Foreign Language Annals. 2020;53:329–337. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/flan
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329O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E
Storytelling for the foreign language classroom
Shannon Sauro
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Judith Buendgens‐Kosten
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Frederik Cornillie
4The Challenge
Understanding and connecting with affinity spaces, more specifically fandom, offers immense potential and many challenges for educators. When used well, it can connect language to other endeavors and offer a means for deep, multilingual connections. But, how can its use be most effective? What type of activities related to fandom can best be used in the classroom for teachers and learners?
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University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland
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Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden 3
Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
4KU Leuven & imec, Kortrijk, Belgium
Correspondence
Shannon Sauro, Department of Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore 21250, Maryland
Email:ssauro@umbc.edu
Funding information
Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, Grant/Award Number: 2017‐1‐ BE02‐KA201‐034792
Abstract
At a time when many language teachers are looking for research‐based teaching materials that can be modified to support their students in online or digital learning, existing teaching and assessment materials developed through European grant‐funded projects can provide valuable and ready‐to‐use resources. This paper reports on the published and forthcoming teaching materials developed by the FanTALES group for teaching multi-lingual interactive digital storytelling to low‐to‐high intermediate level learners, more specifically, the B1 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment.
K E Y W O R D S
materials, creative writing, language and literature
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
At a time when many language teachers are looking for research‐based teaching materials that can be modified to support their students in online or digital learning, existing teaching and
- - - --© 2020 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
assessment materials developed through European grant‐funded projects can provide valuable and ready‐to‐use resources. Accordingly, this paper reports on the published and forthcoming teaching materials developed by the FanTALES group (https://www.fantales.eu/) for teaching low‐to‐high intermediate level learners and onward, more specifically, the B1 level and higher according to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR; Council of Europe,2001). These materials were designed to draw upon the language learning practices and activities found in online affinity spaces, communities of people brought together by their shared in-terests (Gee,2004), for the purpose of supporting not only sustained effortful engagement in the target language but also a focus on multilingual creative writing and meaning‐making.
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B A C K G R O U N D
Online, the digital wilds are home to affinity spaces (Gee,2004) where language learners, driven by their deep interest in popular media and play, engage in effortful sustained engagement in the target language. Such affinity spaces include communities of fans who spend hours engaged in different types of fan practices (Sauro,2017) such as the writing of fanfiction (i.e., texts that transform or build upon existing stories, characters, and universes; Jamison, 2013) or the translation of texts, multimedia and digital games across multiple languages and types of media (e.g., Shafirova and Cassany, 2019; Vazquez‐Calvo, Zhang, Pascual, & Cassany, 2019). Still, other communities of practice include those engaged in game‐enhanced learning (Reinhardt,2019) including online digital gaming in a foreign language (Brevik,2019; Hannibal Jensen,2019), including digital games that involve an interactive narrative component.
Though such online creative practices in the digital wilds have been found to support second language and literacy development (Sauro,2020), teaching activities which draw upon these online practices have seldom made their way into formal language‐teaching contexts. It is this gap which the FanTALES project (https://www.fantales.eu/), a consortium of universities and upper secondary schools in Belgium, Germany, and Sweden, aimed to fill through the creation and evaluation of language‐teaching materials for secondary school and foreign lan-guage classrooms. Specifically, these materials were designed to draw upon the lanlan-guage learning practices and activities found in these affinity spaces for the purpose of supporting not only sustained effortful engagement in the target language but also a focus on multilingual creative writing and meaning‐making to support the development of transversal skills such as empathy, the ability to build relationships, problem‐solving, and intercultural skills, among others (KeySTART2Work, n.d.).
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M A T E R I A L S F O R O N L I N E A N D D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G
The materials developed by FanTALES include two primary components: (a) teaching and assessment materials which can be directly adapted for use with students and (b) activities and training materials for preservice and in‐service teachers. Currently available materials and resources are in English, but forthcoming materials will be available in Dutch, German, and Swedish. All materials and resources can be accessed via the results page of the FanTALES website (https://www.fantales.eu/results/). In an effort to support online language learning initiatives, this section describes the teaching and assessment materials,
storytelling prompts and the evaluation materials that have been developed for these different types of storytelling.
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Storytelling prompts
The first set of materials, Task modules: prompts for fanfiction, multilingual storytelling, inter-active fiction, and telecollaboration (The FanTALES Group, 2020d), consists of storytelling prompts that can be used individually, or in combination, to create multifaceted storytelling activities that can be assigned to individual students, small groups, or even whole classes that are partnered with other classes using communication technologies (i.e., telecollaboration). In keeping with the goals of the FanTALES project, these storytelling tasks work best when tailored to the learning context and student needs; therefore, the prompts have been designed for teachers to combine, build upon, and adapt. Storytelling prompts are organized into four different types of activities: fanfiction, multilingual storytelling, interactive fiction, and telecollaboration.
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Fanfiction prompts
These are based upon fanfiction genres and tropes commonly written by fans of popular media and shared in online fanfiction communities and archives such as Fanfiction.net (http:// fanfiction.net) and Archive of Our Own (https://archiveofourown.org/). These 11 fanfiction prompts include several which have already been examined when used in English as a foreign language classes at the university level (Sauro & Sundmark, 2019, 2016) as well as other prompts that build upon students' prior knowledge or interest in other media. Table1 depicts one such prompt for fusion fanfiction, in which aspects of two different stories are combined. Prior research on fusion fanfiction in the digital wilds has explored how the combining of
T A B L E 1 Example Fanfiction prompt
Fusion (General Instructions) Fusion (Example: Fairy tales) Fusion is a type of fanfiction where two (or more)
source texts are combined. For instance, you may have the characters from one book interacting with characters from a television show or existing in a context from another book. Fusion asks fans to be familiar with at least two different types of source texts and to imagine how the different characters or contexts would affect each other. For this option, you will write a piece of fanfiction with characters from one source text EITHER interacting with characters from another source text OR living in the world or context of another source text.
Fusion is a type of fanfiction where two (or more) source texts are combined. For instance, you may have the characters from one book interacting with characters from a television show or existing in a context from another book. Fusion asks fans to be familiar with at least two different types of source texts and to imagine how the different characters or contexts would affect each other. Fusion can include, for example, a combination of multiple fairy tales being combined (e.g., two Grimms' fairy tales, or a Grimms’ and an Andersen's fairy tale) or a combination of fairy tales with non‐fairy tale stories. In your story, you will combine a fairy tale with another story (either a fairy tale or a non‐fairy tale).
different stories requires careful reading or understanding of both sets of texts in order to be able to fuse the stories in plausible ways (Curwood,2013). Fusion fanfiction is a way instructors can invite students to combine other stories they know in the target language (or other lan-guages) with the story of a required text. For instance, Table1depicts example instructions for fusion fanfiction based on fairy tales, such as any of Grimms' Fairy Tales that might be assigned to a German language class. Other fanfiction prompts include some which can be more easily adapted for lower proficiency learners (i.e., Ficlets: short‐form storytelling of 100–200 words) or which invite a high degree of creativity (i.e., alternate universe: retelling a familiar story in a new time period or reality).
Fusion prompts are especially useful for teachers hoping to deepen student engagement in reading an assigned text about which they may not be deeply familiar or interested. Allowing students to fuse a required course text with one they are more knowledgeable and passionate about can facilitate the kind of sustained effortful engagement that is conducive for language learning.
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Multilingual storytelling prompts
The eight prompts for multilingual storytelling invite students to invoke their full linguistic repertoire to combine a range of languages to tell different types of stories. Multilingual storytelling draws upon the plurilingual perspective put forth in the CEFR (Council of Europe,2001) while also reflecting the multilingual practices found in the digital wilds where, for example, fanfiction writers write bilingual stories (Leppänen,2007) or stories that showcase their knowledge of multiple languages (Black, 2006). Multilingual storytelling supports the opportunity to play with languages and engage in identity work while at the same time allowing students to experiment with using the target language in different ways within a story pre-dominantly or partially written for example in their L1(s), other foreign languages, or languages spoken within their communities. When realized as digital storytelling, it constitutes an ex-ample of multilingual computer‐assisted language learning, highlighting both multilingual practices and plurilingual goals (Buendgens‐Kosten,2020). Table 2 illustrates a multilingual storytelling prompt that can be used for learners of different levels of proficiency. By asking students to imagine a character with a different linguistic background than found in the source
T A B L E 2 Example Multilingual Storytelling prompt
Take away a language (General instructions) Take away a language (Example: Harry Potter) A central character in your story does not speak a
language he/she usually speaks.
Somebody has cursed Harry Potter. He is no longer able to speak in English.
Either, a central character in your story does not speak one of the languages they usually speak, maybe because they may never have learned this language, to begin with.
To keep young Harry Potter safe and to allow him a normal childhood, Dumbledore sent Hagrid to leave Harry with a Belgian wizard family. Harry, therefore, never acquired English.
Or, a central character in your story has suddenly lost one of their languages. The loss of this language may be part of the plot of your story.
text, this prompt encourages students to look to the source text (in this case the Harry Potter novels) for plot and characterization, allowing them to focus on depicting Harry's thoughts and dialog in the target language, for instance, Flemish or French.
This type of multilingual storytelling prompt can be especially useful for teachers working with high beginner or lower intermediate level learners who may not be ready to write an entire story in the target language.
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Interactive fiction (IF) prompts
The third set of prompts are based upon IF, a type of interactive and typically nonlinear storytelling, found in both the digital wilds and in the world of indie gaming, which involves the reader in making choices that affect how the story unfolds, perhaps the best‐known example being choose‐your‐own‐adventure‐type digital stories (The FanTALES Group, 2019). Over the years, relatively easy‐to‐use and free authoring tools such as Twine and Inklewriter have lowered the barriers for fans of IF to create their own interactive narratives, including in foreign language education (Cornillie, Buendgens‐Kosten & Sauro, forthcoming). The nine IF prompts, based on a typology of IF choices from a comprehensive tutorial book on Twine (Ford,2016), challenge students to design different choices which affect the outcome of the story and po-tentially also the specific language of the story and characters. An example of a prompt where IF choice design and choice of language in storytelling come together is the tonal choice, shown in Table3.
As the example tonal choice prompt illustrates, this type of prompt can be especially useful for vocabulary practice through the use of emotive language that changes the tone of a passage or mood of a particular character.
T A B L E 3 Example Interactive Fiction prompt
Tonal choice (General instructions) Tonal choice (Example task: Fairy tales) In stories, characters really come alive if they have
their own style but also their flaws, such as their own way of speaking or behaving. In interactive fiction, tonal choices allow the reader to let a character be expressive. In a tonal choice, each option will mean more or less the same thing but may have a different impact on the world around the player character, for example on the attitude of other characters towards the player character. Tonal choices require the reader to read really closely and consider the consequences of the character's word choice or behavior for the story that is to come. Rewrite a key dialogue from the original story in which one of the main characters has had a bad day. The final outcome is the same, but the way in which the characters express themselves is different.
The Evil Queen from Snow White is in an even fouler mood than usual. Alternatively, she has fallen in love and is exceptionally kind to Snow White. Rewrite the Magic Mirror scene in such a way that the reader can decide on how the queen expresses her mood. Regardless of her mood, the outcome of the scene has to be that of the original story.
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Telecollaboration prompts
Telecollaboration, which is the use of online communication technologies to link two or more classes of learners from different countries or contexts to participate in a series of interactions or collaborations (Dooly,2017) has a rich and well‐researched history in foreign language teaching
to support both foreign language learning and intercultural competence (O'Dowd,2016). This final set of prompts includes different types of tasks and configurations that support colla-borative storytelling or feedback and responses to storytelling arranged across the partner classes. For instance, the example task in Table4 describes how collaborative writing can be organized using teams of students from different partner classes.
Equally common are telecollaboration configurations in which groups in different partner classes are matched for the purpose of giving feedback or responding to the storytelling. In this manner, telecollaboration tasks provide opportunities for students to interact in the target language.
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Assessment tools
The second set of published materials consists of assessment tools for use with the story-telling prompts described above and is organized in the following three documents: (a) Fanfiction component of the rubric framework (The FanTALES Group, 2020a), (b) Multi-lingual storytelling component of the rubric framework(The FanTALES Group,2020c), and (c) Interactive fiction component of the rubric framework(The FanTALES Group,2020b). These documents each include multiple assessment tools, including peer assessment and scales, checklists, and rubrics, which teachers can adapt for their specific tasks and learner popu-lations. Accompanying these assessment tools are detailed explanations for teachers and example scenarios illustrating the various scales or rubric items.
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F O R T H C O M I N G M A T E R I A L S A N D O N L I N E
R E S O U R C E S
This brief report concludes with a look ahead to the forthcoming teaching resources that are currently in development and will be released during the summer and fall of 2020. Forthcoming
T A B L E 4 Example Telecollaboration prompt
Collaborative writing in transnational teams (General instructions)
Students are organized into small teams (ideally four–six) in which each team consists of members from each partner class. As a group, they will collaborate on writing, editing (if relevant, performing), and programming the story. This can take different formats:
• pass the buck—the story gets passed back and forth between members of the group who write an extension of the story. For instance, after agreeing as a group on a plot, each student writes a different chapter. • integrated story—all students work on all aspects of the story together.
materials include the above‐mentioned storytelling prompts and assessment tools in Dutch, German, and Swedish. Also forthcoming is a teacher's handbook that provides background information, models, and recommendations for adapting materials for different language learner populations and levels of proficiency, sample lesson plans used in high school foreign and second language classes, and guidelines and sample materials for teachers interested in identifying possible target language source texts or media for use in the storytelling tasks. The final resource, currently in development, is an interactive online platform (see an image of a wireframe in Figure1) which integrates the storytelling prompts and assessment tools with an editable catalog of source texts and a module for creating and running storytelling tasks in the language classroom.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
This publication was realized by the FanTALES project, co‐funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (Grant agreement number: 2017‐1‐BE02‐KA201‐ 034792). Project partners are KU Leuven (coordinator), Malmö University, Goethe F I G U R E 1 A wireframe of the online interactive platform [Color figure can be viewed at
University Frankfurt, Georg‐Forster‐Gesamtschule Wörrstadt, Lunds dans‐ och musi-kalgymnasium, Sint‐Jozefscollege Aalst, and Guldensporencollege Kortrijk. The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an en-dorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Com-mission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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How to cite this article: Sauro S, Buendgens‐Kosten J, Cornillie F. Storytelling for the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals. 2020;53:329–337.
