Digital Education Review-n.2012-12-22-Digital Storytelling

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Number 22, December 2012

MONOGRAPHIC ABOUT DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Guests Editors IntroductionCarmen Gregori Signes and Barry Pennock

Digital Storytelling as a Pedagogical Tool within a Didactic Sequence inForeign Language TeachingAgustn Reyes, Eva Pich and MDolores Garca (1-18)

Aprendiendo en el aula: contando y hacienda relatos digitales personalesGloria Londoo-Monroy (19-36)

What Educators Should Know about Teaching Digital StorytellingBernard R. Robin and Sara G. McNeil (37-51)

El valor de una historia digital en el context europeo de aprendizaje integradoa travs de lengua y contenido (CLIL)Mara Dolores Ramrez-Verdugo, Mara Victoria Sotomayor Sez (52-67)

El uso educativo de los relatos digitales personales como herramienta parapensar el Yo (Self)

Miguel Herreros (68-79)

Multimodal Discourse Strategies of Factuality and Subjectivity in EducationalDigital StorytellingPatricia Bou-Franch (80-91)

Playing with the Team: The Development of Communities of Practice in aDigital Storytelling ProjectPeter John Westman (92-99)

PEER REVIEW ARTICLES

Individual Innovativeness Levels of Educational AdministratorsAhmet Naci Coklar (100-110)


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Digital Education Review - http://greav.ub.edu/der/ - Number 22, December 2012

Digital Education Review

Number 22, December 2012

Universitat de Barcelona

Pg.de la Vall dHebron, 171

08035 Barcelona, Spain

[email protected]

ISSN 2013-9144

Editorial Team

Editor: Jos Luis Rodrguez Illera, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Associate Editor: Ana Teberosky, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Elena Barber, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain)

Editorial Board: Jordi Adell, Universitat Jaume I (Spain)

Fernando Albuquerque Costa, Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal)

Mario Barajas, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Csar Coll, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Vivien Hodgson, Lancaster University (UK)

Mnica Kaechele, Universidad Catlica de Temuco (Chile)

Pierpaolo Limone, Universit degli Studio di Foggia (Italy)

Carles Monereo, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona (Spain)

Jordi Quintana Albalat, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Jos Armando Valente, Universidade Estadual de Campinas

(Brazil)

Editorial Assistant: Nria Molas Castells, Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)


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Guidelines for article submission

1. Aims and scopeThe articles should focus on subjects related to the impact of ICT on education and new emergent forms of

teaching and learning in digital environments.

2. Manuscripts admittedArticles admitted include emprirical investigations as well as reviews and theoretical reflections.

Peer Review Articles: articles that have passed the blind evaluation carried out by a group ofexperts

Reviews: short articles about books, software or websites and PhD Guest and Invited articles: articles approved by the editorial board of the jounal

3. Manuscript submissionThe papers, which must be unpublished, should be sent by this system. If you are not registered, you mustdo so before submitting your articles to review, using the format that appears in section REGISTER. Onceregistered, you must open a working session (enter the website using your user name and password) andbegin the process of sending the document, which consists of 5 steps.

The papers must be original and they must not be published previously. If they do not fill thoserequirements completely, an explanatory text at the end of the article is needed in which its publication isjustified.

The articles must be sent in Mocrosoft Word (or equivalent), and in English or Spanish. DER will not editsubmitted manuscripts for style or language. Also, reviewers may advise non acceptance of amanuscript if there are an unacceptable number of grammatical errors.4. FormatOn the first page must appear: the tile of the article (in English and optionally in Spanish); name, surnamesand emails of the author or authors, followed by the name and address of the usual place of work. At thebeginning there must be an abstract (in English and optionally in Spanish), of a maximum of 200 words,including keywords that identify the subject area of the paper. The extension of the body of the text is free.It is recommended that it has introduction, development and conclusions.

The works should be accompanied by a bibliography at the end of the article. All the references quoted inthe text should appear in this list, and be put in alphabetic order, complying as closely as possible to theregulations of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition. To quote online texts you must alsofollow the APA regulation.

9. Reviewing

All the authors will receive notification of receipt of the work. The editors will determine the interest and relevance of the manuscript and then it will be sent to

the reviewers. Authors will receive the referees' comments with the final decision (It may be acceptable in present

form/ It might be acceptable with minor revisions/It might be acceptable after a deep revision/Itcan't be accepted). Authors may check at any time the evaluation process' status through the OJSplatform.

Comments and the final decision of the review process will be sent to the authors in a period of nomore than four months after the date of receipt of the article. If the paper is accepted, the authors must attend to the reviewer's requirements and send back the

paper in a period of 1 month. After a second review the authors are requested to send an electronic file with the final version of

the paper, attending the Editor's formal requirements.

6. PublicationThe editors of the journal reserve the right to publish the contributions in the issue which they considermost appropriate. Those articles which are not published because it is felt they are not appropriate for thejournal will be returned and the authors will be notified by e-mail.

Digital Education Review, DER, does not accept any responsibility for the points of view and statementsmade by the authors in their work.

The texts will be under a license Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Spain, of CreativeCommons. All the conditions of use in: Creative Commons


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Digital storytelling as a genre of mediatized self-

representations: an introduction

Carmen Gregori-Signes & Barry Pennock-Speck

Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya

Facultat de Filologia, Traducci i Comunicaci

IULMA. Universitat de Valncia

AbstractThis article provides a critical review of some of the most relevant studies ondigital storytelling and proposes a genre typology that allows an initialclassification of digital storytelling into two main types: educational and social.Digital storytelling is a multimodal emergent genre characterised by itsversatility and flexibility which has resulted in a series of subgenres. However,the main premise here is that differentiating between social and educationalalthough one does not exclude the other and bearing in mind that most digitalstories may lie at the intersection of both, is the most useful way to startlabeling the massive production of digital stories available nowadays on theInternet. The articles included in this number are mostly educational (Ramrez-Verdugo & Sotomayor Grande, and Reyes, Pich & Garca, Londoo-Monroy) but

they all include some traces of the social type. Thus, Bou-Franch is an exampleof how students interpret certain events that had social impact and that arepart of history while Westmans article involves the creation of communities ofpractice among those who share the same interests. Finally, Herreros-Navarro,although educational in essence, describes a social act in which studentsintentionally choose a way to present their own identity to society using digitalstorytelling.

Keywords

Digital storytelling; multimodal; education


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Relatos digitales un gnero de expresin personal mediatizada:introduccin

Carmen Gregori-Signes & Barry Pennock-Speck

Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya

Facultat de Filologia, Traducci i Comunicaci

IULMA. Universitat de Valncia

Resumen

Este artculo ofrece una revisin crtica de algunos de los estudios msrelevantes sobre relato digital y propone una tipologa de gnero que permiteuna clasificacin inicial en dos grandes tipos: educativo y social. El argumentoprincipal es que la diferenciacin entre lo social y educativo, aunque uno noexcluye al otro, ofrece la posibilidad de clasificar la produccin masiva de relatosdigitales disponibles hoy en da en Internet. Los artculos incluidos en estenmero son, en su mayora, educativos (Ramrez-Verdugo y Grande Sotomayor,y Reyes, Pich & Garca, Londoo-Godoy), aunque en todos ellos todos ellosincluyen algunos rasgo de lo social. Bou-Franch nos habla de las estrategiasutilizadas por los estudiantes en la interpretacin de acontecimientos histricos

que tuvieron impacto social; mientras que el artculo de Westman conlleva lacreacin de comunidades de prctica entre aquellos que comparten los mismosintereses. Por ltimo, para Herreros Navarro el relato digital es un acto social enel que los estudiantes deben decidir como quieren que la sociedad les vea yaque describen y exploran su o a travs del relato digital.

Palabras clave

Relatos digitales; multimodal; educacin


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I.Digital Storytelling: a multimodal way of telling stories

Couldry (2008) argues that there are many different types of Digital Storytelling (DS), which, inits broadest sense may be understood as an example of multimodal narrative. McClean (2007),

for example, focuses on the narrative power of visual effects in film while Miller (2004) centreson the creative opportunities of interactive entertainment (cited in Lundby 2008, pp. 1). Here,we understand DS according to the now classical model of Digital Storytelling developed by theCentre for Digital Storytelling in California (see section 2 below) and best understood as shortmultimodal stories made with inexpensive equipment and mainly about personal experiences.

According to Kaare and Luntby (2008, pp.106) these stories do not fit into formal theories ofnarratives from literature and film studies using self-sourced images and told with the authorsown voice. Although some of the definitions that one finds may suggest an additive characterof DS, that is as the result of adding multimedia elements to a written or oral narrative, as Hulland Nelson (2005, pp. 225) argue, multimodal composing is not an additive art; a multimodaltext can create a different system of signification. Scheidt (2006) adds that DS should not beunderstood as a phenomenon equivalent to either oral or to written narratives: DS creates anew composition. Lundby (2008, pp. 1) summarises its characteristics as: a) short, just a few

minutes long; b) made off the self-equipment and techniques with inexpensive productions; c)small-scale stories, centred on the narrators own personal life and told in his or her own voice.

Robin (2006) classifies digital stories into three main types, personal narratives, documentaries,and inform or instruct discourse (Robin, 2006), while Gregori (2011) includes a fourth type,socio-political digital storytelling. To these, many other subtypes could be added. However forthe sake of simplification, we propose here a differentiation between two types: a) social b)educational, which, without doubt account for the vast majority digital stories that can be foundon the Internet.

II. Classic model of Digital Storytelling originated in the Centre for DigitalStorytelling: the personal and social dimension

a. Social commitmentThe model initiated by the Centre for Digital Storytelling (CDS), which is the point of departurefor most applications of DS, emerged as a celebration of the creative expression of thecommon folk, of the non-professional artist (Lambert 2010 pp. 79). Lambert (2010) admitsthat although the expansion of DS into a wide variety of practices such as marketing, educationtechnology etc., is inevitable, the result in many cases situates this type of work outside asocial change framework [] missing the point about DS entirely. Thus creations of this kind areimbued, at best, with a thin, superficial veneer of social commitment (2009, pp.82).

The logo of the CDS claims that everyone has a story to tell. For them, the practice of digitalstorytelling enables autonomous and creative intercourse among persons in an intent to

promote social change. Since their beginnings, the CDS has undergone many changes,especially noticeable is the launch of its new website in 2012 where a great variety ofworkshops are offered: Educator Workshop, The Embodied Story Workshop, Stories-for-HealthWorkshop, iPhone Workshop, Snapshot Story Workshop, Facilitator In Training Workshop and aCertificate Program. This has meant an expansion of DS to many different contexts, thusfavouring a direct or indirect confrontation with the dominant culture and representativeauthorities (Lambert 2010, pp.82).

b. The democratic dimension of digital storytellingIn its origins, there was a strong democratic motivation underlying DS (Lambert 2010, Erstadand Silseth 2008, pp. 217) since its intention was always to allow unheard voices to be heard.

Although they recognize the democratic potential of DS, authors like Couldry (2008) and Erstadand Silseth (2008, pp. 216) express their reservations about the impact of DS in the realworld.


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There is no doubt that DS is the result of storytelling interacting with society. McWilliam (2009,pp. 151) argues that the discourses circulating around DS are substantively constructed,circulated and sustained in institutions, among participants and within texts. These three basicelements (institution, participant and the texts they produce) constitute dichotomous

parameters that reflect different uses of DS: a) public vs. private sectors; b) cultural oreconomic motivations; c) expressive vs. instrumental pedagogies. These elements arerepresented in a continuum and, at the same time, include other factors shared betweendifferent institutions. The question is, however, whether digital stories surpass the limits of theinstitutions in which they are created and have any impact on the making of (social andcultural) meaning and also if they have any social consequences. That is, does DS have

implications for the sustaining, or expansion of democracy? Does it contribute to social andcultural transformations which, as argued by Couldry (2008, pp. 46) can only happen undercomplex conditions? Couldry (2008) uses the term mediation and Hjarvard (2008)

mediatization to refer to the transformative power of the media and the broader effects of DS.Couldry differentiates between both mediation (Martin-Barbero 1993; Silverstone, 1999;Couldry 2000) and mediatization (Hjarvard, 2004; Mazzoleni and Schulz, 2004), choosingmediation in order to express the overall effect of media institutions existing in contemporarysocieties, the overall difference media make by being there in our social world (Couldry 2008,pp. 46)

In this vein, Westman (this number), offers an analysis of digital stories created to celebrategrass roots cricket. The production process of the digital stories described by Westman isdifferent from the classical model as described by CDS (cf. section 2.3 below) by CDS in thatthe stories are researched and created by project staff. Westman analyzes said stories usingGells (1988) theory of art. He reaches the conclusion that through their creation participantsform complex communities of practice.

c. The workshopThe model introduced by the CDS with Dana Atchley, Joe Lambert and Nina Mullen, which wasfurther developed by Daniel Meadows (2003) in the United Kingdom is workshop-based. Itinvolves a 3 to 5-day workshop in which participants are provided with games and guidedthrough the process of telling their story (Lambert, 2010).

As digital storytelling develops, so do the techniques it employs. As Lambert (2010) explainstheir:

[] emphasis over the years has been to help storytellers find the story they want orneed to tell, and then help them clearly define that story in the form of solidly writtenscript. For many storytellers, this process of clarification has proven to be atransformative experience.

To this, Lambert (2010) adds that their new approach to digital storytelling incorporates new

techniques:[.] we are helping our storytellers fully visualize their story as a finished piece beforethey begin to write their script [ . ] during our group process called the Story Circle[.] we want to help each storyteller not only find and clarify the story being told, butalso check in with them about how they feel about it, identify the moment of change intheir story, then use that to help them think through how the audience will see and heartheir story in the form of a digital story. And finally, after the Story Circle is completed,and the storyteller has had some time alone with his or her thoughts, they can then letall of these considerations inform them as they sit down to write.

Taught and learned from person to person the model proposed by Atchley, Lambert and Mullenreiterates their commitment to both social change and the individual. Their logo is thateveryone has a story to tell; CDS treats stories as acts of self-discovery.


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III. Educational Digital Storytelling: school-focused

We understand educational digital stories as school-focused, produced and developed within theschool context and as part of the academic curriculum which engage in formal schooling

applications of DS at primary, secondary and tertiary level. In these contexts, as expressed byMcWilliam (2009, pp.152), DS is often seen as a tool in building media literacy, narrativedevelopment and self-presentation skills, but also means engaging students who mightotherwise be struggling socially and/or intellectually. In this number and from the point of viewof a university lecturer Bou-Franch analyses stories produced by Spanish undergraduates ofEnglish Studies for the module History and Culture of English-speaking Countries, during the2011 spring term. Bou-Franch points out that stories fluctuated from the discourse of factualityto the discourse of subjectivity and argues that factuality allows students to display theirknowledge while subjectivity allows the inclusion of creativity and entertainment elements.

Barrett (2006) argues that digital storytelling fosters reflection and that reflection helps toenhance the effectiveness of learning and:

facilitates the convergence of four student-centered learning strategies: studentengagement, reflection for deep learning, project-based learning, and the effectiveintegration of technology into instruction.

Along the same lines, Bendt and Bowe (2000) draw up a list of ten reasons why we should paymore attention to storytelling:

it inspires dedication, encourages creativity to work, promotes problem solving,embraces diversity, captivates attention, piques interest in writing, fosters groupdynamics, addresses different learning styles, creates a positive classroom climate andincorporates the multiple intelligences.

What most authors point out is that DS has brought about an activation of more informal andcollaborative ways of learning which imply active participation between teacher and students(Castell 2002) thus enhancing a student-centred focus in the educational context (Erstad andSilseth 2008, pp.214); and with society (Gregori-Signes, 2011).

Reyes-Torres et al. in this number, describe a didactic sequence which uses digital storytellingas a pedagogical tool with students of EFL. DS is seen as an adequate tool to help studentsimprove their language skills in specific situations within common daily interaction. The resultsindicate that digital storytelling is evaluated as a positively both by teachers and students. Inparticular, they point out its potential to motivate students and to help them learn from theirmistakes by improving teamwork and giving them the opportunity to get to know theirclassmates better, to negotiate their ideas and to make decisions.

Along the same lines, Ramrez-Verdugo and Sotomayor Grande describe the potential of digitalstorytelling to teach literary narrative in primary school. The schools where the project is carriedout use CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) as a teaching method and ICTs are

also employed as pedagogical tools. Despite the initial reluctance on the part of the teachersinvolved in the project, the results seem to indicate that once teachers and studentsexperienced the use of DS in the classroom directly, they coincide that DS can contributepositively in a CLIL learning context by providing the necessary means to improve linguistic,literary, cognitive, social and cultural competences while promoting the acquisition of discipline-specific content.

a. Student: self-reflection and agency

Erstad and Silseth (2008, pp. 214) focus on digital storytelling and agency, and affirm that onthe one hand, DS provides an opportunity for individuals to become agents and to be morevisible. On the other, they affirm:


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when young people are given the opportunity to blend the informal cultural codes with moreformal ones in their own learning processes, agency might be fostered in a new way, withimplications for democratic participation.

They understand agency as the capacity to make a difference (Castor and Cooren, 2006 inErstad and Silseth 2008, pp. 216), which links directly to other educational uses of DS as a toolthat can help promote critical thinking and self-and group-reflection by bringing school andsociety together (Gregori-Signes 2013). The concepts of agency, identity and self-expressionhave become the hallmark of DS. Valkanova and Watts (2007) use it in order to promote self-reflective language in seven year old children (Bjorgen 2010) who produce video diaries abouttheir own everyday classroom experiences in a science course.

In this number Herreros-Navarro analyses stories produced by secondary school studentsfollowing the principles of classical narrative theory, filmic narrative; cognitive and psychologicalprocesses. Herreros-Navarro uses personal digital storytelling as a tool that makes studentsthink about their identity as human beings. Through this activity the students reflect not onlyabout themselves but also about the potential audience for their stories. This entails,undoubtedly, having to decide on the public image that they want the narrative to transmit,

thus encouraging students to organize their own ideas about their own self-identity.

A similar perspective is taken by Londoo-Monroy who also analyses digital stories produced bysecondary school students. She analyses the possibilities that DS offers when formallyimplemented in the curriculum. Her conclusions indicate that DS helps students modify orchange their roles. They become creators instead of consumers and thus more active. Theimplementation of DS motivates learners by offering a student-centred model backed up by amultimodal tool which helps students put into practice several competences (cf. Pennock-Speck,2009).

IV. ICTs and Digital Storytelling

For the last decade one of the main concerns in school education has been the implementationof information and communication technologies. DS has been reported as a more personalapproach to digital technologies while facilitating the development of student-centered learningenvironments (Jonasse and Land 2000 quoted in Erstad and Silseth 2008, p. 215). DS is usedas a means to promote the development of competences such as research and writing skills,organization skills, technology skills, presentation skills, interpersonal skills, problem-solvingskills- and in turn they develop: digital literacy, global literacy, technology literacy, visualliteracy, information literacy (cf. Robin 2006, Barrett 2006).

As argued by Gregori-Signes (2008) with the advent of new technologies and their consequentintegration within the curriculum teachers need to find attractive activities to substitute andcomplement more traditional ones. DS promotes the use of Web 2.0 technology for educationalpurposes while teaching students both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques.Students learn how to combine basic multimedia tools (e.g., animations) with activities asvaried as doing research, writing and delivering presentations (cf. Robin 2005, Barrett 2006).

In this number, Robin and McNeil provide us with a blueprint for the successful creation ofdigital stories within an educational context. The insights they provide are the product of yearsof experience gained through teaching, giving workshops and supervising research into digitalstorytelling. The article provides guidelines on every aspect of digital storytelling, that is, theiranalysis, design, development, implementation and assessment.

V. Final remarks

This article has provided a critical review of some of the most relevant studies on digitalstorytelling and has put forward a genre typology that allows an initial classification of digital

storytelling into two main types: educational and social. The articles in this number are mostlyabout experiences with DS in educational settings as DS is still strongest in the world ofeducation. It is clear, however, that it is impossible to separate the two types completely;educational stories are not divorced from the social context they are created in and stories witha more social bent in the wider social context also have message to convey and, as such, are


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partly pedagogical in nature.

Referencias

Barrett, H. C. (2006). Digital Stories in ePortfolios: Multiple Purposes and Tools. Retrieved fromhttp://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/index.html, accessed 1 April, 2007.

Castell, M. (2002). De la investigacin sobre el proceso de composicin a la enseanza de laescritura. Revista Signos, 35:149-162.

Center for Digital Storytelling. http://www.storycenter.org/index1.htm. First accessed, 1 June,2006.

Couldry, N. (2008). Digital storytelling, media research and democracy: Conceptual choicesand alternative futures. In K. Lundby (Ed.) Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-representations in New Media (pp. 41-60). New York: Peter Lang.

Erstad, O. & K. Silseth. (2008). Agency in Digital Storytelling. In K. Lundby (Ed.) Digitalstorytelling, mediatized stories: Self-representations in new media. (pp. 213-232). New York:Peter Lang.

Gregori Signes, C. (2008a). Integrating the old and the new: Digital Storytelling in the EFLlanguage classroom. Greta, 16, 1 & 2: 29-35.

Gregori-Signes, C. (2011). El relato digital desde una perspectiva socio-educativa. Jornada. Barcelona, 21 marzo 2010. Edulab, Universitat de Barcelona,available from http://greav.net/pdf/ProgramaJornadaCreandoHistoriasDigitales, accessed 20May, 2011.

Gregori-Signes, C. (2011). Digital Storytelling on the Worldwide Web. Digital Storytelling on the

WorldWide Web. Talk presented at the Conference Interdisciplinariedad, lenguas y TIC:investigacin y enseanza. Valencia: IULMA, 2011.

Gregori-Signes, C. (2013, in press). Digital storytelling and multimodal literacy in secondaryeducation.

Hjarvard, S. (2004). From bricks to bytes: the mediatization of a global toy industry. In I.Bondebjerg & Golding P. (Eds.), European culture and the media (pp. 43-63). Bristol: Intelect.

Hjarvard, S. (2008). Mediatization: An institutional approach. Nordic Review, 29 (2).

Hull, G. A., & Nelson, M. E. (2005). Locating the semiotic power of multimodality writtencommunication. Research in the Teaching of English, 22(2), 224-261.

Kaare, B.H. & Luntby, K. (2008:106). Mediatized lives: autobiography and assumedauthenticity in digital storytelling. In Lundby, K. (2008). Digital storytelling, mediatized stories:Self-representations in new media (pp. 105-122). New York: Peter Lang.

Lambert, J. (2010). Cookbook for Digital Storytelling. New York: Digital Diner Press.

Scheidt, L. A. (2006) Adolescent diary weblogs and the unseen audience. In D. Buckingham &R. Wilett (Eds.), Digital generations. Children, young people and new media (pp. 193-210).London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Lundby, K. (2008). Digital storytelling, mediatized stories: Self-representations in new media.New York: Peter Lang.

Martin-Barbero, J. 1993. Communication, culture and hegemony: From the media tomediations. London: Sage.


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McClean, S. 2007. Digital Storytelling: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film.Massachusetts: Massachussetts Institute of Technology.

McWilliam, K. (2009). The global diffusion of a community media practice. Digital storytelling

online. In Hartley, J. & K. McWilliam (eds.). Story circle: digital storytelling around the world(pp.37-76). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Meadows, D. (2003). Digital Storytelling: Research-Based Practice in New Media. VisualCommunication, 2 (2), 189-93.

Miller, C. (2004). Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment. Oxford:Elsevier.

Pennock-Speck, B. (2009). European Convergence and the Role of ICT in English Studies at theUniversitat de Valncia: Lessons Learned and Prospects for the Future. In Prez Caado, M. L.(Ed.) English Language Teaching in the European Credit Transfer System: Facing the Challenge(pp.169-186). Bruxelles: Peter Lang Publishing.

Robin, B. R. (2005). Educational Digital Storytelling. Retrieved 2007 fromhttp://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/introductiontroduction.htm.

Robin, B. R. (2006). The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling. Retrieved fromhttp://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/evaluation.htm.

Valkanova, Y., & Watts, M. (2007). Digital story telling in a science classroom: reflective self-learning (RSL) in action. Early Child Development and Care, 177(6), 793 80

Recommended citation

Gregori, C. And Pennock, B. (2012) Digital storytelling as a genre of mediatized self-representations: an introduction. In: Digital Education Review, 22. [Accessed:dd/mm/yyyy] http://greav.ub.edu/der


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Digital Storytelling as a Pedagogical Tool within a Didactic

Sequence in Foreign Language Teaching

Agustn Reyes Torres

[email protected]

Facultad de Magisterio, Universidad de Valncia, Spain

Eva Pich Ponce

[email protected]

Facultad de Filologa, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain

M Dolores Garca Pastor

[email protected]

Facultad de Magisterio, Universidad de Valncia, Spain

Abstract

Digital storytelling constitutes a pedagogical tool for teachers to work ondifferent linguistic skills while generating students interest and attention. Thisstudy analyses the usefulness of including digital storytelling within a didacticsequence in order to work on linguistic routines such as greetings and leave-takings in English as a foreign language. To this aim, we have worked with firstyear students in the Faculty of Education at the Universitat de Valncia toimprove their ability to adapt their language skills to specific situations withincommon daily interaction. We have designed a didactic sequence consisting ofdifferent workshops that have been put into practice in class. The sequenceends with a final project in which students are expected to produce their owndigital stories, showing thus what they have learnt. This final production hashighlighted a clear improvement in the use of linguistic routines, as well as inthe use of more complex structures and of varied expressions used to open andclose a conversation.Keywords

Didactic sequence; Linguistic routines; Digital storytelling; Teaching


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El relato digital como herramienta pedaggica en la enseanza

de lenguas extranjeras a travs del uso de la secuencia didctica

Agustn Reyes Torres

[email protected]

Facultad de Magisterio, Universidad de Valncia, Espaa

Eva Pich Ponce

[email protected]

Facultad de Filologa, Universidad de Sevilla, Espaa

M Dolores Garca Pastor

[email protected]

Facultad de Magisterio, Universidad de Valncia, Espaa

Resumen

El relato digital representa una herramienta pedaggica que permite al profesortrabajar distintas competencias lingsticas al mismo tiempo que suscita intersy atencin en el alumno. Este estudio analiza la utilidad de incluir el relatodigital dentro de una secuencia didctica con el fin de trabajar expresiones yrutinas lingsticas en ingls tales como los saludos y las formas de despedirse.Con este objetivo hemos trabajado con estudiantes de primer ao de la

Facultad de Educacin de la Universitat de Valncia para mejorar su capacidadde adaptar sus habilidades lingsticas a situaciones especficas en lainteraccin diaria. Hemos elaborado una secuencia didctica, con distintostalleres, que se han puesto en prctica en el aula. Dicha secuencia termina conun proyecto final en el que los estudiantes deben producir sus propios relatosdigitales que muestran lo que han aprendido. Esta produccin final ha puestoen evidencia una clara mejora en el uso de las rutinas lingsticas, as como enel uso de estructuras ms complejas y de expresiones ms variadas paracomenzar y concluir una conversacin.

Palabras clave

Secuencia didctica; Competencias lingsticas; Relato digital; Didctica


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I. Introduction

This paper presents the use of digital storytelling as a part of a didactic sequence to practicelinguistic routines in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. The aim is twofold: to

design a didactic sequence that includes digital storytelling as a pedagogical tool, and to helpstudents learn and practice linguistic elements such as greetings and leave-takings in dailyinteraction. This proposal emerges in the context of a research project funded by the Universityof Valencia.1

A didactic sequence is a group of activities designed and organized by a teacher in order toreach a learning objective. The particular order of these activities and the rhythm in which theyare presented is crucial for the learning process, since the final outcome does not depend on thecontent of each task, but on how all of them are arranged within the lesson (Dolz andSchneuwly, 2006; Vil-Santasusana, 2002). Students are asked to create a dialogue betweentwo or three people in a specific communicative context. The goal is to assess their languageskills in order to detect their previous knowledge, and their mistakes. This information enablesthe instructor to adapt and tailor the didactic sequence to the students needs and abilitythroughout the following lessons. According to Dolz and Schneuwly (2006), the didacticsequence must begin by explaining to the students the goals of the activity on which they aregoing to work. The reason behind this is to motivate them, and engage them in their ownlearning process. Once they have done the initial production, they are given a model of whatthey are expected to create. In this case, they are shown a digital story that contains differentsituations in which daily interaction in English occurs. Finally, after working on the targets set,students are expected to produce their own digital stories showing that improvement has beenaccomplished.

II. Digital Storytelling and Foreign Language Teaching: Linguistic Routines

Many scholars have long highlighted the importance of the use of digital storytelling in language

teaching and learning (Gregori-Signes, 2008; Robin, 2006; Rodrguez Illera & Londoo, 2009)as well as the need for more research on the learning outcomes of its usage in educationalsettings (cf. Barrett, 2005; Yuksel, Robin, McNeil, 2010). On the one hand, digital storytellingnot only offers language teachers the opportunity of working with all four language skills fromthe very beginning, but also brings together the idea of combining the art of telling stories witha variety of digital multimedia such as images, recorded audio narration, video and music(Robin, 2006). This enables instructors to teach any topic in a way that can generate interestand attention. In this particular study, digital storytelling is used to work on linguistic routines indaily interaction in English as a foreign language. Although traditionally digital stories mainlyconsist of a narration, we have also integrated a series of dialogues to provide an example ofdifferent communicative exchanges in which a variety of language chunks are used.

On the other hand, the positive effects of digital storytelling in the foreign language classroomare many. Hibbing and Rankin-Erikson (2003) and Boster, Meyer, Roberto and Inge (2002)

have shown that multimedia in teaching facilitates students learning and retaining newinformation. Moreover, digital storytelling draws the interest of students with diverse learningstyles and can also promote group work and increase their sense of achievement. Ultimately, italso constitutes a useful way of working on how to arrange information. As Robin (2006) pointsout, students who participate in the creation of digital stories may develop enhancedcommunication skills by learning to organize their ideas, ask questions, express opinions andconstruct narratives (p. 712).

The digital story presented here is aimed at 1st year undergraduate students within the subjectEnglish as a Foreign Language for Primary Education Teachers. It is based on differentsections that can either be used individually or as a whole to cover different learning points ofthe didactic sequence in which it is embedded, one of them being linguistic routines. We haveconceived linguistic routines in this study as ritualised linguistic behaviour which consists ofexpressions (words, phrases) usually occurring in a particular communicative situation orcontext that is recurrent (Coulmas, 1981). Consequently, they are expressions that are highly1 Research Project UV-INV-AE11-42019


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predictable in form, meaning and function. Linguistic routines or formulas have beenacknowledged to highly contribute to language learning in the literature (cf. Bardovi-Harlig,2006; Gregori-Signes & Alcantud-Daz, 2011; 2012.). These linguistic elements are essential ineveryday interaction, and, most importantly, they entail socio-cultural knowledge that members

of a determinate speech community share (Garca-Pastor, 2009; Wildner-Basset, 1984).Therefore, they are expected to be formulated and interpreted differently in different languages.

In this paper, we have focused on a specific kind of linguistic routines, namely, greetings andleave-takings, which perform the discursive functions of opening and ending any interactionrespectively. At a social level, greetings enable the speaker to start and/or retake and negotiatehis/her social relationship with the hearer at the same time that both convey theconceptualization they have of the relationship, for example, in terms of social distance, power,etc. (cf. Laver, 1981; House, 1996). Leave-taking formulae are linguistic resources participantsuse to negotiate and temporarily finish their social relation, and, like greetings, they show theconceptualization speaker and hearer have about their social bond. Thus, greetings and leave-takings in the discourse practices of opening and closing a conversation have significant socialimplications. Fostering an adequate understanding and use of these linguistic devices amonglanguage learners is important to help them in their learning of functional or socioculturalaspects of the target language.

Finally, the digital story created for this project follows the approach of scholars such asBurmark (2004) and Robin (2006), who establish that these stories can be deployed byteachers as anticipatory sets at the beginning of a lesson to introduce and develop a particulartopic. In our case, we use digital storytelling as a pedagogical tool to design, start and finish adidactic sequence that revolves around linguistic elements and communicative acts used in dailyinteraction in English such as language chunks or routines.

The concept of didactic sequence is not new, as it is a by-product of educational practice (cf.Crookes, 2003; Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Zabala, 1997). In daily classroom practice, teachersalways have certain activities in mind that they wish to implement or actually conduct in anordered, structured and articulated manner to reach certain educational objectives. These

activities and the way they are implemented in the classroom setting are in accordance with theinstructional method the teacher follows. Thus, for example, for a traditional teaching method,which involves a teacher-fronted model of the classroom and the deployment of the lecture asthe form of the lesson, the type of didactic sequence that one should expect would encompassthe following phases: a) explanation or delivery of the lesson; b) students individual studyusing the textbook; c) repetition of the content that has been learnt; d) teachers assessment ofstudents knowledge (Zabala, 1997).

However, for a communicative-oriented teaching method that fosters student participation inthe classroom and the use of more interactive lesson forms, the kind of didactic sequence thatthe teacher may employ is likely to be more complex with a focus on learner needs, interestsand motivation, among other things (ibid.). The didactic sequence developed for this study hasbeen conceived within a communicative approach to language teaching with the teacher as itsdeviser, that is, the organiser of the group of activities proposed, their arrangement and their

implementation in the classroom, and the students as its receivers. As stated by Richards andRodgers (2001), the teacher has therefore the central role of selecting, adapting, and/orcreating the tasks themselves and then forming these into an instructional sequence in keepingwith learner needs, interests, and language skill level (p. 236). These characteristics of thedidactic sequence are part of the mainstream definition of this concept, which stands in starkcontrasts with more discursive definitions, whereby a didactic sequence is seen to emerge fromthe interaction between teacher, students and the pedagogical situation that ensues in theclassroom (see Aldemar, 2007).

Following the features of a didactic sequence as generally understood, the didactic sequenceoutlined in this paper also reflects a continuous interaction between oral and written productionmodes, and listening and reading skills (cf. Camps, 1994). Additionally, such interaction needsto emerge in the context of a discourse genre, and all these elements need to be embeddedwithin an in-class project (Camps, 1994; 2003; Dolz & Schneuwly, 2006). In our didactic

sequence the interaction between the five skills (reading, speaking, listening, writing, andspoken interaction) in the activities proposed surfaces in the context of ordinary conversationand storytelling in English as a foreign language. The project that shapes all these elements


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consists of the use of digital storytelling to practice linguistic routines in the target language.

Lastly, the didactic sequence presented in this study also follows the general structureestablished for this didactic device in the literature: an initial or preparatory stage, which

usually contains production on the part of the students, a longer production phase, and theevaluation of learning outcomes at the end and throughout the sequence (Camps, 1994; 2003;Dolz & Schneuwly, 2006; Zabala, 1997). Nevertheless, we have adopted Dolz and Schneuwlys(2006) model of didactic sequences in this research, since, inter alia, it places emphasis oncommunication. An explanation of the didactic sequence designed for this study according tothis model is provided in the following paragraphs.

III. The Didactic Sequence

a. Participants and General Description

As already mentioned, the participants in this study are first-year students of the Faculty of

Education at the University of Valencia enrolled in the course English as a Foreign Language forPrimary Education Teachers. These students need to take this course to fulfill the requirementof the four-year degree established by the Spanish Ministry of Education in order to becomeprimary school teachers. We have worked with two different classes (Group A and Group B) ofthirty students each (and within each class we arranged students in 10 groups of three). GroupA was a rather homogeneous group of 19 female and 11 male learners, aged 18-22. With theexception of five students, all of them had just finished high school and were supposed to havean intermediate level of English, i.e., a B1 level in the Common European Framework ofReference (Council of Europe, 2001). Group B, by contrast, was more heterogeneous, since itwas composed of 21 female and 9 male students, and the age difference among the studentswas more pronounced. There were 10 older students, aged 35-44, and 20 students, aged 18-25.

In both groups, students level of English varied significantly. While 70% had a solidintermediate level as far as reading and understanding written English are concerned, theirwriting, listening and speaking abilities in this language corresponded to a beginner level. In thecase of the older students, although they had not taken English lessons for many years, it wasremarkable that their motivation was higher, and so they put more effort and dedication thanthe younger lot. Consequently, their work was among the best.

As a first step, we evaluated students command of English regarding the use of greetings andleave-takings as expressions to start and close a conversation. Students were asked to make alist of all the different ways they knew to say hello and good-bye in English. As alreadymentioned, these expressions are part of the linguistic routines native speakers use on a dailybasis. Being acquainted with these linguistic resources reflects a basic level of English, sincethese linguistic elements are necessary to initiate or establish any interaction. This activityallowed the instructor to be aware of the repertoire learners already had in the foreign

language. Moreover, we also asked students to write a short dialogue for two differentsituations in order to assess their ability to use the target language in context.

Situation A: You are having a coffee with your sister inStarbucks and then you see a friend. You introduce your sisterto your friend.

Situation B: You are at home and your mobile phone rings. Itsyour friend. He or she wants to ask you for another friendsmobile phone number.

Table 1. Situations provided to the students for their dialogues

This assignment was meant to function as a linguistic needs analysis (Richards, 1990), helping

both teachers and students to detect the aspects of the foreign language on which they need towork. Most importantly, it allowed us to adapt subsequent activities according to the studentsmistakes throughout the didactic sequence. In this particular study, we observed that the


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majority of the learners showed difficulties using basic linguistic routines in a simpleconversation. Some of their most common mistakes are listed in table 2.

Functional mistakes on greetings:

Example 1: -Hi, who is?

-I am Peter.

Example 2: -Hello, Im nice to meet you

-And you.

Example 3: -I niece to meet you

-Enchanted or I too

Functional mistakes in introducing someone:

Example 1: -Do you meet my sister?

Example 2: -Im go to introduce you

Example 3: -Do you meet she?

Grammar and sentence structure mistakes:

Example 1: -Do you have the Peters mobile phone number?

Example 2: -Im seeing TV.

Example 3: -I dont see you for a long time

L1 interfering effects:

Example 1: -Hello, Maria. Say me.

Example 2: -No, I havent the Pablo telephone number.

Example 3: -Whats happens?

Table 2 Common mistakes made by the students

As we can see in Table 2, students initial production highlighted not only the problems they hadwhen dealing with linguistic routines, but also how they often used literal translation in order toconvey their attempts to greet someone and to communicate in different situations. Thus, thisfirst production enabled the teacher to circumscribe students capacities and their maindifficulties, and to adjust the following workshops to the students needs. It constituted aninvaluable way of pointing out both to the teacher and the students the path they needed tofollow in order to achieve the teaching-learning objectives.

Students awareness of the learning process is essential in a didactic sequence (Dolz andSchneuwly, 2006). This is why, after the dialogues had been written, students were asked todiscuss the difficulties they had found when writing them and the mechanisms they had used inorder to overcome these difficulties. The discussion lead to the establishment of differentlearning objectives to work on during the following workshops. Therefore, students werecompletely involved in the development of the didactic sequence, and contributed to set thelinguistic objectives and the contents of the activities. This provided them with a sense ofresponsibility for their learning and academic awareness, which has been strongly encouragedrecently in the European context (Council of Europe, 2001; 2003).

At this stage, students were also told the aims of the project, i.e. the final task they would haveto carry out in groups at the end of the sequence. They had to create and display a digital storyconsisting of an introduction, a conflict and a resolution, and containing both a narrative and adialogue in which they used daily linguistic routines. The explanation of this objective gave a


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purpose to the whole set of workshops planned.

Certainly, it is important to introduce a context which allows students to use the language for areal purpose and, as they are more likely to be engaged in this kind of task, it may motivate

them further in their language learning process. The different activities planned for theworkshops are therefore no longer viewed as mere linguistic tasks; but they acquire a largerand more significant purpose in relation to the final project that the students need to create.This final production allows them to put into practice and to integrate what they have learntthroughout the sequence. It creates a space where they can use both the linguistic elementsthey already knew, and the ones they have learnt. By comparing their initial productions withthe final outcome, students and teacher can also gain awareness of the learning that has takenplace and whether the workshops have been efficient. Moreover, working in groups on a digitalstory can develop students collaborative skills, as they have to plan, negotiate and makedecisions.

In order to help them visualize better the project they were expected to carry out, we madethem watch three episodes of the digital story we had created. Thus, our digital story was usedboth as a model for the students of what they had to produce, and as a tool within the

workshops in order to study and practice linguistic routines and other aspects of the targetlanguage. Our digital story consists of different episodes displaying everyday situations such asintroducing oneself and others, talking to someone at a party, going out for dinner, talking onthe phone, chatting on the internet, saying good-bye at the airport, asking for directions, etc.Each episode takes approximately two minutes and allows the teacher to focus on differentaspects of the language. The episodes can be used independently or as a part of a whole story,depending on the aims of the instructor and the students needs. The main protagonists of ourdigital story are a Spanish young man, called Nacho, and an English speaking woman calledSarah. The story shows how these two young characters meet, fall in love and are separatedwhen Sarah has to go back to London. The digital story makes use of communicative situationsthat students are likely to encounter in real life and that may be appealing to them. Bypresenting two characters of different nationalities it also attempts to foster interculturalawareness and it highlights the importance of the English language as a significant

communicative medium across cultures (Crystal, 2003).The digital story has been specifically designed for the students, which means that the languageused has been selected and graded. It is thus adapted to their level of competence. As Dolz andSchneuwly (2006) indicate, the model used in a didactic sequence does not need to be based on

authentic language samples, as its main purpose is to function as an example of what thestudents themselves have to produce. The document must therefore be exemplary, accessibleand adequate in length. Moreover, by combining sound and vision, digital storytelling provides afull and stimulating context from which the meaning can be inferred. It thus fulfils apsychological, linguistic, cognitive, socio-cultural, and pedagogical function.

b. The workshops

Once students had become familiar with the kind of work they were expected to produce at theend of the sequence, the set of workshops intended to guide them towards this goal began. Inthese workshops, students were able to work on the general and specific problems that hadappeared in their initial production and the instructor provided them with the tools they neededto learn from their mistakes and overcome their initial difficulties.

i. Workshop 1

In workshop 1 students watched episodes 2 and 3 of the digital story. Before, we had askedthem to pay special attention to linguistic routines. The first activity was to identify thegreetings used by the two speakers who take part in the conversation in episode 2: Sarah andNacho. Since the situation is similar to the one in the task given to students for their initialproduction (Table 1), they were already familiar with it. Kimberley lives in Valencia and her

sister Sarah just came to visit her from London. It is Kimberleys birthday party and she hasinvited all her friends over. At some point, Kimberley introduces Sarah to her friend Nacho.


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We had students listen to it twice and then they were provided with the following listeningcomprehension questions:

Questions on episode two

1-What does Sarah say to Nacho when they meet?

2-How does Nacho reply?

3-Why does Sarah think that Nacho is quick?

4-What is a pickup line? Can you think of an example?

Table 3. Listening comprehension exercise on episode 2

Once students had discussed the answers in pairs, they watched the episode again to check iftheir responses were adequate.

Episode 3 presents two telephone conversations: the first conversation takes place betweenNacho and Kimberley and the second one between Nacho and Sarah. Unlike the first activity,students were only familiar with the first situation (Table 1) at this point. In the first telephoneexchange, Nacho asks Kimberly for her sisters number. In the second one, he calls Sarah toinvite her out to dinner. Students watched the episode twice and had to pay attention tolinguistic routines. Then, they worked on the following listening comprehension questions:

Questions on episode three Part I

1-What does Kimberley say to answer the phone call?

2-Why is Nacho calling?

3-What expressions do they use to end the conversation?

Questions on episode three Part II

4-What does Sarah say to answer the phone call?

5-What does she ask to know who is calling? How does Nacho reply?

6-What does Nacho ask Sarah?

7-Where do they agree to meet?

8-What expressions do they use to end the conversation?

Table 4. Listening comprehension exercise on episode 3

As in previous activities students worked in pairs to discuss the answers. Once they hadfinished, they watched both episodes one more time to analyze greetings and leave-takings.

ii. Workshop 2

This session was used to work on the mistakes students made in their initial production. Theyreceived this production with the parts that needed to be corrected highlighted. In order to havestudents reflect on them, we only indicated w.g for wrong greeting, rg/ss for revisegrammar or sentence structure, and l.t for literal translation. Instructors made clear thatmistakes are a crucial source of information in order to learn and so they had to be seen assomething positive (Ellis, 1994; James, 1998).

Next, we distributed to students a sheet in which we had included their most common mistakes.

They recognized some of the sentences as their own, which increased their interest in correctingthem. Once again the aim was to have them learn from their own mistakes. Most importantly,by sharing them with their classmates, we were emphasizing the idea of learning together andminimizing the relevance of who made the error.


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Students were given some time to work in pairs on the mistakes and then the teacher checkedtheir answers and showed to the whole class the different options. Students then received ahandout with phrases in English that are commonly used to say hello, goodbye and to introduceto strangers. They were required to incorporate such phrases into the dialogues written during

their initial production. Then, they did a role play with these dialogues.

iii. Workshop 3

In the third workshop, students watched the episode 4 of our digital story, which presents thetwo protagonists going out for dinner. However, this time the digital story was displayed withoutsound, so that the students could only watch the images and had to guess what was happeningin the story and what the characters were saying. They had to use their imagination and createa dialogue using the linguistic routines they had learnt in the previous lessons. After that, thestudents read out loud their written assignments, which had to match the pictures of the video.At the end of the workshop, the digital story was presented with sound and the students couldthen compare it with their own dialogues. This workshop was intended as a practice for theirfinal project. It fostered students creativity and allowed both students and teacher to check theprogress of the former regarding the use of linguistic routines in specific contexts. It also

enabled the instructor to see the difficulties that were still remaining and to further adjust thefollowing sessions to the students needs. One of the main areas to work on were students oralskills. Due to their lack of confidence, they were very shy to speak English in front of theirclassmates. Likewise, they had a habit to translate expressions literally from Spanish intoEnglish and to mix up the use of the pronouns his and her. Some of these problems couldbe dealt with in the next workshop, which focused on a series of activities that covered differentaspects of the foreign language.

iv.Workshop 4

In this session students were provided with several handouts containing different tasks thatallowed them to practice some grammatical and lexical elements. As these were based on theirdifficulties and their mistakes in the previous sessions, the points to work were no longer seenas mere grammatical exercises. On the contrary, they were perceived as meaningful tools thatenabled them to write their final production. The activities to carry out depend on the difficultiesdetected and therefore they may vary from one session to another. In this case, we devotedthis lesson to work particularly on linguistic devices such as verb tenses, prepositions andpronouns, key in narratives. Students were given several activities that included a bank ofwords, so they had to fill the gaps by using a verb in the correct tense, a preposition or apronoun. They also had to correct a small text containing different mistakes related to thesecategories. It was gratifying to see that they understood for example the difference betweenthe present simple and the present continuous, and how to apply it in a regular conversation.i.e. Pam: Hello, Toni. Where are you going? (instead of where do you go as they used to saybecause of their attempt to translate directly from Spanish to English)

The second part of the workshop was centred on lexical and idiomatic aspects of the foreignlanguage. Since in their final story students would have to combine narrative and dialogue, this

workshop was also used to work on the structure of a narrative, hence sentence connectors.Students had to identify the meaning of some connectors and use them by integrating them in agiven text. These exercises were meant to prepare them for the following workshop, in whichthey would have to start writing the final written production. Therefore, throughout thesequence, contents appear in a cyclical way: new contents are progressively incorporated tothose which have been previously learnt. This is likely to enrich students knowledge and allowsthem to carry out more complex activities in the foreign language.

v. Workshop 5

The aim of this workshop was to have students start writing the story that they would later usein their final project: a digital story. In the guidelines, we reminded them about the importanceof using linguistic routines, but also we gave them a list of common pickup lines. They wererequired to include at least one in their story.


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Pickup lines

Hey, Im new in town. Can I get directions to your house? Hey, am I dreaming? You cannot be real Did you just fall from heaven? You are an angel! Call me anytime day or night if you need someone to talk to Here is my cell number, work number and home number; I want

to make sure I do not miss your call.

What is a fine woman like you doing shopping by yourself? Girl, the way you look in those jeans makes me want to cry

Table 5 Pickup lines provided to the students for their stories

The goal of this assignment was to motivate students into writing the story. They normally findusing pickup lines amusing and creating a situation in which there is interaction between youngpeople like them that meet for the first time in a party or a disco. This was clearly demonstratedin their final work as it will be shown later.

On the other hand, we also gave them instructions for the structure of the story. The story hadto be well organized and include the following pattern:

Structure of the story

1-Setting: It introduces the main characters and the initial situation ofthe story.

2-Conflict: It presents some kind of problem or goal to reach and thetension around it.

3-Resolution: It is the end of the story and presents a solution to theconflict.

Table 6 Instructions for the structure of the story

They also had to include interaction and dialogue between the characters. On the whole, thestory had to be approximately two pages long.

vi. Workshop 6

Peer correction encourages students to work together and learn from each other. As Asifa

Sultana (2009) has argued and our students final comments and reflections later confirmed,peer correction is implemented in classrooms to enhance learner autonomy, cooperation,interaction and involvement (p. 12). In this workshop, students had to exchange their writtenproductions and try to correct each others mistakes. This session was designed in order tomake students realize the importance of revising their texts during the writing process. AnneRaimes (1983) has pointed out that checklists are useful in order to make students focus onspecific characteristics of the written text during peer feedback activity. In order to helpstudents with the feedback session, we created the following checklist.


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Does the story have a clear introduction?

Do the characters use linguistic routines such asgreetings and leave takings?

Can you understand the development of the plot? Does itcreate interest?

Does the story have a clear ending?

Is each sentence in the story clear and complete?

Can any long sentences be improved by breaking themdown into shorter units and recombining them?

Does each verb agree with its subject?

Are all verb forms correct and consistent?

Do pronouns refer clearly to the appropriate nouns?

Is each word spelled correctly?

Is the punctuation correct?

Do you have any suggestions to improve the story?

Table 7.Checklist

Students had to write down their observations and comments regarding these aspects. Besidescorrecting the mistakes they found in their classmates production, they could also makesuggestions related to the plot and the language used in the text. The objective was to provide

students with another opinion on their work and to give them the opportunity to revise itaccording to the feedback they had received. After correcting it, the students were expected todiscuss with each other the strengths and weaknesses problems and the good points observedin their writing. The authors of the text could then react to their partners comments andexchange opinions. However, at the end of the discussion they had to make decisions andmodify their texts accordingly. Thus, this activity promotes cooperative learning. As De Almeida(2007) has stated, the use ofpeer feedbackaims at helping learners become more critical oftheir own texts. As they listen to their peers views on what they have written and have theopportunity to reshape their writing, they are exercising the ability to detach themselves fromtheir texts and read it with the target readers eyes (p. 5). Through this activity, and as theirfinal production reveal, students are made to revise their productions in depth, to reflect ontheir own performance and to find ways of improving their work.

vii. Workshop 7When reaching this stage, the written text is ready and the students are prepared to turn it intoa digital story. In this workshop they learnt how to use the digital story software MicrosoftPhoto Story 3. Students chose pictures related to their story and arranged them in the properorder to match its development. Then, they read the text out loud and recorded the voices thatwere to accompany the images of the story. They had to bear in mind the intonation, thepauses and the mood of the characters in order to make the story convincing. As a final step,they added the music and generated the video.

viii. Final production

Ultimately, to complete the didactic sequence students had to present their final production,that is, their digital stories to the rest of the class. They had to do this along with an

introduction in which they explained the rationale behind the pickup line selected and the storydeveloped around it.


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After watching each video there was time for discussing its content. First of all, we invited eachgroup of students to comment on their experience putting the story together: the challenges,the progress they think they had made and how the overall process had helped them toimprove their linguistic skills. Second, the rest of the class had to identify the use of linguistic

routines and to make remarks on the originality of the story. This discussion served as a finalreflection on the educational benefits of digital storytelling and how it had contributed to theirlearning of English.

IV. Results

The students were aware of the assessment criteria, as they were given a handout containingthe different aspects that were going to be considered in the evaluation. This information wasalso used by them as a checklist, before handing in their work:

Assessment criteria

PART 1 STORY

-Use of greetings

-Use of leave-takings

-Use of pickup lines

-General use of dialogues and interaction

-Use of vocabulary

-Grammar: use of verbs, past tenses, connectors, etc.

PART 2 PLOT

-Introduction

-Conflict

-Resolution

-Intercultural aspects

-Coherence of the story

PART 3 DIGITAL STORYTELLING

-Oral English: pronunciation

-Use of photos that match the story and the dialogues

-Overall final product and use of Photo Story 3

PART 4 STUDENTS REFLECTIONS

-Comment on your group the advantages of the use of digital storytelling toimprove your English.

-In your opinion, what is the skill that you practiced the most?

-Write down an insightful reflection on what you have learned.

Table 8. Assessment information provided to the students


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The final productions showed a clear improvement regarding the use of linguistic routines.Compared to the initial texts which were written before the didactic sequence, the final outcomecontained more complex structures and a varied range of expressions used to start and to end aconversation. The students were able to construct coherent stories that included both a

narrative and a dialogue. Greetings and leave-takings were thus used in context, within acommunicative situation, and embedded within the dialogues created. Most of the students alsoincluded one or several pick-up lines in very real situations. In addition, before creating thevideos, the students were asked to turn in their scripts which provided us with the opportunityto check their progress as far as their use of grammar.

Although the level of English and the number of mistakes made varied from one text to theother, we observed a general attempt at using linguistic routines in a correct way and in theappropriate contexts. The students had been able to distinguish between the standard writtenlanguage used by the narrator, and the oral language used in the interactions. The distinctionappears clearly in the texts not only by the use of linguistic routines, but also by the use ofexclamations, adjacency pairs, or pause and hesitation fillers in the dialogues: Mmm...I thinkso, but Im not sure, maybe! Why?; P- Hello, Sussie, its been a long time! You look great! /S- Oh my god! Its you! Its a pleasure to see you again.

Some of the grammatical and lexical mistakes made in the initial productions did not appear inthe final texts anymore. For example, in the initial productions we could find sentences such as:

-Hello Maria. How are you? / - Hi Pilar, Im fun, thanks. Whats happen?. In the final outcome,students were able to write these structures correctly: -Hello Tom, how are you? / - Im fine,thank you! Ive already finished reading the book. Would you like to meet up with me?; -Hello John! / - Hi, Maria! Whats up?

In the narrative part, the sentences used are more complex and they follow the rules ofstandard written language: One day, while Sophie is at school with her colleagues, during thebreak, a handsome man enters the room. Hes the new intern, John.

The most common mistakes found in the texts concern the use of prepositions, verbal tenses,and possessive pronouns. The linguistic routines seen throughout the didactic sequence wereused adequately. However, there was still a structure that most of the students failed to employcorrectly: - nice to meet you. / - Me too.

We could still find grammar and sentence structure mistakes such as one photos mum orthey are meeting in a Jennys cafeteria. In spite of this, most of the functional mistakesdescribed in Table 2 had been overcome at this stage. On a different note, due to theimportance given to interactive speech throughout the sequence, in the case of some students,this resulted in some orthographical errors induced by a focus on correct pronunciation: or mygad! (used for Oh my God!).

Of the twenty groups (3 students per group) that created the digital storytelling, nineteenpresented well-constructed stories. Seven groups had outstanding marks due to the originalityand coherence of the plot, the adequacy of the images selected, the use of the English language

and the good pronunciation and intonation of the students. There were nine groups that hadmore problems with the correct use of the language and four groups had difficulties regardingthe creation of the video (blurred or pixelated images, sound problems, video motion, image-voice adequacy). However, and despite their difficulties, all the students made a clear effort topronounce correctly.


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Improvementin the use oflinguisticroutines

Correctuse ofpick-upline

Improvementin the use oforal English:pronunciation

Finalwork stillincludesgrammarmistakes

Outstandingfinal workwith theDST.

Grade: A

Above-averagefinalworkwithDST.

Grade: B

Acceptablefinal workwith DST,

Grade: C

Studentssatisfactionandpositivereflection

Numberofgroups(20)

20 17 17 13 7 9 4 20

Table 9. Final results overview

All the groups were also required to hand in a reflection on their experience and the advantages

that they found in the use of digital storytelling in learning and using EFL. It is significant thatall of them highlighted the amusing and creative dimensions of DST, and its potential tomotivate learners of English. They all agreed that it had helped them to improve their writtenand oral skills, but particularly their pronunciation and intonation:

Speaking is especially difficult for adults because we feel ashamed and ridiculous[even if] we have the knowledge to write the script with an acceptable level orgrammar and vocabulary, We think that speaking is the skill that we practicedthe most and we did it, in a certain way, avoiding the traditional fear of oralexercises. Furthermore, recording our voices allowed us to listen to ourselvesand to discover our major pronunciation problems (Students reflection).

After making the digital story, we have developed different sills like writing,because when we created the story, we reviewed the writing, taking

into account the use of pickup line, expressions and advanced vocabulary. Otheraspect to consider was the pronunciation, because when we listened toourselves, we were conscious of our mistakes and corrected them. Thishas been the skill we have practiced more, because the digital story isbased mainly an oral expression. This work was a new and useful experienceabout our teaching-learning process. (Students reflection)

Students were aware that in order to create the video they had to revise their writtenproduction thoroughly, correct the mistakes, look for new vocabulary, check the goodpronunciation of the words (some of them admitted having checked the pronunciation of somewords online). Finally, many of the groups also highlighted the importance of teamwork in thecreation of the video and how this assignment gave them the opportunity to get to know theirclassmates better, negotiate their ideas and make decisions.

V. Conclusions

The use of digital storytelling in the class of second language acquisition constitutes apedagogical tool that can be included within the frame of a didactic sequence. Following themethodology established by Dolz and Schneuwly, this paper has shown how it is possible todevelop a series of workshops that revolve around a digital story in order to work with studentson linguistic elements and communicative acts used in daily interaction. The technologicaldevices involved throughout the process are expected to generate interest, attention andmotivation for the current "digital generation" students that we find in our classrooms.Furthermore, it is intended to foster cooperative learning through which students workindependently following the guidelines given.

Throughout the didactic sequence the teacher plays an important role at the beginning whenaccording to his initial observations, he can elaborate and adapt the different workshops to thestudents needs and abilities. Some of the questions he should face beforehand are: what arethe objectives of the didactic sequence? How do the workshops constitute a progression of


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interrelated activities which reinforce and consolidate each other in establishing the finaloutcome? In this way, the teacher has the opportunity to individualize the work students do andmonitor their progress. At this stage, his role as a teacher is more of a guide leading studentsthrough their learning and letting them use the language creatively to write their stories.

Lastly, the educational value of this project is ultimately intended to serve as an example onhow digital storytelling can be incorporated in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Weexpect to encourage other scholars to generate new didactic sequences using our model as asource for their professional development.

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Appendix

Objectives Activities Material Procedure Time

Initial

Production

-Test students initial

knowledge and ability oflinguistic routines

-Adaptation of language in

different contexts. Adequacy

of register.-Development of language

skills: writing, reading,

speaking and listening

1-In pairs, students make a list of all the

different ways that they know to sayhello and good-bye

2-Students write a dialogue in a given

context. They will be given two different

situations, so they will have to adapt thedialogue to each of them.

3-Reflection on the difficulties and

establishment of targets to work on.

4- Presentation of the aims of theproject: create their own digital story

5- Display of three episodes of our

digital story. (Episodes 1, 2, 3)

-Hand-out

with theinstructions

-One

photocopy per

group

1-Students in

pairs.2-Students in

groups

3-Teacher and

students4-Teacher to the

whole class

-5 min

-20 min-15 min

-10 min

Workshop1

-Introduce the relevance oflinguistic routines in daily

interaction

-Identify greetings and leave-takings.-Development of language

skills: listening, reading,

speaking

1- Listening. Display of the digital story(Episodes 2, 3).related to linguistic

routines.

2-Listening comprehension exercises.3-Analysis of the different parts of theconversation:

-Greeting

-Intention

-Leave-taking

1-Computer,head-

projector,

screen.2-Audio

1-Studentsindividually

2-Students in

pairs.3-Teacher andstudents.

-10 min-20 min

-20 min

Workshop

2

-Make students aware of their

mistakes.

-Learn a list of common

expressions to say hello, tointroduce someone and to

say good-bye.

-Development of language

skills

1-Show students a list of the most

common mistakes they have made in

their original production. Correct them

together2-Return to students their original work

in which now we have highlighted the

relevant mistakes and those parts that

need to be corrected.

3-Incorporate the given expression intothe dialogues written during the initial

production.

4-Role play

-Hand-out

with students

mistakes

-Hand-outwith the

expressions

-Students

notebooks

1-Students in

groups

2-Students in

groups

-25 min

-10 min

-15 min

-10 min

Workshop

3

-Practice of the linguistic

routines.

-Development of language

skills

1-Students watch

Documents

Digital Education Review-n.2012-12-22-Digital Storytelling