Integrating Digital Story-Based Pedagogy in Language Education
About the Program
Language learning is foundational to all learning and knowledge of concepts in the home language forms the basis of learning in other languages. Traditional pedagogies of language teaching focus predominantly on reading and writing and may not provide adequate immersion in the language which is necessary for effective language acquisition. Lack of such immersion may hinder the language learning by making it an alienating process. Therefore, in addition to textbooks and other curricular material in the regional languages of instruction, having alternate resources and ways to engage with the language are necessary to supplement students’ language learning experiences.
Storytelling can transcend language barriers and engage students meaningfully. It stimulates students' imagination and enhances their listening and comprehension skills. Through listening to stories, students are exposed to language use in real-world situations, various sentence structures, and vocabulary in context. Incorporating storytelling as a pedagogical tool can provide opportunities for students to practice and develop language skills in a meaningful and enjoyable manner. Furthermore, storytelling allows teachers to bring cultural diversity into the classroom and create a shared understanding among students. NCFSE 2023, NCF 2005 and NEP20 emphasize the importance of integrating local and regional literature into language teaching to promote linguistic diversity and a sense of belonging - by incorporating stories from different cultures and regions of India, language teachers can foster inclusivity and promote cultural understanding among students.
With the aim of enriching students’ language learning experiences by leveraging the power of storytelling as a pedagogical tool along with the newer possibilities that the digital medium offers, the Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT) and the Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) across Karnataka collaborated with IT for Change to pilot the program ‘Integrating Digital Story-Based Pedagogy in Language Education’ during 2023-24 for government higher primary school teachers. The program is being implemented as part of the departments' Sri Aluru Venkata Rao Bhasha Labs initiative in four Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) in Karnataka - Mysuru, Chitradurga, Belagavi and Gulbarga.
Program Objectives:
- Strengthen language teachers’ capacities to create and utilize contextual digital resources for addressing the language learning needs of their students
- Help teachers experience and internalize technology integration strengthening their technology, pedagogy and content knowledge (TPCK)
- Develop teachers’ abilities to use inclusive, constructivist and multilingual pedagogies in language teaching to help students acquire competencies in languages taught in the school
- Facilitate setting up of teachers Communities of Practice (CoPs) that can promote peer learning and mentoring and enable continuous professional development (CPD)
- Make available all resources created by teachers on an Open Educational Resource (OER) repository for easy and universal access
Work done so far
Year 1 of the program focused primarily on building capacities of teachers to create audio resources. As part of this process, two sets of workshops were conducted in the four CTEs with select cohorts of teachers. The first set of workshops focused on story narration and recording and the second set of workshops focused on editing the recorded stories using FOSS tools to enhance it with music and sound effects. Over 220 high-quality audio stories have been produced in Kannada, English, Urdu and Marathi and are available as Open Educational Resources (OER) on a repository, Kathe Khajane hosted on an open source podcast app called AntennaPod.
In the current year 2 of the program, the focus is on techno-pedagogical aspects of integrating digital story-based resources in classroom teaching. The workshops aim to provide teachers an immersive experience of using audio stories and support them in developing different types of student activities that can support language teaching-learning. The program has also been extended to two other districts, Bengaluru South and Yadgiri.
List of workshops
2023-24
| Workshop | District | Venue | Participants | Month and Year | Workshop Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio resource creation workshop - English | Mysuru | CTE, Mysuru | 20 English HPS Teachers | September 2023 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/CTE_Mysuru_English_Resource_Creation_Workshop_September_2023 |
| Audio resource creation workshop - Kannada | Chitradurga | CTE, Chitradurga | 20 Kannada HPS Teachers | September 2023 | |
| Audio resource creation workshop - Urdu | Kalaburagi | CTE, Kalaburagi | 20 Urdu HPS Teachers | November 2023 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/CTE_Kalaburagi_Urdu_Resource_Creation_Workshop_November_2023 |
| Audio resource creation workshop - Marathi | Belagavi | CTE, Belagavi | 20 Marathi HPS Teachers | November 2023 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/CTE_Belagavi_Marathi_Resource_Creation_Workshop_November_2023 |
| Audio story editing workshop - English | Mysuru | CTE, Mysuru | 15 English HPS Teachers | December 2023 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Technology_workshop_on_Integrating_Digital_Story-Based_Pedagogy_in_Language_Education |
| Audio story editing workshop - Kannada | Chitradurga | CTE, Chitradurga | 15 Kannada HPS Teachers | January 2024 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Technology_workshop_on_Integrating_Digital_Story-Based_Pedagogy_in_Language_Education |
| Audio story editing workshop - Urdu | Kalaburagi | CTE, Kalaburagi | 15 Urdu HPS Teachers | February 2024 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Technology_workshop_on_Integrating_Digital_Story-Based_Pedagogy_in_Language_Education |
| Audio story editing workshop - Marathi | Belagavi | CTE, Belagavi | 15 Marathi HPS Teachers | December 2023 | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Technology_workshop_on_Integrating_Digital_Story-Based_Pedagogy_in_Language_Education |
2024-45
| CTE | District | Language | Venue | Participants | Month and Year | Workshop Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chitradurga | Bengaluru North | Telugu and Tamil | https://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Multilingual_Audio_Resource_Creation_Workshop,_Bengaluru_North_2024-25 | |||
| Belagavi | Belagavi | English | ||||
| Mysuru | ||||||
| Kalaburagi |