Presented May 19, 2017 at the CALICO Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA Shannon Sauro Frederik Cornillie Judith Buendgens-Kosten This study reports on the findings of a needs analysis, carried out within the context of the FanTALES project, which explores whether multilingual digital story-telling inspired by fanfiction and gaming can meet the linguistic, digital, and intercultural learning needs and goals of secondary school learners in three European contexts (Sweden, Flanders, and Germany). Findings, relevant for teachers and instructional designers, hold implications for the development of guidelines for the design multilingual digital storytelling tasks to foster advanced language and literary learning, digital skill development, and intercultural competence among these learner populations.

1. FanTALES
Shannon Sauro |Malmö University
Frederik Cornillie |KU Leuven
Judith Buendgens-Kosten |Göethe University Frankfurt
A Needs Analysis for Multilingual
Digital Storytelling Tasks in
21st Century European Classrooms

2. Overview
FanTALES
The Needs Analysis
Preliminary Results
Consequences and Next Steps

3. Fan Fiction
Multi-
lingualism
Games
(Interactive
Fiction)
Tele-
collaboration

4. Interactive Fiction (IF)
An interactive story where the reader
determines the outcome of the
events.
Can be (a combination of):
- a puzzle;
- a literary work;
- a text-based game.
Affordances for L2 teaching and
learning:
- reading and communicative
interaction through information gap
tasks (Ss each play one side of the
story);
- creative writing and computational
thinking by using open authoring
tools for developing IF (~ STEAM).

5. Fan fiction
“fictional writing that reinterprets and
remixes the events, characters, and
settings found in popular media” (Sauro,
2017, p. 131)
Can be used:
To link reading and writing (fan
fiction based on popular texts)
To link listening and writing (fan
fiction based on movies and TV)
To provide alternate readings to
dominant interpretations of
popular media
To bridge language and literary
learning (Sauro & Sundmark, 2016)

6. Multilingual Storytelling
Learners can draw on multiple languages:
School language (e.g. German in
Germany)
Modern foreign languages (e.g. English
and French in Germany)
Other languages spoken by the students
or within their community (e.g. Turkish,
Russian and Arabic in Germany)
Writing multilingual stories creates rich
learning opportunties:
Supports the plurilingual principle: All
language skills can be used & all language
skills have value (Council of Europe 2001)
Weakens the "monolingual habitus"
(Gogolin 1994, Hu 2010)
Cf. "identity texts" (Cummins 2005)

7. Telecollaboration
To confront other cultures, battle stereotypes, and
create openness toward multilingual practices, the
project will be carried out transnationally.

8. The Need for A Needs Analysis
“the design of technology-
mediated TBLT must gather
information about not just the
tasks, but the technological
tools involved in the task; the
participants’ skills and digital
literacies; as well as their
accessibility, resources, and
support.”
(González-Lloret, 2014, p. 37)

9. Component 1:
Policy Analysis

10. Policy analysis
European level
local level
(country,
state,
regional)

11. National Curriculum
Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Pre-School
Class and the Leisure-Time Centre (Lgr 11) (K to 9)
Curriculum for the Upper-Secondary School (10-12)
(Skolverket, 2011; 2013)
Subject Area Syllabi
Aims and Goals; Core Content; Knowledge Requirements
(Kunskapskrav)
English
Modern Languages
Mother Tongue Tuition
Swedish as a Second Language
Technology
Local Level: Sweden

12. Local Level: Flanders
National Level
Government defined final attainment levels
(eindtermen) with general descriptors of what pupils
must learn
School Networks
Three types (state schools, subsidized public schools,
subsidized free schools)
Each network defines their curricula (leerplannen) on
the basis of final attainment levels.
More concrete final attainment levels

13. CEFR
•The Common European Framework of Languages
•Provides the model of language competencies all following steps
are based on
Federal
•Bildungsstandards (Educational standards)
•Defined by KMK (Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education
and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of
Germany)
State
•Each state translates the Bildungsstandards into State standards
•Example Hessia: Kerncurriculum (core curriculum)
School
•Each school in Hessia translates the Kerncurriculum into a
Fachcurriculum (subject curriculum) that guides teaching practice
within that school
•It uses existing state-level guidelines (Leitfaden) to support this
process
Local Level: Germany & Hessia

14. Component 2:
Teacher beliefs

15. Teacher beliefs
Constructs Method
• Popular stories for L2
teaching and learning
• Games in the classroom
• Storytelling for intercultural
and multilingual dialogue
• Telecollaboration and
technologies in the
classroom
• Online survey
• Convenience sample of
future and practicing
teachers

16. Preliminary Results

17. Multilingualism
In the curricula of most European countries, two FLs are
mandatory (European Commission, 2012)
Creative Storytelling
Learning through creative linguistic genres can develop respect
and empathy (Kidd & Castano, 2013).
Digital Skills
Young peoples’ digital literacy skills are often overestimated
(European Commission: Education and Training, 2014)
School education is not always successful in developing ICT skills
to a desirable level (European Commission, 2013; European
Commission, 2016).
European Level: Educational

18. European Level: Intercultural
Paris Declaration of 17 March 2015
“Promoting citizenship and the common values
of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination
through education”
- Promote development of social, civic and
intercultural competences in children and
young people;
- Develop resistance to discrimination and
indoctrination through critical thinking and
media literacy;
- Adapt education system to the needs of
disadvantaged learners;
- Promote intercultural dialogue through all
forms of learning.
“almost all countries with developments since
March 2015 cover ‘Initial teacher education and
continuing professional development’”

19. Multilingualism
Mother-tongue instruction – develop cultural
identity and be multilingual
Creative Storytelling
Expressing oneself through aesthetic
expression (in multiple languages)
Attainment of narrative and artistic-literary text
genres in modern languages
Digital Skills
Media literacy – ability to participate in public
discourse through media
Ability to deal with technological challenges in
an innovative way
Policy Documents: Implementational Space

20. Questionnaire – sample
652
9 • balanced distribution of
student/beginning teachers
and experienced teachers
• 86% from secondary
education
• 65% English
34% Dutch
30% French
10% German

21. Questionnaire – popular stories
Harry Potter (26)
Hunger Games (15)
Game of Thrones (7)
13 Reasons Why (5)
Twilight (5)
Roald Dahl (4)
The Fault in Our Stars (3)
Tim Bowler (3)
The Maze Runner (2)
Lord of the Rings (2)
House of Cards (1)
Sherlock (1)
(I have no idea)
(I do not know my students' habits
well enough)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
I disagree
strongly
I disagree I neither
agree nor
disagree
I agree
strongly
I agree
Popular stories deserve a
place in the language
classroom

22. 0
50
100
150
200
250
300
reading writing listening speaking communicative
interaction
Popular stories: what skills?
In your opinion, what skills should language teachers spend most
classroom time on when dealing with popular stories?

23. Questionnaire – games
“Video Games should be treated
like any other form of literature”
“No, never. However, I sometimes
refer to them in literature, f.i. on
Xbox Dante's Inferno when we're
talking about Dante, or some
historical context f.i. from the Call
of Duty franchise. A lot of pupils
have played them and still
remember some of the actions
without having the right referential
structure.”
48%don’t know
what IF is
22%
have limited
to extensive
experience
with IF
familiarity with IF

24. Questionnaire – intercultural dialogue
83%
telling a story in the
classroom from different
points of view is a great way
to discuss identity and culture
agrees
46%
multilingual storytelling is a
great way to reflect on the
relation between language,
identity and culture
agrees
37% undecided
16% disagrees

25. Questionnaire – telecollaboration
Digital technologies enjoyed to
communicate with each other or with
peers in other countries62%
think
telecollaboration is
useful for most to all
students
25%
think it’s useful for
only a small number
of students
Digital technologies prohibited in the
classroom
“Smartphones, any popular apps that are
not normally used in the classroom”

26. Consequences and Next Steps

27. Do we have a mandate
for doing this project?
What is missing /
point of attention?
teachers
policy
& curriculum
learners
Yes
Yes
??
Different valuation of
fiction as aesthetic
expression in the national
curricula
• Multilingualism in the
dominantly monolingual
L2 classroom
• Training on IF
• Focus groups and/or
classroom observations
• Technology that works
for them and teachers

28. Council of Europe (2011) Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching,
assessment. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf
Cummins, J. (2005) ‘Affirming identity in multilingual classrooms‘, The Whole child, 63/1: 38–43.
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2012): Key data on teaching languages at school in Europe 2012.
European Commission (2013). Opening up Education: Innovative teaching and learning for all through new
Technologies and Open Educational Resources. Brussels.
European Commission: Education and Training (2014). The International Computer and Information Literacy
Study (ICILS): Main findings and implications for education policies in Europe.
European Commission (2016). Education and Training Monitor 2016.
https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/education/files/monitor2016_en.pdf
European Union Education Ministers (2015). Declaration on Promoting citizenship and the common values of
freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education.
Gogolin, I. (1994) Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann.
González-Lloret, M. (2014). The need for needs analysis in technology-mediated TBLT. In M. González-Lloret & L.
Ortega (Eds). Technology-mediated TBLT: Researching technology and tasks, (pp. 22-50).
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Hu, A. (2010). ‘Migrationsbedingte Mehrsprachigkeit und schulischer Fremdsprachenunterricht - revisited’. In: J.
Appel, S. Doff, J. Rymarczyk and E. Thaler (eds) Foreign Language Teaching - History, Theory, Methods:, pp. 65–82.
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Kidd, D.C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342, 377-380.
Sauro, S. (2017). Online fan practices and CALL. CALICO Journal, 34(2), 131-146. doi: 10.1558/CJ.33077
Sauro, S., & Sundmark, B. (2016). Report from Middle Earth: Fanfiction tasks in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal,
70(4), 414-423 . doi: 10.1093/elt/ccv075
Skolverket. (2011). Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the leisure time centre 2011.
Stockholm: Skolverket.
Skolverket. (2013). Curriculum for the upper secondary school. Stockholm: Skolverket.
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