The Use of Digital Storytelling for ESP in a Technical English Course for Aerospace Engineers

Abstract

Digital Storytelling is a powerful pedagogical tool for both students and educators, which started to be used for teaching and learning purposes a few years ago, becoming more and more popular over time. The use of digital storytelling in non-specific language learning contexts has been widely explored, as shown in the literature. However, its use in technical-scientific contexts of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has not been so widely studied. This paper explores a project of digital storytelling for ESP carried out at the Universitat Politècnica de València, in Spain. The methodology was divided into several stages: completing a pre- and a post-survey, learning about digital storytelling by doing a WebQuest, making decisions about their digital stories (topic, plot, software and media), sharing their stories with their classmates through the PoliformaT LMS, watching their classmates' digital stories, using the forum to write their comments about their digital stories and their classmates', keeping a log and preparing and presenting their “making of” in front of the class, and assessing both their peers’ digital stories and their oral presentations. The overall results were very positive, as students were highly satisfied with their progress in learning and developing different skills, these being mainly linguistic, research, writing, organisation, digital, presentation, interpersonal, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.