From reading aloud to shared meaning-making: pre-service primary teachers learning to use picturebooks in English teaching

Picturebooks have been shown to support understanding, participation, and shared meaning-making in English language teaching. However, they are often used primarily as read-aloud texts rather than as resources for interaction, limiting their pedagogical potential. This points to a need for more explicit attention to picturebook pedagogy in pre-service teacher education. Drawing on qualitative data from 27 pre-service teachers (PSTs), including course discussions, lesson plans, classroom teaching, and reflective focus groups, this study explored how PSTs developed their use of picturebooks during a one-semester primary English language teaching course. The findings indicate that PSTs initially relied on vocabulary-focused instruction and frequent translation, whereas later practices made greater use of visual, embodied, and dialogic forms of support. However, considerable variation in development was evident across the cohort. The study underscores the importance of explicitly preparing PSTs for more explicit preparation in using picturebooks to support interaction and shared meaning-making.