Digital Storytelling for Multilingual Literacy Development: Implications for Teachers - Presentation by Tessa Welch at the South African Basic Education Conference 31 March - 1 April 2014. Presentation explains Saide's African Storybook Initiative. Overview: Requirements for effective literacy development of young children in African countries; obstacles to achieving this goal; multi-pronged approach to overcoming obstacles; examples of digital storytelling in a school community; implications for teachers.

1. Digital Storytelling for Multilingual
Literacy Development: Implications
for Teachers

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

7. The African Storybook Project Initiative

8. Our objectives
• A place to share and create/adapt stories
• Aimed at people who work with children
1. Creating a website
• For free use
• Facilitate adaptation and translation
2. Making the stories openly licensed
• Network who contribute to and use the website and stories
3. Engaging a range of partners
• Encouraging and testing/evaluating use
• Represent the target audiences/contexts we wish to reach
4. Supporting use in pilot sites

9. Key functions of
www.africanstorybook.org

11. Collecting and translating existing stories

12. 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

14. 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.

15. 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 Wanga
Translated by Dorcas Wepukhulu
African Storybook Initiative, 2014
The story is published on
www.africanstorybook.org
for others to enjoy.

16. 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.