Monday, April 22, 2013

ARTICLE: MORAG STYLES IN CHILE




Morag Styles, from the University of Cambridge, has referred to children's literature education in an interview for El Mercurio today's edition.

Being member of the International Research Society of Children´s Literature, she probably knows a lot about what it is or it is not useful for children in libraries.
Morag principal activities are research and teaching. She researches in areas related to the academic study of children's literature.
On April 13th, Styles was an exponent in the conference “Teaching English for the Future”, organized by the ABSCH (Association of British Schools in Chile).  Her subjects were:


    The power of poetry: Words and sounds.
    Reviving Shakespeare for young people.
   The potential of picture books for kids.


In the newspaper, she says that Chile needs to take advantage of the poetic potential of the country. Morag thinks that the use of this kind of material is not common because, sometimes, teachers do not feel qualified in this area. One of the steps to follow, in order to exploit our resources in poetry, is to stop believing poetry is ruled by any kind of norms. It is much more related to emotions.
Maybe that is why, she also says, classic stories, such as Cinderella, are still valid when we work with children's emotions, for example, the feeling of surprise. - MMYC





Bibliography:
http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/styles/ available on April 22nd, 2013.
http://www.absch.cl/colegios.php available on April 22nd, 2013.