The Primary Language Teaching Advisers at CILT talk about their favourite stories for the primary languages classroom.

Helen Groothues:

I love Un Lion à Paris by Beatrice Alemagna. It tackles the theme of being a new arrival in a strange country and the collage illustrations of Paris are rich and beautiful. It’s a wonderful book to use with upper Key Stage 2 and there is so much potential to use it in a cross-curricular way – a French / Art / Music / Drama project would be a great place to start!

Nigel Pearson:

My all time favourite has to be Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle. Children relate so well to the anxiety over a lost pet, rejoicing when the cat is found, together with kittens at the end. Also, it is a great vehicle for language teaching, as you can vary the complexity of the language you wish to use. Perfect for an enjoyable and meaningful read in any language with children in class.

Therese Comfort:

A book I have really enjoyed sharing with children and teachers is Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby? by Cressida Cowell and Ingrid Godon. It is an ideal story as there is so much repetiton for children to join in with "Miau!" sagte die Katze, "Wau-wau!" sagte der Hund, "Quak!" sagte die Ente, "Muh!" sagte die Kuh. Although the text itself is simple and repetitive, it offers opportunities to highlight the gender of nouns and to point out that nouns in German are written with a captial letter. 

Lucy Adamson:

One of my favourite stories is Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. I used to use this with children in Reception. Many of them were familiar with the story in English, which really helped with their overall comprehension of the text. The children loved doing actions for the different animals in the story and guessing what the different adjectives used to describe the animals meant.

Joe Brown:

My favourite children’s book of all time is Emil and the Detectives but for early learners I love Siete ratones ciegos by Ed Young, because it contains lots of useful language for those children beginning a language and can be easily linked to other areas of the primary curriculum such as art, literacy and drama.

Kati Szeless:

My favourite story is Le mouton et moi from the Moi pas, moi aussi series of board books. They are very simple stories, they have lots of repetition and opportunities for children to create their own versions. This is appealing to primary age even Year 6. The humour featured includes poo, lice and being eaten by birds of prey!