Applying a multimedia storytelling website in foreign language learning

Storytelling is a practical and powerful teaching tool, especially for language learning. Teachers in language classrooms, however, may hesitate to incorporate storytelling into language instruction because of an already overloaded curriculum. English foreign language (EFL) teachers in Taiwan report additional problems such as having little prior experience with integrating storytelling into language teaching, locating appropriate stories, and lacking the cultural and language abilities to handle storytelling in English. On the other hand, researchers have demonstrated successful usages of computer and network-assisted English learning. The researchers in this study have developed a multimedia Storytelling Website to study how webbased technology can assist overcoming the obstacles mentioned above. The website contains an accounts administration module, multimedia story composing module, and story re-playing module. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this Website in significantly facilitating teacher s storytelling and children s story recall processes in EFL classrooms, it was implemented in one elementary school to test its effectiveness in instruction and in resultant student learning. The results of the study support the significance and the education value of the multimedia Storytelling Website on EFL teaching and learning. If such a Website 0360-1315/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2004.08.013 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (W. Tsou). 18 W. Tsou et al. / Computers & Education 47 (2006) 17–28 can be applied within elementary EFL classrooms, the quality of teaching and learning can be improved and students enjoyment and success in EFL learning may increase. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.