Learning languages through collaborative storytelling with iTEO

Native Luxembourgish children learn German and French in order to access the country’s trilingual curriculum. Ethnic minority children must in addition learn Luxembourgish. Each language will be taught differently. This complex setting has inhibited research on the learning of multiple languages. Further, there is little consensus on effective language pedagogies in Luxembourg.

Storying is a leading activity in language learning (Paley 1991, Dyson 1997). Children’s learning is mediated by tools and other people. Storying is also a valuable tool for the ‘interanimation of languages’ (Bakhtin 1981) in Luxembourg’s school and societal context. In spite of this, there has been little research on storying in Luxembourgish classrooms (Gretsch 1994).

Our research project examines how children learn languages through storying with the application iTEO which records and edits oral texts. Pupils can discuss contents and processes in one language and tell stories in another. In particular, we look at the strategies children use to mediate language learning during the collaborative construction of stories.

The study has been carried out with nursery and primary school children aged 5, 7 and 10 who tell stories in several languages. The four month long data collection comprised video-recordings of the storytelling events, interviews with children and teachers, and the oral texts themselves. The data analysis focused on the search for recurring themes such as learning strategies, teaching strategies, the children’s oral participation and their skills in communication and collaboration.

The findings illustrate, firstly, that the children learned new phrases through performing stories with classmates and that they used a range of mediating strategies to assist each other (e.g. use of mime, gestures and pictures, code-switching, writing.) Second, we found that the use of iTEO encouraged the development of metalinguistic awareness in the older children.