Applying computer multimedia storytelling Website in foreign language learning

Abstract

Storytelling is a practical and powerful teaching tool. However, teachers have not been zealous to integrate storytelling in the classroom. The reasons for not using storytelling include time and space in the curriculum. Language teachers in Taiwan have additional problems like lacking the skills of integrating storytelling into language teaching, finding appropriate stories and lacking the cultural and language abilities to handle storytelling in English. Therefore, a multimedia storytelling Web site was designed as a research too. The Web site contains the following feature modules: accounts administration module, multimedia story composing module, and story replaying module. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the Web site in significantly facilitating young children's foreign language learning, the Web 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 Web site on foreign language teaching and learning.