Dr. Ana Lado will be the keynote speaker for the Applied Linguistics Association of Korea’s International Conference on Sept. 9 in Seoul, South Korea. The Marymount University professor of education will discuss “Primary English Education and Literacy Through Children’s Literature.”
“I absolutely love this topic,” said Lado, who has spoken at conferences in Korea and Japan in the past and travels to Pakistan twice a year. “Pictures make language teaching easy. There are a dozen different types of picture books and I match them to a teaching strategy.”
She recommends picture books that are in print and sold on any bookstore or website.
“These are authentic pieces of literature used by English speakers,” she said. “You have to have something that’s at the students’ English level, not their reading level.”
She added that it’s also important to use a concrete topic, such as a book about animals, or a story with a sequence, or something with directions, like making a pizza.
Lado is the author of “Teaching Beginner ELLs Using Picture Books: Tellability” (Corwin, 2012). Her teaching areas also include creativity and multicultural education. She has developed a computer assisted language learning program, “e-English,” and materials for a certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, “Lado TEFL.”
After receiving her doctoral degree from Georgetown University, she worked on various federal grants in local bilingual schools and programs before joining Marymount in 1992. She founded and advises Marymount’s Latino Student Association.
Marymount University is an independent, coeducational Catholic university offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in a wide range of disciplines.
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Dr. Ana Lado
