Conclusion

We are familiar with what critics and enthusiasts say about children's books. Less familiar to us is what children say. At Goldsmiths, University of London, we've devoted a module on our MA in Children's Literature to this very subject. Students devise projects which investigate how children respond to children's literature. Over some 10 weeks or so, they try out various 'interventions' which aim at producing responses from children, whether that's in talk, writing, drawing, drama or whatever way seems appropriate. Then they analyse what the children have said or done using a mix of tried and tested methods or applying new ones. Some of the best examples of these studies are in this book. They are superbly informative reads just as they are, but we hope that they will also inspire others to do the same. The more the better! (Back Cover Blurb, Michael Rosen

Research in depth - Multilingual Digital Storytelling

This research review charts the journey of the Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project (2012-ongoing) and how our research has contributed to debates in the field of multilingualism, storytelling and digital technology. What is it about this approach to learning that has continued to capture the interest of children and young people from very different backgrounds, cultures and experiences? How has digital storytelling changed the way children think of and use their languages? How has our understanding of multilingual digital storytelling changed over time

Deptford Storytelling Project 2020

The Deptford Storytelling Project 2020 was a novel experience for all those involved as we moved out of classrooms and schools and set up the project in the centre of the community. The project was run across different sites in Deptford: Deptford Cinema (a community-led cinema); the Albany (a performing arts centre); Deptford Lounge (a local library and community centre); and Goldsmiths, University of London. This placed the project in the heart of the community and opened up the experience to people from many different ages and backgrounds. The project proved immensely popular and after filling all the workshop places we had a long waiting list of people interested in becoming part of the multilingual community film-making project

Framing critical perspectives on migration, fairness and belonging through the lens of young people’s multilingual digital stories

This chapter aims to explore critical perspectives of young people on issues of migration, fairness and belonging. It seeks to address complex and pressing questions about identity, integration and inclusion and how young people develop literacy in all their languages. This chapter draws on research from a global 5-year project, Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling (2012-2017), which worked across sites of learning, but perceived schools as basecamp for transformative pedagogy and young people as storytellers and innovators

Object narratives, imaginings and multilingual communities: young people’s digital stories in the making

This paper draws on research from a global 5-year project, Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling (2012-2017), which links language and intercultural learning with literacy, active citizenship and the arts. A critical ethnographic approach was adopted in the research project and the multilingual digital stories were an integral part of the research process. With the project’s focus on multilingualism and creation of bilingual digital texts, young people had to imagine how to use language in new contexts, uncover narratives around objects, and negotiate interfaces between different cultural landscapes. The research findings revealed the complexity of multilingual digital storytelling and how young people (aged 6-18 years old) learnt to become meaning makers discovering their own voices in unfamiliar contexts. Through these digital stories the young people forged strong links with the past and created new multilingual communities

Multilingual digital storytelling, museum artefacts and the arts: Creative pathways to language-and-culture learning

Our research developed out of our interest in how to re-engage young people with language learning and develop critical and creative engagement with digital technology. Building on 7 years of research into multilingual digital storytelling and work around museum artefacts (2012 -2019) we developed 3 key strands to be explored in the conference: experience, culture and identity; process and performance; and agency and dialogic thinking

The art of belonging: exploring the effects on the English classroom when poetry meets multilingual digital storytelling

This paper explores what happened in the English classroom when two innovative projects merged and spoken word poetry became part of multilingual digital storytelling. As a Spoken Word Educator and Teacher Educator, we wanted to explore the complexity of bringing together these multimodal art forms. Making a poem come to life though film is hard and the research presented here interrogates these processes through working with a group of 13–14 year old students in the English classroom. In the process of bringing together spoken word and multilingual digital storytelling, these students interrogate notions of belonging and uncover stories that matter through emotional and creative encounters with personal and cultural artefacts. These young people discover a shared imagery across languages and cultures and reclaim ownership over learning in the English classroom. Foregrounding spoken word and multilingualism in the English classroom had a transformative effect on young people’s self-expression and imaginative thinking

A moving story from Dhaka to London: revealing vibrant identities in young people’s intercultural encounters with mobile art, embroidery and artefacts

This article presents three Bengali-English digital stories as vignettes and analyses young people’s intercultural encounters as a moving story between Dhaka and London. The research case study is part of an international project, Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling (2012-present), which links language and intercultural learning with literacy, active citizenship and the arts. Researching and writing together, the lead Bengali teacher and co-director of the project interrogate how young people open up spaces for Sylheti, Bengali and English through intercultural encounters and the making of their digital stories. The study centres on an after-school Bengali club in a mainstream school. এই অনুচ্ছেদটিতে বাংলা ও ইংরেজিতে তিনটি ডিজিটাল গল্প তৈরিতে তরুণীদের ভাষা ও সংস্কৃতির অভ্যন্তরীণ দ্বন্দ্ব ঢাকা ও লন্ডনের একটি চলমান গল্পের প্রেক্ষাপটে বিশ্লেষণ করে প্রবন্ধ আকারে উপস্থাপন করা হয়েছে। এই গবেষণার কেস স্টাডিটি মূলত ‘ক্রিটিকাল কানেকশনঃ মাল্টিলিঙ্গুয়াল ডিজিটাল স্টোরি টেলিং’ শীর্ষক একটি আন্তর্জাতিক প্রকল্পের(২০১২-চলমান)অংশ, যা ভাষা ও আন্ত-সাংস্কৃতিক শিক্ষার পাশাপাশি সক্রিয় নাগরিকতা ও চারুকলা শিক্ষার সমন্বয় ঘটিয়েছে। প্রকল্পটির সহপরিচালিকা ও নেতৃত্বদানকারী বাংলা শিক্ষিকা যৌথভাবে বাংলাদেশি বংশোদ্ভুত তরুণীরা ডিজিটাল গল্প তৈরিতে কীভাবে সিলেটি, বাংলা ও ইংরেজি ভাষা ব্যবহার করে আন্ত-সাংস্কৃতিক সমস্যার সমাধান করে তা গবেষণা ও লিপিবদ্ধ করার চেষ্টা করেছেন। গবেষণাটি মূলধারার একটি স্কুলে ‘আফটার স্কুল বাংলা ক্লাবকে ঘিরে সংঘটিত হয়েছে

An exploration of how children’s language learning can be transformed when teachers place creativity and stories at the centre of the curriculum and experiment with digital storytelling in the classroom

This article examines how the teaching of languages can be transformed across the whole-school primary curriculum when teachers and researchers collaborate to make space for creativity and stories. The research presented here looks carefully at this process of transformation and how primary school teachers can become motivated to teach languages in more open-ended and creative ways. The researchers situate the debate within the fractured emergence of Primary Modern Foreign Languages (PMFL) as a subject in England and the lack of teachers’ proficiency in languages beyond English. In many primary school contexts, the teaching of languages is repetitive and highly formulaic and the researchers wanted to find novel ways to motivate teachers and children to learn languages. The researcher and teacher’s collaborative work on the curriculum became part of the Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project (2012-ongoing) where stories and digital technology are used to re-engage language learners. The children (7-8 year olds) in this case study created a digital story Wir gehen auf Drachenjagd (We’re Going on a Dragon Hunt) for an international digital storytelling festival (June 2019). The research findings demonstrate the power of stories combined with the digital dimension enabled children to use new language productively and creatively

Grassroots policymaking in practice: including heritage languages in the critical connections project through agency, activism, and alternative voices

This article examines the Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project through the lens of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) and considers the situation of heritage language learning within the policy on language education. We present our project as grassroots policymaking in practice and demonstrate how, through deep and meaningful collaboration, researchers, teachers, parents/carers, and students can exercise bottom-up agency to address key issues in learning languages and developing multilingual literacy. Our interdisciplinary approach embeds interculturality within all stages of the language learning process creating spaces that foster empathy, activist citizenship, and possibilities for a more sustainable future. We interrogate our Critical Connections Project and argue that this approach to LPP provides an alternative model of interculturally oriented critical cosmopolitan education which validates multilingual identities. We show how digital technology, virtual communities, and a growing concern for social justice have shaped the project and discuss how we adopted a critical ethnographic approach. In looking at purposes, principles and means in our project, the digital stories themselves are analysed and presented as vibrant data. To conclude, we engage specifically with the implications of our research for heritage languages and LPP. Finally, we make a series of recommendations for heritage language planning and policy