UID/ELT/04097/2013publishersversionpublishe

Bland, Janice

Mourão, Sandie

English

New University of Lisbon's Repository

CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
___________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
clelejournal.org 
 
i 
Contents 
 
Editorial: The Global Reach of Children’s Literature and ELT 
 – from BANA Countries to the Majority World 
JANICE BLAND AND SANDIE MOURÃO  
 
 
ii 
Interpreting the Dæmonomicon: A Decade of Teaching Philip Pullman’s 
Northern Lights  
JESSICA ALLEN HANSSEN 
 
1  
Integrating Postcolonial Culture(s) into Primary English Language 
Teaching 
GRIT ALTER 
 
22 
The Use of Children’s Literature in ELT in Brazil 
DILYS KAREN REES, DANILO NEVES PEREIRA AND LAYSSA GABRIELA A. E 
SILVA MELLO 
 
45 
Book Review 
BETTINA KÜMMERLING-MEIBAUER  
 
63 
Recommended Reads 
CLAUDIA REY, VICKI PALMQUIST, HELENA MOTA LOPES AND SANDIE 
MOURÃO 
68 
 
 
 
 
  
CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
___________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
clelejournal.org 
 
ii 
Editorial: The Global Reach of Children’s Literature and ELT 
 – from BANA Countries to the Majority World 
 
Scholars have criticized for at least two decades that ELT textbooks too often concentrate their 
cultural references on what have been termed BANA countries – Britain, North America and 
Australasia (Holliday 1994, p. 3). This in no way reflects the reality of English use throughout 
the world in the Anglosphere, in other countries of the West where English is not the majority 
language, or in the Majority World. The Anglosphere is an expression often used to cover 
nations where English is the native language, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, 
Ireland and New Zealand. The Majority World encompasses the developing nations of the 
continents Asia, Africa and Latin America – increasingly known more neutrally as the Majority 
World – also because this is where the majority of people live. The term was first introduced by 
Shahidul Alam, a Bangladeshi social activist and photographer promoting Fair Trade 
Photography http://majorityworld.com/.  
Already in 2004, David Crystal reported in The Guardian,  
India currently has a special place in the English language record books – as the 
country with the largest English-speaking population in the world. Ten years ago 
that record was held by the US. Not any more. […] In 1997 an India Today survey 
suggested that about a third of the population had the ability to carry on a 
conversation in English. […] And given the steady increase in English learning since 
1997 in schools and among the upwardly mobile, we must today be talking about at 
least 350 million. This is more than the combined English-speaking populations of 
Britain and the US. 
Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer writes in her review of The Routledge Companion to 
International Children’s Literature, in this issue: ‘Besides several African countries, where 
English is still the official administrative language (e.g. Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe), 
English children’s books also appear in Hawai’i, India, Malaysia, and some countries in the 
CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
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Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
clelejournal.org 
 
iii 
Caribbean area, such as the Bahamas and Jamaica, side by side with children’s books published 
in indigenous languages’ (pp. 63-64). The need to balance English languages and literatures for 
outward-looking empowerment with support for indigenous languages and literatures is a 
constant theme with a number of children’s literature and ELT researchers. Both research areas 
increasingly dialogue with (post)colonialism, plurilingualism and the support of home 
languages and multiple literacies (in all nuances of meaning), as well as English and the common 
classroom language. There have been several studies of linguistic imperialism in ELT: Suresh 
Canagarajah, for example, argues that for L2 speakers both appropriating English and 
maintaining their vernacular(s) will support empowerment and linguistic competence in the 
culturally hybrid postmodern world that confronts them: ‘The maintenance of polyvocality with 
a clear awareness of their socio-ideological location empowers them to withstand the totalitarian 
tendencies – of local nationalist regimes and Western multinational agencies – enforced through 
uniformity of thought and communication’ (1999, p. 197). 
A critical interest in children’s literature from around the world is a recurring theme in 
this issue of the CLELEjournal, as well as in previous issues. Another recurring theme is the 
fantasy genre, which often creates a secondary world with echoes of the real world seen from 
other perspectives. Bridge building and intercultural learning are further CLELEjournal themes, 
inspired by the increasing hybridity and fluidity of many cultural identities in the twenty-first 
century. Finally, critical literacy is a dominant theme, connecting children’s literature and ELT 
research. In her article in this issue, Grit Alter demonstrates that all texts are value-laden. This 
has been noted by ELT and children’s literature scholars alike, who recommend, with Alter, 
‘appreciative and resistant, ideology-critical readings’ (Delanoy, 2018, p. 143) and emphasize 
‘when choosing texts for language education, it makes sense to include many experiences from 
around the world, so that no one particular perspective predominates’ (Bland, 2018, p. 3). 
Narrative imagination is the ability to inhabit a strange world for a time and share in it 
cognitively and emotionally, and this is the ‘promise of literature’ according to Martha 
Nussbaum: 
CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
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Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
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It is for this reason that literature is so urgently important for the citizen, as an 
expansion of sympathies that real life cannot cultivate sufficiently. It is the political 
promise of literature that it can transport us, while remaining ourselves, into the life 
of another, revealing similarities but also profound differences between the life and 
thought of that other and myself and making them comprehensible, or at least nearly 
comprehensible. (Nussbaum, 1998, p. 111) 
In the first article in this issue, Jessica Hanssen presents a fascinating way of employing a 
work of fantasy in teacher education. Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights won the Carnegie of 
Carnegies in 2007, naming the book as the best-loved winner of the Carnegie Medal for an 
outstanding work of children’s fiction since the inauguration of the prize in 1936. With 
‘Interpreting the Dæmonomicon: A Decade of Teaching Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights’, 
Hanssen gives an account of a project that reveals the discovery potential for future teachers as 
they accompany the protagonist, Lyra, on her journey (internal as well as external) and with a 
quest of their own – toward becoming an English teacher. Hanssen makes interesting and 
creative use of the dæmon concept, invented by Pullman, to help student teachers confront 
‘unanswered questions about their adult identity, including their future profession, and […] help 
them form a fixed, adult image of their experiences, talents, and potential, in a way that feels 
authentically in the moment’ (p. 4). 
Grit Alter’s paper follows, ‘Integrating Postcolonial Culture(s) into Primary English 
Language Teaching’. Referring to the ELT textbooks produced in Germany, Alter criticizes in 
her paper that ‘textbooks for primary schools mainly focus on the UK and the USA and offer 
rather superficial and stereotypical content’. This represents an even narrower focus than the 
BANA countries referred to above. With Nussbaum, Alter argues that ‘picturebooks can 
enhance primary-aged children’s intercultural communicative competence by developing 
empathy and making them curious about further English-speaking places around the world’. At 
the same time, she discusses and presents criteria for the careful selection of picturebooks for 
CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
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Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
clelejournal.org 
 
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ELT, to avoid books that discriminate against dimensions of identity and offer inappropriate 
representations of cultures. 
The next paper, ‘The Use of Children’s Literature in ELT in Brazil’, demonstrates how 
children’s literature is used in a number of ELT educational scenarios. Here, the authors Dilys 
Rees, Danilo Pereira and Layssa Mello refer to ‘critical interculturality, which we define as a 
space of encounter and of re-creation which opens up new alternatives, categories, and horizons’ 
(p. 46). Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer’s book review introduces The Routledge Companion to 
International Children’s Literature (Ed. Stephens with Belmiro, Curry, Lifang & Motawy, 
2017). This is an ambitious, wide-reaching and innovative volume. It offers an introduction also 
to English-language children’s books ‘published in regions and countries that are usually 
neglected in academia and educational circles’ (p. 67). 
Our feature, Recommended Reads, is supported for this issue by the educators Helena 
Lopes, Sandie Mourão, Vicki Palmquist and Claudia Rey – the books they present are recent 
picturebooks ideal for sharing with different age groups. We are always grateful for these 
recommendations, and would like to take this opportunity to encourage colleagues to make 
further recommendations with a view to showcasing literature from lesser represented parts of 
the world. 
As always, we thank our contributors and all who have been involved in creating this 
issue. 
Happy reading! 
Janice Bland and Sandie Mourão 
 
References 
Bland, J. (forthcoming 2018). Introduction: The challenge of literature. In J. Bland (Ed.), Using 
Literature in English Language Education: Challenging Reading for 8–18 Year Olds. London: 
Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 1–22. 
CLELEjournal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018 
 
 
 
___________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Children’s Literature in English Language Education   ISSN 2195-5212  
clelejournal.org 
 
vi 
Canagarajah, S. (1999). Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press. 
Crystal, D. (2004). Subcontinent Raises Its Voice. The Guardian, 19 November 2004. Retrieved 
from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/nov/19/tefl 
Delanoy, W. (forthcoming 2018). Literature in language education: Challenges for theory 
building. In J. Bland (Ed.), Using Literature in English Language Education: Challenging 
Reading for 8–18 Year Olds. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 141–57. 
Holliday, A. (1994). The house of TESEP and the communicative approach: the special needs 
of state English language education. ELT Journal, 48, 3-11.  
Nussbaum, M. (1998). Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defence of Reform in Liberal 
Education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 
 
 
 


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