Digital stories: Bringing multimodal texts to the Spanish writing classroom

Abstract

Despite the availability and growing use of digital story software for authoring and instructional purposes, little is known about learners’ perceptions on its integration in the foreign language writing class. Following both a social semiotics approach and activity theory, this study focuses on six advanced Spanish learners’ perceptions about the production of a digital story in which they integrated a variety of modes (written, oral, images, sounds) and manipulated the semiotic resources within each mode (size, color, lines in the image mode), to convey meaning. Analyzing participants’ reflections, questionnaires, and online journals, results highlight learners’ (a) interpretation of the tools and artifacts and their effect on their understanding of a final product, (b) connections between short-term goal-oriented actions and the longer-term object-oriented activity of developing a multimodal text, and (c) linguistic reorientations when creating a digital story.

Türkçe Öğretmeni Adaylarının Dijital Öyküleme Sürecine İlişkin Görüşleri ve Algıları

“…As a result of the study, it is seen that the digital storytelling contributes to the development of reading, speaking, listening, visual reading and presentation skills. These results overlap with the results which show that the digital storytelling contributes to various language skills in the language education (Mathison & Pohan, 2007;Norman, 2011;Oskoz & Elola, 2016;Sylvester & Greenidge, 2010).…”

“…Araştırma sonucunda ayrıca dijital öykülemenin okuma, konuşma, dinleme, görsel okuma ve sunu becerilerinin gelişimine de katkı sağladığı görülmüştür. Yaratıcı bir dil öğrenme aracı olan dijital öykülemenin, dil eğitiminin amaçlandığı derslerde çeşitli dil becerilerinin gelişimine katkı sağladığına ilişkin sonuçlarla örtüşmektedir (Mathison & Pohan, 2007;Norman, 2011;Oskoz & Elola, 2016;Sylvester & Greenidge, 2010). Değişen metin algısının yanı sıra dijital argümanların, öğrenme-öğretme sürecine uyumu sağlamasıyla (Kulla-Abbott & Polman, 2008) temel dil becerileri ve teknolojik becerilerin eş güdümlü kullanımına olanak sağladığı söylenebilir.…”

Can digital storytelling enhance learning motivation for EFL students with low proficiency and confidence in English?

“…Digital storytelling has been increasingly integrated into language classrooms (Oskoz & Elola, 2016). Digital storytelling is an educational practice that has received attention in the literature, such as studies by Robin (2006), who stated that "Digital Storytelling has become a powerful instructional tool for both students and educators" (Robin, 2006: 709).…”

Strengthening Writing Voices and Identities: Creative Writing, Digital Tools and Artmaking for Spanish Heritage Courses

“…Because research has shown that students' performance is influenced by their understanding and expertise with digital tools (DTs) (Oskoz and Elola 2016;Zapata 2018), and in order to avoid any type of exclusion, students were given the freedom to choose and use any (digital) tool they wanted to create their art-either because they were familiar with it or because they wanted to experiment with it. The most used DT was Adobe Photoshop.…”