Using digital storytelling to promote language learning, digital skills and digital collaboration among English pre-service teachers

Digital storytelling (DST) is a narrative practice that utilizes digital tools for the creation of multimodal stories. This research strives to provide pre-service teachers with an experiential learning process of producing storytelling videos and teaching packages. Employing Activity Theory (AT) as a theoretical lens, the study intended to elucidate the interconnected elements (i. e., subject, object, instruments, community, rules, division of labor, and outcome) in a DST activity and further explore the object and the outcome perceived. Data were collected through a mixed method: surveys and interviews. Twenty-eight English pre-service teachers from two universities in Hong Kong participated in the stage of digital storytelling production and responded to the survey. Seventeen of them volunteered to join the follow-up interviews. The data informed the development of a collaborative DST framework, which incorporated AT and highlighted the role of collaboration. Within this framework, collaboration catalyzed expansive learning to transform contradictions, potentially achieving the outcome beyond the object. It implied that participants articulated gains and provided recommendations concerning DST practice in language classes, in addition to improved English language and digital skills. The study further discusses the pedagogical implications of DST implementation, offering insights into fostering language, digital, and collaborative learning in educational settings.