Exploring the intercultural potential of picturebooks in early secondary EFL classrooms in Austria

Abstract Intercultural education has constituted an interdisciplinary teaching principle in Austrian upper and lower secondary curricula since 1992 and was reinforced by a decree in 2017. Literary texts have been identified as promising resources and valuable tools for initiating intercultural learning through their frequently inherent multi-perspectivity encouraging students to empathize with characters, consider different perspectives, contrast viewpoints, relate stories to personal experiences, and reflect on diverse ideas. However, research on the implementation of intercultural teaching and learning using literature in foreign language classrooms has so far mostly focused on upper secondary education and has frequently related to using postcolonial fiction writings. To counter the knowledge gap on the implementation of intercultural learning in lower educational levels, this study adopts a literary science approach to explore the potential of picturebooks in early secondary EFL classrooms. Using The Little Green Jacket ( Dee, 2020 ), it specifically examines perspective-taking as a key dimension of intercultural learning. Through written learner reflections, the research study assesses whether students in two Austrian EFL classrooms ( n = 35) can adopt a different viewpoint. The findings show that most students are successful, or at least partly successful, in perspective-taking and mostly describe emotions of sadness but also hopefulness in their reflective writings. Thus, the study suggests that picturebooks have the potential to facilitate perspective-taking as an essential dimension of intercultural education among young EFL learners with low language proficiency, highlighting their largely untapped potential in early language education.