Response to picturebooks: A case for valuing children’s linguistic repertoires during repeated read alouds

This chapter describes the behaviours of a group of pre-service teachers being trained to use the Narrative Format (NF) approach with a view to proposing a set of guidelines for language teachers who are beginning to work with young children. As a result of an increased interest in young children's second language (L2) learning, education and training providers in different European countries have devised different approaches considered appropriate to the cognitive development of young children. The NF approach, known among children as The Adventures of Hocus and Lotus, is a non-traditional methodology of early L2 acquisition, which was developed by Traute Taeschner from the Sapienza University of Rome in the 1990s. Empathy plays an influential role in contemporary education and gradually more and more people have come to realise its reciprocal power. Teachers' openness to new ideas and innovations has also been the focus of current attention and discussions in education generally, not just in pre-primary pedagogy.