Fostering ELLs’ Critical Thinking via Digital Storyboarding Activities

The popularity of social media sites and omnipresence of digital devices means that most university English language learners (ELLs) process a tremendous amount of digital stimuli each day. Therefore, English as an international language (EIL) educators should put more emphasis on cultivating students’ critical thinking and digital literacies. Incorporating digital storyboarding activities into a classroom is a beneficial pedagogical strategy that can help develop ELLs’ twenty-first century skills. This presentation will highlight the findings from a qualitative case study that investigated the value of integrating socially conscious project-based language learning (PBLL) storyboarding activities into a Japanese university communicative English course. The presenters will discuss how they used viral marketing videos and AI-supported Kamishibai picture card storytelling in conjunction with collaborative storyboarding, as a way to encourage students (n=14) to discuss important sociocultural issues in an authentic language context. The participants’ oral and written feedback, along with the researchers’ classroom observations formed the data. The results indicated that socially conscious storyboarding projects can cultivate ELLs’ critical thinking, creativity, and digital literacies. However, the participants also identified significant barriers (i.e., busy schedules, social loafers, intragroup conflicts) that can undermine students’ progress in a PBLL storyboarding initiative. This presentation should be of interest to EIL educators who wish to establish a more critically conscious learning environment and expand their teaching repertoire. Increasingly, a growing number of non-profit organizations and companies are weaving viral marketing videos into advertising campaigns as a way to spread their brands and connect with young people. Teachers can use this type of digital content to engage ELLs and get them to reflect on local and global sociocultural issues. The viral marketing video and AI-supported Kamishibai storytelling lesson ideas and pedagogical pointers that will be examined in this presentation can be applied to a wide range of instructional contexts.