Developing Communicative Capability in Foreign Languages through Digital Storytelling

Abstract

In the instructed second language teaching context, it is important to engage students in the meaning-making process to provide them with opportunities to develop communicative capability through the creative use of language. Second language acquisition research shows that while learners go through similar developmental stages in grammatical development, the rate of development differs from one individual to the next. Therefore, a language learning task needs to foster the development of communicative capacity while considering the current linguistic resources available to learners. This paper discusses Digital Storytelling (DS) as a method to create an opportunity to encourage students to develop more holistic communicative capability. Digital stories are short multimedia productions created by students that combine a first-person narrative with image and background music. This paper draws on some DS productions by intermediate Japanese language students from the Australian National University and discusses various communicative devices employed to make their story more engaging. DS allows students to transfer language they learned in the classroom to more authentic communication situations. It is a student-centred learning experience focusing, not only on using the language but also engaging in creative thinking and effective communication, with the added advantage of developing effective technical literacy.