Experimenting transmodal storytelling in EFL classrooms to enhance literacy

This paper focuses on transmodal storytelling and its pedagogical implications for the development of English literacy for non-native speakers. Transmodal storytelling, which utilizes more than one mode of expression to tell a story (drawing on performative arts including dance, music, theatre, mime and puppetry) and takes into account learners’ everyday experiences, can be a starting point for developing literacy skills. Testing it in the classroom by telling the students the same story through different modes and different media platforms, using a wide range of meaning-making resources, I explored whether transmodal storytelling can become a didactic instrument in an EFL classroom, in particular with students viewed at risk of falling behind in school, and can improve their language skills and creative capacities. In order to test the effectiveness of transmodal storytelling in the teaching and learning process, I carried out a preliminary empirical study on a group of 14 seven-year-old students in an Italian state primary school between March and May 2018. This research argues that transmodal storytelling could rejuvenate literacy in classrooms, in relation to students with behaviour/integration difficulties and children from disadvantaged backgrounds who receive less support with literacy at home.