Digital Storytelling in ESL
Classrooms
Yalda Ahmadvand
What is Digital Storytelling?
 Digital storytelling is a short clip which is the practice of
combining narrative with digital content by using
computer-based tools.
 It consists of:
1. Oral or/and written text
2. Images
3. Strong emotional component
4. Sound
What is Digital Storytelling?
Other terms use to describe digital storytelling:
1. Computer-based narratives
2. Interactive storytelling
3. Digital essay
4. Digital documentaries
 It is the art of telling stories using different multimedia, as
well as graphics, music, audio, video clips, and Web
publishing.
What is Digital Storytelling?
 It can be efficiently applied to almost any
subject.
 The topics:
 Personal tales
 Historical events
 Exploring life from one’s own community or
any other places in the world
What is Digital Storytelling?
 For creating influential narrative, the storyteller
requires to consider the audience’s perspective and
think about the topic carefully.
Why is it significant?
 Stories are the foundation of every culture, and
people often tell stories to teach beliefs and values to
others
 Traditional storytelling was used as a way of
knowledge transfer and a source, and a basis of
education.
 Technology
Why is it significant?
 The storyteller chooses a topic that can be properly
conveyed to a particular audience.
 Chooses the images, sound and words, with
electronic elements, and in a limited time.
 Digital storytelling let the students to express
themselves with their own words, and with their own
voice.
Why is it significant?
 The strong point of Digital Storytelling:
users with no or little technological background can
create a digital storytelling easily.
Why is it significant?
 According to Barret (2005), “digital storytelling
facilitates the convergence of four student-centered
learning strategies:
 student engagement
 reflection for deep learning
 project-based learning
 and the effective integration of technology into
instruction.”
The Seven Elements of Effective
Digital stories
 Digital storytelling originated at the Center for Digital
Storytelling founded by Joe Lambert at U.C Berkeley
in 1993.
 They believed that everyone has a story to tell, and
digital technologies offer powerful means for
conveying it to others.
The Seven Elements of Effective
Digital stories
 A digital storytelling covers all the elements of
traditional stories like setting, plot, theme, character,
conflict, and point of view.
 Lambert identifies seven key elements for effective
digital storytelling :
point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content,
economy, pacing, the gift of your voice, and
accompanying soundtrack.
Point of view:
 Every story should have a point.
 Point of view expresses what the main point of the story and the
perspective of the author are.
 Digital storytelling gives the power to the author to express his or her
personal experiences.
 Students should use their own story and personal experiences.
 We use the first person pronoun “I” instead of third person pronoun to
separate digital storytelling from the PowerPoint report which is usually
used for research reports.
Dramatic Question:
 A dramatic question is a question that grabs the audience’s
attention and it will be answered by the end of the story.
 Picking up some pointless pictures, and accompany them with
some narratives and a music will not attract the audience’s
attention, and won’t make them listen to the story to the end.
 Invest on an evoking question to make the audiences pursue the
story for the eventual payoff at the closing of the story

 shape their story in a way that they can surprise and reward the
audience at the end.
Emotional Content:
 The effective digital story can evoke audiences’ emotion
and connect them to the story.
 Emotion is created in every aspect of the process, such as
words, images, voice and music.
 Seeing audiences’ reaction to the story shows that the
writer was successful in making the story and engaging the
audience, and it validates his or her effort and creativity.
The Gift of Your Voice:
 Digital storytelling helps the voice of the students to
be heard.(Reluctant to participate)
 Digital storytelling helps the students to narrate their
own story, and record themselves.
 One of the most effective elements in digital
storytelling is using your own voice to tell your story
and personalize it.
The power of the soundtrack:
Choosing a right music
 Music can enhance and embellish the story.
 Adding the music to the story can be done at the end of the
construction process.
 Encourage the students to use instrumental music instead of lyrical.
 Mention the importance of addressing copyright when music is
employed.
 There are some sites that offer music that can be downloaded and
be used for educational purposes.
Economy:
 Economy, which means using just enough content to
sharpen the focus of the story, can be the most
difficult part for the experienced and beginner
writers.
 The suggested length for digital storytelling is three
to four minutes
 This limitation has two practical benefits:
Economy
 First: It can be manageable to be done during school
hours, and make it possible for an audience to view all
the students’ stories in a single session.
 Second: It makes the writer focus on what is really
essential for the story to be written, and it is sharpen
the focus of the story.
 Experts believe that the effective digital story
uses only few images, less visual effect, and a
few words to powerfully communicate
envisioned meaning.
Pacing
 Pacing or rhythm of the story is an important factor for holding
the audience’s attention.
 The art of storytelling is to use varied inflection and pace, which
means pulling back or racing forward when it is required.
 This makes an important interaction between economy and
pacing
 If the story is too long, the storyteller often wants to tell the
story quickly, and it obliges them to pause or vary the pace.
 The best approach is to retain the focus of the story when the
story is constructed, and use natural pace and voice punctuation
Educational Use of Digital
storytelling
 Digital storytelling allows students become creative
storytellers by using technology
 It is well-positioned to help teachers to overcome
some obstacles to productivity using technology in
their classrooms.
 It can be an effective instructional tool for teachers,
and an effective learning tool for students.
Educational Use of Digital
storytelling
 Teachers:
 can create their own stories to engage students into the
lesson, and capture their attention in exploring new ideas.
 Create a story to facilitate discussions and making abstract
or conceptual content more understandable.
 Research has shown that using multi media in teaching
helps students retain information for longer period of
time, and assists them in understanding of difficult
materials.
Educational Use of Digital
storytelling
 students:
 Digital storytelling can develop creativity and critical thinking
 it allows students’ personal voice to be heard.
 It develops students’ communicative skills, and it improves
independent learning.
 Helps students reflect upon their own learning and find a link
between their classroom, and out of class experience.
 Develop literacy and proficiency with multimedia applications.
 After viewing the samples, teachers can ask students to research
about a specific topic, choose their point of view and try to
create their own story.
 This type of activities can generate interest and creativity in
students.
 Make them go to a library or using countless online resources to
gather contents for their story.
 Learn to organize their ideas, express opinions and construct
narratives in an engaging way.
Educational Use of Digital
storytelling
 after making the stories, students can publish their stories
online.
 It’s an opportunity to see each other's work and
gain valuable experience in critiquing
their own or other’s work.
 Digital storytelling can be used in
a class with diverse learning styles.
Digital Storytelling in ESL Classroom
 It is a tool that ESL teachers can incorporate in their
teaching.
 ESL students can benefit from using it by reflecting in
English and developing their oral skills to speak the
language.
From pedagogical perspective, digital
storytelling improves:
Reading
Writing
Speaking
Listening
Reflection
Critical thinking
Research skills
Digital Storytelling in ESL Classroom
 It can also help students to improve their technology
skills by providing an opportunity to interact by
technology
 It is an exceptional tool for assessing students’
language skills, and their understanding of a specific
subject informally
Things to Consider
 Students need to have access to computers with internet
connections.
 Students need to browse the web, find pictures or
information for their project.
 Teachers need to ensure computers have decent working
microphones for students for recording their narratives.
 Computers need to be well equipped with necessary
software tool.
There is some popular digital
storytelling software such as:
 iMovie (import video footage and edit video clips)
 Windows Movie Maker (part of every Windows XP or
Vista S installation)
 Microsoft Photo Story 3 (available for download from
Windows XP)
 Final Cut Express (video editing software) Mac
 Audacity (digital audio editor and recording
application)
 Above all, we need to ensure that students are
familiar with basic computer skills such
Saving files
copy and paste function
 Students don’t need
advanced computer skills.
Steps of preparing the story in ESL
classrooms
 The first step in creating a story is Script development.
 Students will write the story, often with a group to
provide story development ideas and feedback on the
story.
 This stage usually takes more than one session depending
on your learning objectives.
 Ask students to submit their draft of their script first in
order to check their grammatical mistakes.
Steps of preparing the story in ESL
classrooms
 The second step is collecting pictures
 Students download and edit images that they want to
choose for their story.
 It helps students to use their creativity in finding original
images that are meaningful reflection to their stories
 To make this step more meaningful, as a teacher you might
have them to justify their choices.
Steps of preparing the story in ESL
classrooms
 Then students should record their voices
 Students need to practice their narration
 work on their pronunciation, intonation, and fluency.
 Then they should combine the narration and images,
and add music tracks.
Steps of preparing the story in ESL
classrooms
 Teachers can use a computer projector, and in a special
presentation session.
 It is better not to give them feedback on the form and
structure right away or even after finishing their
presentation.
 This project is mainly based on communicative approach
and its focus is primarily on the process not the final
products.
Issues
Time:
 Creating digital storytelling takes time
 Teachers must be prepared for the time a studentcentred digital storytelling might need.
Issues
Training:
 Although digital storytelling project needs basic
computer knowledge, students often need to be
trained for the skills needed for a digital storytelling
project.
Issues
Structure:
 For creating a meaningful digital storytelling, we need
to consider its structure.
 Without suitable structure, students might just put
some pictures and music together without focusing
on their story which must always be the focal point.
Issues
Emotion and trust:
 Students might not feel comfortable sharing their
feeling and emotions with others.
 Teacher should create a positive and safe
environment in the classroom to encourage students
to talk about their feelings and emotions.
Issues
Access:
 Most of the teachers might not have access to what
they need to create the digital storytelling.
 Do not expect that students have access to
technology or other things they need to complete
their project.
 Provide students an opportunity to produce their
project
Issues
Assessment:
 Assessment of the digital storytelling project is
something that teachers must carefully plan for it.
 Teachers can create rubrics for assessing students
work.
 It can be quite informal.