Occasionally, I read storybooks to my students in the grammar class. In my perspective, shared reading in a classroom is practised not only for fun, but also with the importance of connecting grammatical items like vocabulary to students’ existing knowledge.

Take a look at my student’s work: It is a poster designed by a Kindergarten student. During the lesson, we’ve read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” together. We went through food and date vocabulary. I even brought in some realia (real food) into the classroom for the student to feel and touch. He seemed to enjoy learning in this way when he could visualize the words from the book. Therefore, to further personalize the lesson, I encouraged my student to make a poster of himself, named “The Very Hungry XXX”. He was motivated to give me ideas on the food that he liked, draw them out and spell the words. Even though the poster was not written in perfect handwriting nor colourfully decorated, the student’s positive learning attitude impressed me a lot.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar