Delivering resources for schools

Digital Storytelling for Multilingual Literacy Development: Implications

for Teachers

Overview of presentation

• Requirements for effective literacy development of young children in African countries

• A key obstacle to achieving this goal• A multi-pronged approach to overcoming this

obstacle• An example of digital storytelling in a school

community • Implications for teachers

Requirements for effective literacy development

It takes TIME to learn to read.

Children need to have books from very early in life, well before they go to school. They need to have lots of books. And they need to have them in a familiar language, with stories that reflect their context and experience as well as their hopes for the future, so that they can connect with them emotionally. And children need adults who are invested in these stories, motivated to use them, and talk about them and through them to their children.

It takes PRACTICE to learn to read. It takes THOUGHT to learn to read.

Reading has an AFFECTIVE dimension.

Learning to read is much easier in a FAMILIAR LANGUAGE.

The key obstacle

• We are not only not producing sufficient books in African languages for effective literacy development; if we carry on the way we are, we will NEVER be able to produce enough books.

• Half the world suffers from ‘book famine’. The other half suffers from information overload.It’s not about producing more books – it’s about distributing them in more equitable ways.

The obstacle unpacked…

1. Conventional publishing is market driven and serves the interests of those who can pay the most.

2. Conventional copyright impedes redistribution through translation.

3. Textbook publishing is only for school-going children, and reinforces a purely instrumental view of literacy.

4. Religious organisations invest in local language material – but the agenda is evangelical.

5. Many small non-profit organisations produce excellent material – but the funding dries up and there are no more print runs.

So we need

1. A digital solution – to source and preserve and re-use excellent existing material developed in numerous creative initiatives

2. Open licensing – to facilitate translation and adaptation without payment or permission needed

3. Digital storytelling in the hands of communities where children can learn to read and think and feel from the earliest age – before they start school

The African Storybook Project Initiative

Our objectives 1. Creating a website

• A place to share and create/adapt stories• Aimed at people who work with children

2. Making the stories openly licensed

• For free use• Facilitate adaptation and translation

3. Engaging a range of partners

• Network who contribute to and use the website and stories

4. Supporting use in pilot sites

• Encouraging and testing/evaluating use• Represent the target audiences/contexts we wish to reach

Key functions of www.africanstorybook.org

Collecting and translating existing stories

Stimulating teachers/communities to do their own translation

Choose the language of your translation from those in the drop down list. Add your translation into the text box below. In the grey box you will see the words to translate from. Fill in the information about your translation. Save your translation as a draft or publish it

Community driven story development

For example, Munanga Primary School, Kakamega

• SMC chair (man on right in picture) tells story in Oluwanga (local Luhyia dialect in Kakamega) and summarises in English

• Both versions are recorded • A story development group prepares a

storyboard – with briefs for illustrations • An English version and Oluwanga

version is prepared in the African Storybook template.

• Each page is illustrated.

Text:

Illustrations:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Version 3.0 Unported Licence

You are free to download, copy, translate or adapt this story and use the illustrations as long as you attribute or credit the

original author/s and illustrator/s.

Namukhaywa

Matthews M WangaTranslated by Dorcas Wepukhulu

African Storybook Initiative, 2014

The story is published on www.africanstorybook.org for others to enjoy.

Implications for teachers?

A few of the many:• Moving beyond retell and comprehension

questions• Engaging children in providing text/versioning

text• Making use of the resources in the school

community to produce local stories in local languages.