Engaging young learners of English with multilingual digital storytelling (MDST) during covid-19 school closure

Abstract

In Indonesia, the use of Multilingual Digital Storytelling (MDST) to teach elementary school students English is not new. However, digital learning is rarely implemented in practice because English is a local subject and a foreign language in elementary schools. However, during the pandemic, researchers recognized the need for online learning and used Multilingual Digital Storytelling (MDST) as a model to promote and reflect on multiliteracy in education. The teachers recognize the importance of storytelling, and interactive storytelling allows for self-expression and interaction with others. This research explicitly outlines their experience of using MDST as a pedagogical innovation for pupils aged 12 years. In this MDST project, students cocreated digital stories as multimodal texts. In this regard, they used a variety of multilingual (e.g. Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia, and English) as well as visual and technical resources, which enabled them to communicate their real-life experience through digital stories. As a result of this learning, English primary school teachers will experiment with MDST to engage students in language learning as an effective method of innovative learning.