyes are dazzled with a wonderful place. Dorothy is certain that she is no longer in Kansas, especially when, through a colourful ball, Glinda, the Northern Witch, appears, asking if Dorothy was a good or bad witch.

The reason for Glinda's question is that the Munchkins, the small inhabitants of the region, told Glinda that a witch collapsed a house on the Bad Witch of the East, killing her and freeing them from their evils. The Eastern Witch was crushed and only her legs remained, with ruby ​​shoes. However, a cloud of red smoke announces the arrival of the Wicked Witch of the West, who is equal to Mrs. Gulch, and threatens Dorothy trying to snatch her ruby ​​shoes, which remain at the feet of her deceased sister.

Since the Western Witch has no real powers in the Munchkins' land, before she could get the magic shoes, they appear at Dorothy's feet, thanks to a Glinda magic. The witch swears revenge in front of a terrified Dorothy before disappearing into another cloud of red smoke. Dorothy tells Glinda that she wants to go to her home in Kansas. Glinda can not help her, only the great and all-powerful Wizard of Oz. Thus, the Good Witch advises Dorothy to seek help in the Emerald City, where he resides.

To reach her destination, Dorothy must cross the Yellow Tiles. Before leaving, Glinda asks never to take off her shoes. On his way he meets a scarecrow who wants a brain and, as he will visit the magician, he might get one; thus, they decide to march together. Further on they find the Tin Man, who longs for a heart. Then appears a cowardly lion who wants to have courage, so he decides to join the group of friends in search of fulfilling their desires.

Chapter IV 
Reading skills with English children's literature

The methodology of work will be a proposal of intervention in the classroom that allows me to analyze the development of the four language skills in English language,

Using as main tool during the teaching-learning process the stories. I will focus on the didactic use of stories in the classroom taking into account the many varieties of resources they offer in order to be able to develop the English language skills of my students. We will depart from a single point of departure (story) to explore all the ways out of it (reading, comprehension activities / vocabulary, dramatization).

It is the objective of the title to achieve in these professionals, qualified for the exercise of the regulated profession of a teacher, adequate training to face the challenges of the educational system and adapt the teachings to the new formative needs and to perform their functions under the principle of collaboration and teamwork. These professionals should:

1. To know the curricular areas of Education, the interdisciplinary relationship between them, the evaluation criteria and the body of didactic knowledge around the respective teaching and learning procedures.

2. Design, plan and evaluate teaching-learning processes, both individually and in collaboration with other teachers and professionals of the centre.

Design, plan, adapt and evaluate teaching-learning processes for students with specific educational needs, in collaboration with other teachers and professionals of the centre.

4. Effectively address situations of language learning in multicultural and multilingual contexts. Encourage reading and critical commentary on texts from the various scientific and cultural domains contained in the school curriculum.

5. Design and regulate learning spaces in contexts of diversity and that address gender equality, equity and respect for human rights that conform the values ​​of citizen education.

6. Encourage coexistence in and outside the classroom, solve problems of discipline and contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Encourage and value effort, constancy and personal discipline in students.

7. Know the organization of schools and the diversity of actions that comprise their operation. To perform tutoring and orientation functions with students and their families, attending to the unique educational needs of students. Assume that the exercise of the teaching function has to be improved and adapted to scientific, pedagogical and social changes throughout life.

8. Collaborate with the different sectors of the educational community and the social environment. Assume the educational dimension of the teaching function and promote democratic education for active citizenship.

9. Maintain a critical and autonomous relationship with public and private knowledge, values ​​and institutions.

10. to value individual and collective responsibility for the achievement of a sustainable future.

11. Reflect on classroom practices to innovate and improve teaching. Acquire habits and skills for autonomous and cooperative learning and promote it among students.

12. To know and apply information and communication technologies in classrooms. To selectively discriminate audiovisual information that contributes to learning, civic formation and cultural wealth.

13. Understand the role, possibilities and limits of education in today's society and the fundamental competencies that affect primary schools and their professionals. To know models of improvement of the quality with application to the educational centres.

Children's literature is effective for expanding and enhancing reading skills and strategies (Fuhler, 1990; Funk & Funk, 1992; Goodman, K. S., 1986; Huck et al., 1987; MacGlashan, 1989; Rosaen & Cantlon, 1991). Freppon (1991) reports that although students who are taught with a skills-based as compared to a literature-based approach have similar knowledge of phonics, the two groups differ their process and concept of reading. Those taught with literature use varied, more balanced reading strategies. Those taught with a skills-based approach use sounding-out as a primary cuing technique. In addition, the literature-based group associate reading with meaning making and language, while the skills-based group reading as pronouncing the words correctly. The use of children's literature has shown to significantly increase reading achievement. In studies comparing literature-based and traditional, basal-based instruction, Bader et al. (1987) and Eldredge and Butterfield (1986) report that the use of children's litereture has significantly positive effects on read:ng achievement. In addition, Bader et al. conclude that success in reading and the development of reading habits depends largely on literary exposure during preschool years at home and during the first few years of school. Tunnel: and Jacobs (1989) report significant increases in overall reading achievement, as well as in reading comprehension, for reading disabled fifth-grade students, when literature-based instruction is used.

Some researchers question whether the use of children's literature is as effective for disadvantaged, at-risk students. Stahl and Miller (1989) conclude from their meta-analysis that "Children who have not had as much exposure and the same types of interactions need direct instruction to catch up" (P. 108). Delpit (1986) feels that Afro-American children cannot succeed in a purely holistic teaching environment and that programs for developing fluency are not as necessary as those that develop skills for Afro-American children. In contrast to these views, others see children's literature as the ideal instructional tool for teaching reading to disadvantaged children because it can be used to build on the language ability and experience the child brings to the classroom (Steinberg & Sebesta, 1989). Furthermore, Funk and Funk (1992) claim that if a child has not been exposed to literature before coming to school, all the more reason to use children's books in instruction (Katherine Sublett Minardi, p. 20-26).

4.1. Teaching reading skills through children's literature 

Research confirms that the use of children's literature is effective for disadvantaged children from either low socioeconomic or limited English backgrounds.

In a landmark study, Cohen (1968) read aloud children's literature and used meaningful follow-up activities with low socioeconomic second graders who had not previously been exposed to literature. Those to whom were read showed an increase in their quality of vocabulary over the group that used only the basal reader. In addition, they displayed an increase in word knowledge and reading comprehension at significant levels. When she further compared the six lowest classes, the significant increase over the control groups was even greater. Cohen's study verifies the importance of reading to children, especially to the socially disadvantaged. She concludes that disadvantaged children have difficulty dealing with words in isolation and that vocabulary is learned best in context. Other research supports her conclusions (Bader et a1., 1987; Cullinan et al., 1974; D'Alessandro, 1990; Feitelson et al., 1986). Larrick's study (1987) of gifted English speakers from poor backgrounds documents significant progress in reading when kindergartners are immersed in literature and language experiences, and skills are taught in meaningful context. Of the children in the study, 80% spoke no English and 96% were from families below the poverty level.

An additional benefit of children's literature is that it enhances writing skills and styles. Both reading and writing are complimentary, interrelated processes which are used to construct meaning (Funk & Funk, 1992; Tierny & Pearson, 1983). In a study examining relationships between gender, intelligence, reading leve language, socioeconomic status, and free writing, Woodfin (1968) reports that the best predictors of writing ability are language ability and reading level. If language is enhanced by reading and by listening to children's

literature, this language growth will be reflected in students' writing as well (Funk & Funk; Kolczynski, 1989).

During a four-year longitudinal study of fourth graders, that when children read, listen to, and discuss literature as a springboard for writing, they score significantly higher in free writing compared to those who do not use literature as a springboard. Furthermore, children lea,n structure from reading. They use these structures in their writing. DeFord (1981) and Eckhoff (1983) report that a child's writing and linguistic structure matches the structure of the text he or she uses. Children exposed to literature use more complex sentences and elaborate structures, while those exposed to basal readers use simple sentences. Children's literature exposes students to good models of writing that provide a variety of literary forms and structures, as well as a wide range of literary elements.

Another benefit of children's literature is that it can facilitate in the teaching of higher-level thinking skills (Cullinan, 1987; Felsenthal, 1989; Pearson, 1985). Pearson (1985) asserts that the questions asked in basal readers often are low-level, literally-based questions. Focus should be on higher-level thinking and critical reading skills. Hansen and Pearson (1983) report that good readers' inferential comprehension does not improve significantly when given instruction from a basal reader.

They conclude that the basal reader instruction limits the students' thinking skills because it is not challenging.

Fisher and Hiebert (1990) find that students taught with literature-based, as opposed to skills-based instruction spend more time in tasks with higher cognitive complexity. By using children's books, teachers can guide questioning anc discussion into a higher level of taxonomy, calling for children to compare and contrast, synthesize, and evaluate within and among pieces of literature.

Use of children's literature is an effective way to integrate the language arts. One or more related books can provide unlimited opportunities for integrating reading, writing, listening, and speaking, thereby preserving intact the literary event (Pearson, 1989).

Further, each component supports the same underlying cognitive and linguistic processes. Growth in anyone component supports and reinforces growth in the others (Coody & Nelson, 1982; Moss, 1975; Pearson, 1989). Besides linking the four language art components, children's books may also be used to integrate reading and the language arts with other subject areas (Goodman, K. S., 1989; Pearson, 1989). Walmsley & Walp (1990) note that the use of children's literature allows for integrating through content instead of through skills, making learning more meaningful. Besides being an effective learning strategy, integrating reading and the language arts with other subjects provides an efficient, time-saving means of presenting and teaching the curriculum (Somers & Worthington, 1979).

Another benefit to using children's literature motivates students to read. As Larrick (1987) states, "With our children we seem to stick to mechanistic skills, which appeals neither to the intellect or to the emotions" (p. 187). Children's literature is motivation because it makes reading both meaningful and enjoyable. It has the power to evoke emotions. Further, meaning is enhanced when the literature relates to relevant issues in the children's lives (Giddings, 1990).

Also, literature provides a means of exploring values, attitudes, morals, and ethical considerations, more so than does any other area of the curriculum (Somers &Worthi ngton, 1979 / Katherine Sublett Minardi, p. 20-26).

4.2. Methodological research 

In conducting ethical, educational research, I used a large number of methods such as the method of observation, experimentation method, biographical survey method, statistical method, correlation method, group method equivalent assessment method.

Method (general purpose) = “group of operations, which as an instrument of human action in general, through which the knowing subject disclosure addresses the objective world, that it is a general way to approach reality and the technical strategy of investment in a particular area of reality;

There are the usual distinctions between method – which is the way, the truth and the overall contrast process – which details the methods.’

In conducting educational research using a large number of methods such as the method of observation, experimentation method, biographical survey method, statistical method, correlation method, group method equivalent to the assessment method.

Method (general purpose) = ‘group of operations as an instrument of human action in general, through which the knowing subject disclosure addresses to the objective world. It is:

1. The general way to approach reality

2. The technical strategy of investment in a particular area of reality

There are the usual distinctions between method – which is the way, the truth and the overall contrast process – which detail the methods. ‘

Research methods in pedagogy, are methods used to obtain valid results to the challenges of educational research to support the development and improvement of science teaching and educational practice.

Research methods can be grouped into:

1. Research Methods Data: observation, experiment, survey, questionnaire, survey biographical notes, tests, teaching files. This group is associated and ‘methods of measurement’ with the survey data, because without measurement, the data collected is not useful in a scientific research sense.

2. The methods of an organizing team of experimentation (R) for the data collected and findings as appropriate to express the full generality (increasing the sample, the equivalent rotation groups).

3. Ways of mathematical processing (statistical) data acquired by the conditions of validity and methods for expressing scientific laws are finally a full research method which is the experimental method, particular experiment.

“In fact, the method is a particular pattern to do, which tends to place the student in a learning situation more or less divided, going to the one similar to that of scientific research and discovery of the truth tracking and reporting of the practical aspects of life.’ (I. Cerghit,1976)

In this experiment, I believe I used the most effective research methods in teaching: teacher observation, experimental teaching, conversation, product analysis method, the method tests.

Observation method is the systematic tracking of educational facts as they unfold in ordinary circumstances. Unlike the experiment, which requires intervention by the researcher, the observation consists in recording the data and findings, as presented, the researcher waiting for them to occur to be able to surprise them. Using observation requires compliance with requirements such as:

Development of a plan prior to observation by specifying targets to be pursued, the framework within which it is performed, the instruments for recording data;

Observation data are reported immediately, without the notice to realize this. In this respect, using the observation sheet or sheets on which the observation protocol is drawn; technical apparatus for recording data and events;

Creating conditions to alter the natural development of phenomena not observed, making the same comments in various circumstances by a single observer or by multiple observers opportunity confronting the current data. Observation involves finding things and phenomena as nature provides regular lessons.

The professor, teacher or educator needs to observe the student during the time he lives his life as a child and in school, or out of it, alone or in the circle of colleagues, but never letting the suspicion that it is subject to express observation intended to qualify'. (Muster, D., 1985, p.50)

The calling method consists of a dialogue between a researcher and the subjects under investigation in order to gather data, opinions about certain phenomena and events. The conversation takes place on a plane and prepared questions, which means that during it, the researcher cannot deviate from the set of questions based on contingencies that may arise.

The dialogue should be as natural as the researcher tries to show more flexibility, avoiding questions directly, employing party personality, but calling collateral questions designed to stimulate him to express thoughts and opinions.

Questions should be clear and appropriate to the situation, to refer to a specific aspect. Regarding the kinds of questions we can distinguish closed questions, open questions, and answers to questions submitted beforehand. Closed questions are those that offer two to three response options: yes, no, do not know. Open questions are those that provide complete freedom of the subject, to formulate its response as thoughts and opinions. In the case of the third category of questions, the subject is to choose the response of several responses given. This method performs a variety of tasks of the educational process due to its many informative qualities.

I made ​​an appeal individually and collectively. We used this method to identify the works in literature, that students have come to check the level of knowledge acquired and how they use this knowledge in new situations. Through the dialogue with the children, I have managed to make them think, analyze, compare, classify, draw conclusions, to rise to the generalization.

Always putting options in front of children to solve problems, we found that they are trying to find the answer.

In this way we contribute to the development of thought and language unit, to increase their capacity for knowledge, the broadening of knowledge, vocabulary development, increased opportunities for correct expression. By this method we searched the discussion to take place in an atmosphere of trust, avoiding artificial situations that inhibit children.

We found out, by verifying the results obtained by occasions, that some subjects change their behavior in the work. We found children shy, quiet, hard to speak to, integrated, collectively frisky even choleric at home. For this reason, and to verify the data obtained, we talked with the family, organizing educational inquiry with my proposed improvement items.

In literature we find many definitions of test, but summarizing, we can consider as an instrument consisting of a test or series of tests designed to develop the presence or absence of a psychological phenomenon, a natural behavior or a given stimulus.

For these samples to meet the requirements of a test should be standardized or calibrated. By standardizing accurate understanding of rules and requirements relating to test administration, recording and evaluation of results such as instruction necessary prior to administration, establishing ways to answer and how doing the scoring. Calibration is to develop a scale that is considered standard and with measurement and evaluation. The test must meet certain requirements such as reliability, validity and sensitivity.

Testing provides information on the human person, some of which cannot be obtained by other means. The consequences of a hasty and inaccurate assessment of the child’s personality, based on test data can sometimes be serious. The moral responsibility of the researcher is directly involved in such assessments. The use of pedagogical practice test is called test and behaves as some answers are verbal, motor, graphs, and as an assessment criteria set out above.

In order to know and differential treatment of students in the educational process, we applied samples to work with different tasks: sample analysis and synthesis, comparison, generalization and classification. Based on the results obtained by each child individual data samples, I was able to better focus on the individual treatment and appropriate incentives for children in relation to the psycho-physical aspect. I took into account the issues covered by the test of knowledge to meet the following requirements: be accessible to all children; be formulated clearly and precisely; contain a single problem.

The pedagogical experiment involves creating a new situation by introducing changes in the conduct of educational action with the aim of verifying the hypothesis that triggered these innovations. He goes through three phases: pre-intervention, experimental factor when they select samples, testing situation and characteristics; experimental phase and phase factor administration record results. I used the experiment in the Romanian and English language and literature classes, assuming that the true treasures of the soul, the stories keep an emotional bond to all that is beautiful, clean, wonderful and unique in the world of childhood. Knowledge about fantasy felt from the earliest age, gradually emerges as the child becomes more and more learning experiences, transforms them into the high moral behavior and aesthetics.

The problems are so numerous and complex, we followed the basic objectives of the experiment undertaken the capacity of building and receiving oral, oral expression, writing that the reception of the message (‘reading / lecture’) and written expression. This method involves the analysis of various products of activities for children and school documents with the goal of identifying their personality traits, through the objectification of labor products: drawings, objects made, cards reading. The method offers different researcher indirect data on educational activities, especially on its results.

The products allow us to make predictions about personality development of children and to trace the causes of their behavioral manifestations. By this method we obtained data on the children’s skills and abilities in their representations, attitudes towards work, towards the products of their labor. We applied different types of card recovery, development, creativity and evaluation. The working tool used in this method was the guiding children towards the permanent staff, and regular daily observations on the development of children.

Conclusions 

The works in childrens' literature, as a whole, remains wellspring of knowledge and education for children. Tales and stories can be presented in a variety of forms and can be exploited by: sketches, bees, dramatizations, puppetry, free essays etc.

Every lesson of English Literature should include the evaluation units: vocabulary exercises, exercises of imagination and creativity, narrative text specific exercises, exercises in semantics and semiotics, exercises instead of role, exercises critical ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ character analysis.

Classrooms should be equipped with charts, images, shapes, pictures, educational games, puppet kits that can help students to express themselves more easily and gladly participate in lessons. The content of the program emphasis on the skills, especially mental and behavioral structures.

Each lesson, and extracurricular activities, are conducted in an interdisciplinary manner and in collaboration with several educational factors.

To carry out a methodical guide for the pedagogical circle or annual conferences of teachers in middle education where to gather specific examples of classroom experience of teachers, original to share news methodically – scientific theme = ‘education strategies for the child in art and literature’.

Also, I suggest a number of extra hours to increase a Chapter involving visits to museums, watching performances, films for children, puppet shows, tours, etc.

Bibliography

Albulescu, I. Albulescu, M., Predarea și învățarea disciplinelor socio-umane, Ed. Polirom, Iași, 2000.

Berca, Ion, Metodica predării limbii române, EDP., București, 1966.

Blideanu, E., Șerdean, I., Orientări noi în metodologia studierii limbii române în ciclul primar, E.D.P. București, 1981.

Bromley, K., Nine things every teacher should know about words and vocabulary instruction. In Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 50: 7, 2007.

Călinescu, George, Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent. Editura Semne, București, 2003.

Cerghit, Ion, Metode de învățământ, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, București, 1980.

Cerghit I., Metode de învățământ, E.D.P., București, 1976

Cerghit, I. Perfecționarea lecției în școala modernă, E.D.P., București, 1983

Cucoș, C., Pedagogie, Ed. Polirom, Iași, 2002

Dicționar de pedagogie, Ed. Didactică și Pedagogică, București, 1979

Dottrens , R., Mialaret, Gaston, Rast, E.,Ray M., A educa și a instrui, Editura didactică și pedagogică, București, 1970

Fred Kaplan, Dickens, A Biography, William Morrow & Co., 1998.

G. K. Chesterton , Charles Dickens, London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1906.

G. K. Chesterton , Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dicken, London: J. M. Dent, 1911.

Harmer, J., The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman, 2004.

Ibrăileanu, Garabet, Studii literare, vol. I, Editura Minerva, București, 1979.

John Forster (1872-1874), The Life of Charles Dickens, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, edited by J. W. T. Ley, 1928.

John Hillis-Miller, Charles Dickens, The World of His Novels, Harvard: Harvard University Pres. , 1958.

Lăudat, I. D., Metoda predării limbii și literaturii române în școala generală și în liceu, E.D.P. București, 1973.

Mialaret Gaston, Introduction a la pédagogie, PUF, Paris 1973.

Mircea Zaciu, Lancea lui Ahile, Ed. Cartea românească, 1980.

Muster, D., Metodologia cercetării în educație și învățământ, București, 1985.

Nicola, I. Pedagogia școlară, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, București, 1980.

Parfene, Constantin, Literatura în școală, E.D.P., București, 1977.

Șerdeanu, I., Metodica predării limbii române la clasele I – IV, E.D.P., București, 1993.

Șerdeanu, I., Didactica limbii și literaturii române în învățământul primar, Editura Corint, București, 2006.

Stern, H. H., Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Thornbury, S., How to Teach Vocabulary. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Ltd., 2002.

Uso´-Juan, Martınez-Flor, Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, 2006.