The place of children's literature texts in teaching German as a foreign/second foreign language

The importance of foreign language education has come into prominence owing to the recent scientific and technological developments. Moreover, learning more than one foreign language has become a necessity. In this sense, new ways and methods are developed to achieve learning in an effective, efficient and ambitious way. The use of literary texts that have been practiced in language courses since 1980's has yielded positive results and increased motivation in language learning. Language teaching with literature not only provides motivation, but also contributes to social, emotional and cognitive development of learners at the same time. In this context, literary texts and application formats that they are handled in language courses are crucial. The texts chosen for children and young people should have the quality of contributing to the learners' both linguistic and emotional development. Hence, wider use of children and juvenile literature in language lessons is important. The aim of this study is to suggest concrete ideas to make children and youth literature in German as a foreign/second language lessons more effective according to the current developments. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ALSC 2012