Posted 30 Apr 2009
Nonsense terms favoured by popular children’s authors such as A A Milne and J K Rowling can be useful educational tools, it has been claimed.
The Telegraph reports that the professor of education at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Education maintains linguistic oddities help youngsters understand the symbolic meaning of words.
Maria Nikolajeva adds that terms like "quidditch" and deliberately bad spellings of "honey" also fuel children’s imagination.
She says: "The creative employment of language in children’s books gives the child the power of expression.
"By challenging the arbitrary rules of language, especially written language, children learn to be critically-thinking individuals."
Consequently, Prof Nikolajeva maintains the best children’s books of the last 150 years are those that resist the traditional written word, such as Dr Seuss’ elaborate rhymes and fictional animals.
In other book news that may interest TEFL teachers, the British Council’s prestigious English language teaching awards (ELTons) earlier this year saw a textbook series for Mongolian secondary schools pick up a top international prize.
Category: Teaching and Learning
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