Storytelling and Emotional Intelligence in the EFL Infant Education Classroom: Going beyond Content

Martínez Viñuales, Bárbara
Pellicer Ortín, Silvia (dir.)

Universidad de Zaragoza, FEDU, 2020
Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana, Área de Filología Inglesa

Graduado en Magisterio en Educación Infantil

Resumen: This dissertation aims to demonstrate that Emotional Intelligence can improve the acquisition of a foreign language and that this area should also be considered in the English as a Foreign Language classroom in Infant Education, particularly through the resource of storytelling. In order to do this, a theoretical review including aspects related to Communicative Language Teaching, Emotional Intelligence and the power of storytelling in Infant Education, and their mutual relations, has been developed. Then, a checklist to select adequate storybooks to work on Emotional Intelligence and linguistic aspects has been designed and implemented. Thus, a series of lesson plans based on these stories has been created following CLT and TBL principles. Also, some techniques for teachers to include Emotional Intelligence through their EFL storytelling sessions have been provided, trying to demonstrate that Emotional Intelligence can be included in our sessions even when the topic of the story does not explicitly focus on emotions and feelings, but through diverse techniques and strategies. Besides, a tool for assessing the students´ performance regarding emotional criteria has been supplied. Consequently, the results and the creation of all these materials has led me to conclude that the integration of emotional aspects can be achieved not only through the content of the books we select but also an important part lies on the teaching techniques used to tell the book and the activities and tasks we, teachers, plan.

Tipo de Trabajo Académico: Trabajo Fin de Grado