Social-emotional development to learners in primary level of education through “reading” wordless picture books

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that selected wordless picture book Sidewalk Flowers (2015) by JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith develop social-emotional skills to learners in primary level of education in English lessons using specific teaching tools suggested by Mikki Rogers (2020) such as character emotion charts, the character tree, the mood meter, character charts and the ruler approach. These tools are gradually implemented during six consecutive 45 minutes English (virtual) model lessons. The first three lessons primarily support learners’ emotional development. The following three lessons are concentrated on the development of positive feelings and their impact on social relationships, social-emotional development of young learners. Based on the qualitative character of the study, we suggest to use a narrative approach and to use the methods of observation, individual interview and a test as a research tool for data collection. Lessons oriented towards social-emotional development of young learners may possibly contribute to the art of noticing which definitely helps the learners to improve the quality of their social contacts, to verbalize and justify their positive and negative emotions, to increase their vocabulary, to foster their self-regulation at school and outside of it and it teaches them to be emotionally resilient. These lessons should be, therefore, an essential part of the school curriculum because they shape cognitive and affective dimensions of the learners.