Svetlana Yur'evna Kuznetsova
Report for E-Merging Forum 5
Presented in Moscow, April 12, 2015
DIGITAL STORYTELLING IN THE EFL CLASSROOMS
(1) We live in the world of electronic products and gadgets. It is no longer
possible to deny the fact that digital and computer literacy should be an
integral part of any curriculum, and language teaching is not an exception.
However, with the increasing need for digital proficiency there is a danger of
over-reliance on technology in and outside the classroom. From my
perspective as a teacher, digital technology should be used meaningfully and
appropriately. In my presentation I am going to describe my own experience
of using a communicative modern strategy of digital storytelling with my firstyear journalism students. But before proceeding to the main subject of my
talk, I’d like to remind you what storytelling is.
(2) Storytelling is not a new phenomenon. It has been around for ages and
has been common in every culture as a means of education, entertainment,
and cultural preservation. The desire to tell and hear stories has remained
unchanged during the years. We use storytelling in our daily conversations to
communicate ideas and share experiences. We filter everything going on
around us, and turn what we select into stories. (David Heathfield, Storytelling
with our students, 2014, p. 4) American philosopher Eric Hoffer claims that
man is eminently a storyteller and that humans have an innate need to tell
stories in order to give meaning to life. (Hoffer, 1955, p.62)
(3) Storytelling has been used in EFL classrooms since the dawn of the
communicative teaching approach. It is one of the most effective and natural
ways of developing listening and speaking skills and creative thinking. Stories
are valued as providing comprehensible input that facilitates language
acquisition (Hendrickson, 1992). Morgan and Rinvolucri encouraged teachers
to use storytelling in classrooms as language acquisition takes place naturally
when stories are told.
We can consider digital storytelling as the information-age extension of the
ancient art of storytelling. It emerged with the advent of accessible variety of
media production techniques and programs, e.g. digital cameras and voice
recorders, programs like iMovie, Movie Maker, Final Cut Express. These
technologies allow people to produce and share their stores over the Internet.
(4) The term “digital storytelling” is relatively new and describes a project
that can combine video, photographs, animation, sound, music and often a
narrative voice. According to British photographer, teacher of participatory
media and lecturer on digital storytelling Daniel Meadows,“Digital stories are
short, personal, multimedia scraps of TV that people can make for themselves.
They're 'mini-movies'.
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(5) Meadows also defines the parameters of a digital story saying that there is
a certain strictness to its construction as in the case with poetry: 250 words,
about a dozen pictures, and the length of two minutes. He claims that the form
grants the thing its elegance. When speaking about using digital storytelling in
classrooms, the format offered by Meadows seems to be perfect. Neither too
long, nor too short, with 250 words in length which is the size of an average
essay. However, as digital storytelling has gained popularity over the last few
years, the length and format of these stories differ considerably and do not
necessarily stick to the one offered by Meadows. For instance, Kathy Brenner
from Boston University increased the narrative to 600 words and the story
length to 4 minutes when creating digital stories with her international
students.
Now that I have mentioned the classroom I’d like to stress that this powerful
communication tool can be fruitfully used when working with EFL students of
any level – from elementary to advanced. (6) Not only does it develop 4
language skills, but it also helps to improve digital literacy and learner
autonomy and build confidence. Of couse the length of the narrative will vary
from level to level. Elementary and pre-intermediate level students may work
on the production of a 30 second or a one minute story, while higher level
students may produce longer pieces. In this presentation I am going to
describe my own experience of using digital storytelling with my first year
journalism students, whose English language ability varies from intermediate
to advanced.
My digital storytelling project work consists of two distinct parts:
introduction to and working with a famous digital storytelling project
available on the internet and the production of students' digital stories.
(7) As it is important for me to show my students the best examples of
international digital journalism, I start with introducing them to the New York
Times online project 'One in 8 Million'. (8) It is the Emmy-winning digital
storytelling series that consists of 54 episodes with an average length of 3
minutes. The photographer of the series, Todd Heisler is a 2006 Pulitzer Prize
winner for feature photography. Pulitzer is like Oscar for journalists. So this is
definitely one of the best digital storytelling projects available. Each episode is
a unique story of a New York resident that combines compelling black and
white photographs and audio clips. Hearing the character's voice helps the
viewer to be a silent member of the conversation. You cannot fast-forward
the episode, nor can you click and select images. In these stories photography
is given a context and meaning. The producers give the audience an
impression of New Yorkers rather than definition of New Yorkers. They are
not stories about accomplishments or facts but stories about passions,
dreams, struggles and stories that make up life. The collection captures the
spirit of the city and its residents. They are stories told by common people.
Yet they are by no means trivial. Among the series’ characters are the tabloid
photographer, the bar fighter, the urban taxidermist, the blind wine-taster, the
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wedding wardrober, the ex-bank robber, and the subway busker, to name a
few.
This project hooks students with its captivating storytelling, and exposes
them to a whole variety of spoken English accents. Some characters are quite
easy to understand while others are a useful challenge to my students in
terms of their accent and manner of speech. What is more, it becomes an eye
opener for many students, especially for those who haven't yet been to
English speaking countries, that there are so many different varieties of
English accents and styles and that they can all happen within one city.
I have been working with the series for 4 years and over this period I have
tried quite a few different activites with the stories. I may claim that the series
does have endless posibilities for EFL teaching and learning.
If you have an internet access in your classroom and can connect your laptop
to the classroom projector screen, you can start by showing the students one
or two stories. (9) You can choose a slow talker with distinct pronunctiation
patterns not to get your students discouraged which can happen if you choose
a character with some specific and unusual accent. However, the choice
depends on your students' abilities. Speaking about the stories easy to
understand, it could be the story of Meggie Nesciur, a waitress, who walks up
to 90 miles a week around New York neighborhoods. Her story is called 'The
Walker'. For pre-watching, you can just write the title on the board and ask
your students to predict what the digital story might be about. They can then
watch the story and compare their predictions with what they have seen and
heard. You can do it the other way round and show them the piece asking
them to think of a suitable title for it. You can prepare comprehension
questions for the listening for detail activity or ask the students to summarize
the story trying to jot down some words and phrases while watching. They
can check their answers or compare their summaries in pairs and then discuss
the story and the character in small groups or as a whole class.
You can go a less tradition way and show the students the muted version of
the story asking them to think of what the narrator must be saying. They
could discuss it in pairs or small groups and write their own story for the
character. You can show the muted episode again and ask them to be
narrators. After this you can show them the original version. They can then
compare their variants with the original and have a discussion.
(10) You can use these stories flexibly and find the ones that will go well with
your coursebook units or the topics of your curriculum. For example, why not
take ‘The Rooky Detective’ or ‘The Corner Druggist’ for your ‘Jobs’ unit or ‘The
Art Restorer’ for your ‘Art’ unit?; ‘The Grandfather', 'The Only Child', or 'The
Adoptive Mother' may provide good listening comprehension and boost a
lively discussion when speaking about family values and responsibilities;
when studying hobbies and passions why not use the stories of 'The Mambo
Dancer', 'The Sport Fan', or 'The Sneaker Connoisseur'; or may be you can fit
the story of 'The Boat Dweller' into your 'Life in the City' lesson? Wouldn't
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Joshua Ferbes (The Uncertain Gang Member), who is on probation for robbery
and assault, enliven your crime unit? If you are ready and can afford to discuss
more sensitive issues with your students, you can find stories of ‘The Teenage
Mother’, ‘The Believer’, ‘The Religious Runaway’, or ‘The Pathologist’.
The activities I have just described are more about language skills work. But if
you are planning to ask your students to produce their own digital stories, you
can focus their attention on how these digital stories are made. (11) You can
watch an episode and discuss the content of the photographs and why they
are arranged in a specific order, how the voiceover matches the images, how
the images help to create mood. You can break down the story into small bits
and try to figure out how the pieces are put together to make a whole.
However, internet is not available or too slow in some classrooms and the
only way to use this project will be to ask the class to work with the series at
home. For homework you can prepare comprehension questions or a truefalse task for detailed listening. You may also ask the students to write their
own questions for the story. Vocabulary work is also possible with the series
as the episodes expose your students to a myriad of colloquialisms and
idiomatic expressions used in today's American speech.
You can just let your students explore the collection at their own individual
pace. They can browse the menu and choose the episodes they would like to
watch. In class, they may share the episodes they have seen with the
groupmates and discuss them. Vocabulary peer-teaching is another good idea.
You can ask students to make a list of useful phrases from the talks and then
teach the phrases to their groupmates.
After making my students familiar with the series in the classroom, I ask them
to browse the collection and choose from three to five stories each, so that
one group covers all the 54 episodes. As I teach journalism students, the task
that I ask them to do is to transcribe their stories word for word. Writing
transcripts is an essential skill for journalists because they often have to
transcribe interviews or press conference speeches in English. Weaker
students can choose slower speakers and more advanced ones choose more
challenging narrators.
After working with the series I conduct a survey asking students a few
questions about what they liked and did not like about working with One in 8
Million. (12) Among the things that they like are:
 the compelling and unusual stories. Some students say that they got so
hooked on the project that ended up watching much more episodes
than their task required.
 being exposed to a lot of different varieties of English;
 transcribing stories (which they find useful and challenging);
 the fact that the material is authentic and comes from a well-known
mass medium;
Most students say that they would like to work with more digital storytelling
projects.
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(13) After working with “One in 8 Million” students are asked to prepare and
present their own digital story called “Introducing Yourself in Sound and
Image”. They are supposed to follow the New York Times series format, but I
do not object to it, if they decide to change the style and come up with some
other ideas. The purpose of the digital story project is four-fold: 1. to improve
four-skill competencies, 2. to expand computer literacy skills, 3. to develop
learner autonomy, 4. to build confidence.
(14) Working on the project can take several weeks during the semester or
can be done during a winter break and presented at the first seminar in the
new semester. The students are first asked to think of the story they would
like to tell and write a narrative. They have to submit their first draft script for
teacher feedback and correction. Then they improve their scripts and start
selecting pictures for their stories. I follow the story format suggested by
Meadows and ask for a 250-300 word script and from 12-15 pictures for their
project. Once the final draft of the script is ready, students can start working
on the voiceover. One of the problems that students often experience is
recording and listening to their own voice. No matter how unusual and
strange it may seem, overcoming this uneasiness may help students to
become aware of their pronunciation, intonation and speaking style. They are
usually highly motivated to get rid of the pronunciation mistakes and improve
their voiceover narrative to perfection because they will have to present it in
class and post their story in the group’s vkontakte page. The good thing is that
a lot of students quite unconsciously start copying intonation patterns of “One
in 8 Million” characters, which makes their intonation and pronunciation
more natural. I usually ask my students to send me the file with their
voiceover record to make sure that their presentation version is error free.
Students do not ask for any help when selecting pictures for their story
because they love the surprise element of the classroom presentation. Some of
them even refuse to send their scripts and records for correction saying that
they would like to surprise the groupmates and the teacher.
Most students are familiar with either Windows Movie Maker or iMovie and
those who have never used any of these programs watch a tutorial on
youtube. There are usually from one to two students in my group who have
never worked with any movie-making program. A good tip is to pair a techsavvy student with the one who lacks technology literacy. It usually takes a
couple of hours of collaborative work to sort things out and learn basic
production and editing skills. Some students add a soundtrack to their digital
story. It’s important to explain to them that the soundtrack should not
interfere with their voiceover therefore music should not be too loud.
Sometimes sticking to an instrumental could be the best choice because songs
may distract listeners from the narrative. When the narrative voiceover, the
pictures in sequence and the sountrack are ready, it’s time to edit the digital
story and to put the pieces together. The story can be stored on thumb drives
and uploaded on the internet. If you do not want to spend time on watching
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the stories in the classroom, you can ask students to upload them on your
class site and other students to comment on each presentation. From my
experience, almost all the students except extra-shy ones were eager to
present their stories in the classroom. They take pride in their work and in
seeing their efforts projected on a screen and appreciated by their peers. They
feel more self-confident and encouraged when answering questions about
their presentation and getting positive feedback from their mates. Sometimes
truly surprising things are revealed through these stories. Once a student
made a story about her cooking hobby, which was accompanied by a series of
photos of mouthwatering desserts she had made. The group asked her to bake
a cake for their next class. And that is what she did. Next seminar we had
some cake and tea. Another student, a slim and elegant girl, turned out to be a
sumo wrestler. Some students share personal and intimate stories that might
even have a therapeutic effect. One student made a story about the loss of a
close friend, while another one shared a story of her parent’s divorce. Her
story had a happy ending though, because both of her parents started new
families and she now has three little brothers and is on good terms with her
parents’ partners.
(15) Here are some things that the students write when I ask for the feedback
about the task and what they liked and did not like about it:
 I like it that the project helped to improve my pronunciation. It was the
first time when I had to hear myself speak English;
 The part I liked the most was making the video for my story;
 I learned a lot of new words when writing the script because I had to
look up a lot of synonyms not to use the same words many times;
 I had to re-record myself for many times. It was hard at first, but then
hard turned into fun;
 I finally learned to work with Windows Movie Maker. It’s easy to use;
 I loved watching my mates’ presentations. They were great;
The students said that even though they liked the task, it is too timeconsuming to be done too often. Two students out of 35 surveyed said that
they didn’t like the task because they had to do stories about themselves,
which they found embarrassing.
Speaking about the amount of time the project requires, this is definitely not
the task to have every week. But more of a semester project. I think it is also
possible to change the personal angle of the story for those who feel
uncomfortable speaking about themselves.
Combining tradition with technology, digital media lets students tell their
stories through images, text, voice, audio and video. Thanks to its holistic
nature, digital storytelling helps students to improve language skills and
expand digital literacy. We can use digital storytelling both in and outside
classroom. Digital storytelling does have a positive effect on student learning
outcomes and its benefits outweigh the issues and challenges.
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Thank you for attention.
Bibliogpraphy and other sources:
1. David Heathfield, Storytelling with Our Students: Techniques for Telling
Tales from Around the World, DTDS 2014
http://www.amazon.com/Storytelling-Our-Students-TechniquesTelling/dp/1905085877
2. Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms, Hopewell
Publications, 1955
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/600563.The_Passionate_State_of_
Mind
3. Hendrickson, James M, Storytelling for Foreign Language Learners, 1992
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED355824
4. John Morgan and Mario Rinvolucri, One Upon a Time: Using Stories in the
Language Classroom, CUP, 1988
5. Daniel Meadows, On Digital Literacy
http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-15717619
6. One in 8 Million, New York Times digital storytelling project
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/
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