Teaching Shakespeare to young ESL learners in Hong Kong

Anna Wing-bo Tso

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Teaching Shakespeare to young ESL learners can be one of the most challenging tasks for English teachers and parents. Because of the difficult vocabulary and unusual language, Shakespeare is often left unread and unexplored both in school and at home. With a view to helping children overcome reading obstacles and learn to appreciate Shakespeare and his plays, the Hong Kong Public Libraries and I co-hosted a weekly Shakespeare teens’ reading club for K12 learners from local grammar schools. Four Shakespearean plays were introduced to about twenty Cantonese child participants who had no or little experience reading or studying Shakespeare’s works. To enhance imagination and interactions among child readers, various learner-centred, interactive, and multimedia pedagogical activities such as the reader’s theatre, movie screenings, creative writing tasks, comics reading and drawing, etc. were used in the reading club. In this paper, I will share teaching ideas and reading activities that make Shakespeare understandable and enjoyable for ESL young readers.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Journal of pedagogic development

Publication milestones

Published - 06/2016

Publication status

Published - 06/2016

ISSN

2047-3265

External Publication IDs

handle.net: 10547/611818

Access to documents

316-825-1-SM.pdf

Final published version, 533.28 KB

License:CC BY-NC-ND

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