With lower level classes, picture books are often created according to the following plan:

a) The students read or invent a story.

b) They divide the story into separate episodes or pictures

c) The students (alone or in pairs) draw a scene and describe underneath it the action that takes place.

d) The pages are hung on the wall or stapled together to form a book, created by the students.

This procedure can be expanded without difficulty to include multiple languages, as long as enough space is left around the pictures to accommodate the description in various (up to four) languages. Thus, a multilingual picture book is created with a significant contribution from heritage language students.

At the middle and upper school levels, multilingual adventure story books can be created. The students would first create the main characters (e. g. 2 protagonists) who experience various adventures. The students (individually or in pairs) then describe and contribute one episode or part of the book. The result is a complete continuous adventure story. To make it a multilingual story, it was predetermined that certain episodes would take place in the students‘ countries of origin, and that it would include a few words written in the language spoken there (e. g. “Good morning”, “Thank you” etc.).


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