Enhancing Picture Book Reading for Young EFL Learners

Abstract

With increasing globalization, global English and its association with literacy worldwide have gained widespread attention. Following the law of language learning, more and more countries are making efforts to help their citizens become literate in English from their early years. Picture books have played a crucial part in developing children’s emergent literacy skills. They provide children with fascinating illustrations, advancement in vocabularies, and meaningful sentence structures that go beyond the present contexts. However, picture book reading can be difficult for young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners due to the lack of English-speaking environment and language accumulation. With regard to this situation, this article analyzes and discusses the common debates on the print concept, phonological awareness, and vocabularies within an EFL early picture book reading setting to shed light on the practical direction in this field. Following this, this article coins relevant supporting strategies to ensure effective English picture book reading among children by developing supplementary activities, encouraging parent-child interaction, and applying multimedia materials. This article ends with a brief conclusion and questions that may need further exploration and research.

Teaching English to Young Learners: A Literature Review

“…Storybooks and picture books are highly effective in teaching English to young learners (Enever & Schmid-Schoenbein, 2006;Rahmawati & Britiviliani, 2018;Ratminingsih & Budasi, 2018;Dillon et al, 2020;Souisa et al, 2020;Sun, 2022). They provide numerous benefits and opportunities for language development and comprehension skills.…”

“…Storybooks and picture books often incorporate rhymes and rhythms, which make the language more memorable and enjoyable for young learners. This can enhance their phonological awareness and pronunciation skills (Sun, 2022).…”