Integrating multiple literacies and digital storytelling in language learning : a case study

Abstract

The evolution of digital technologies in all sectors of society, including education, implies a paradigm shift in teaching methods. In Portugal, the new national curriculum for Portuguese language teaching at Elementary School level highlights the role of technologies, considering that these new methods, “require mastery of multiple literacies, namely digital and computer literacies – associated with information and communications technologies – and visual literacy – reading images” [1] (p. 3).1 Lankshear and Nobel [2] admit that literacy takes a central position in educational policies, the development of curriculum and teaching practices. For these authors "literacy is now centre stage in education policy, curriculum development, and everyday thinking about educational practice" (p 7). However, the concept combines a multiplicity of texts and discourses requiring the incorporation of such forms of constructing meaning, other than the written form. In this context, we attempt to provide through student developed multimodal digital narratives, the chance to access a multiplicity of textual environments, in particular digital and visual ones. We set out a case study [3] designed to answer the following research question: how can multimodal texts contribute to development of the study of narrative? The study was carried out with a class of Year 7 students (12 year olds). The first author was the class Portuguese teacher. Data was collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews with students and analysis of student digital productions. Data analysis is based on the content analysis method. The results make it possible to conclude that: the students developed linguistic, digital and visual skills which gave rise to the construction of meanings in multimodal texts; the use of digital narrative favoured the study of narrative in Portuguese; the use of technological tools contributed to student motivation and commitment. In this article we provide: a) a brief theoretical contextualisation of digital narratives in the context of mother language learning; b) the project carried out with 13 year olds; c) the research methodology underlying this project; d) the results obtained.