International students, who study a foreign language abroad, experience more adversities than their domestic peers. The social challenges they face include problems with immigration status, isolation, difficulty speaking a new language, and learning unfamiliar customs. There is limited research focused on the coping strategies of these individuals. A growing body of research suggests storytelling may provide an important role in promoting resilience, defined as an individual's ability to bounce back or recover from stress. The study investigated possible relationships between experiencing storytelling as a child and adult resilience. The sample consisted of 21 international college students studying Chinese or English. Students were examined with a survey, a narrative interview, and the brief resilience scale. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative results produced significant correlations between resilience scores and the survey scores for adults who reported using storytelling in their own teaching of a second language to peers and children. Qualitative results identified five protective factors for resilience:(1) social competence, (2) problem-solving skills, (3) autonomy, (4) sense of purpose, and (5) use of storytelling. Implications of the findings for research and intervention are discussed.

Storytelling is the oldest form of teaching. Neuroscientists contend our brains may comprehend best through story. Digital storytelling is the practice of using computer‐based tools to create and tell stories. Using digital storytelling in education, including with second‐language learners, is supported by theories of constructivism and culturally responsive literacy. Language acquisition can be supported by practices of digital storytelling that occurs in natural, meaningful contexts. The process of teaching students to design digital stories can affirm students' cultures and identities. A major appeal of using digital storytelling is that it promotes 21st‐century skills needed to be successful in today's global economy. Research informed language teaching strategies focused on differentiated digital literacies for beginning, intermediate, and advanced level language learners are addressed.

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Numerous qualitative studies, mostly with English speaking Westerners, have shown the important role of storytelling and values in promoting resilience. However, this quantitative study helps fill the gaps in the research, by investigating the mediator effects of storytelling on values and resilience of American, German, Chinese, and Vietnamese prospective teachers. The study, using path analysis, investigated how cultural differences influenced perceptions about storytelling, resilience and values. Open to change values of stimulation, self-direction, hedonism and universalism had the largest associations in the Final Model. The results of the multiple group analyses showed that the Final Model path estimates were invariant across cultural groups, but the error variances of the mean values were not invariant. Individual differences accounted for the variance more than cultural differences. The implications for educators, desiring to leverage literacy instruction with storytelling, are discussed.

Identification of the gifted student is problematic. Prescription, the matching of student needs with program services, is perhaps even more precarious. To optimize potential and maximize achievement, diagnosis and instruction should be linked, on going, and based on state-of-the-art knowledge. Despite a burgeoning paradigm shift in the theory and practice of assessment in general, ·identification procedures for the gifted remain little changed. The bulk of the literature still recommends standardized, "product" measures of potential and achievement. Although status-quo recommendations include the use of multiple criteria, teacher judgment, and attention to cultural differences, scant endorsement is made for"process" measures. Dynamic assessment, based upon the Soviet psychologist Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (ZOPD), which measures the difference between what a learner can do alone and with appropriate guidance, has gained increased attention and suggests modification in the way the gifted are identified.This paper expounds upon the application of the dynamic assessment procedure (DAP) for the identification and instruction of the gifted. Pedagogical implications and conflicts to be resolved are also addressed.