Slides for the keynote talk on 26 November 2020 as part of the 3rd International Symposium on Research in Foreign Language Teaching, hosted by the Universidad Surcolombiana (Neiva, Huila) and the Universidad del Tolima (Ibague, Tolima).

1. Storytelling in the
Foreign Language
Classroom
Shannon Sauro
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
@shansauro l ssauro.info l ssauro@umbc.edu

2. Once upon a time…
The changing role of
technology in
language teaching

3. “For many diverse learners,
the use of computer
technology for all facets of
second language learning
has dramatically increased
as the reach of the internet
continues to spread,
providing access to social
media, reference materials,
online instruction, and
more.”
(Chapelle & Sauro, 2017, p. 1)

4. Technology-Mediated
Challenges for Reading
and Writing
“Students nowadays constantly
engage in reading and
interacting often by using short,
de-contextualized informal
language that may distract them
from focused thinking. One
important challenge today for
educators is then to find
creative and effective ways to
lead distracted readers back to
productive language learning.”.”
(Liaw & English, 2017, p. 70

5. How do we
encourage in our
students the
sustained and
effortful use of the
target language that
we know is necessary
for language
learning?

6. The Digital Wilds
“digital spaces,
communities, and
networks [where language
learning occurs] that are
independent of formal
instructional contexts”
(Sauro & Zourou, 2019, p. 1)

7. Online fandom: “the
local and international
networks of fans that
develop around a
particular program, text
or other media product”
(Sauro, 2014, p. 239)

8. “A fan is a person with
a relatively deep
positive emotional
conviction about
someone or something
famous...”
(Duffet, 2013, p. 18)
Photo credit: Sake Jager

9. Language learning
through fan practices in
the digital wilds
• Anime and manga
consumption
• Fan site web design
• Debating and modding
• Fan translation
• Spoiling
• Fanfiction
(see Sauro, 2017 for an overview)
Art: Foxestacado

10. Fanfiction: "writing that
continues, interrupts,
reimagines, or just riffs
on stories and characters
other people have
already written about."
(Jamison, 2013 p. 17)
Art: Foxestacado

11. Yin, a Hmong refugee to the
US from Thailand, began
reading and copying fanfiction
for the purpose of drawing
fanart. Later, she progressed to
writing summaries and
eventually her own stories.
Thus, Yin’s reading of fan
fiction scaffolded her
emergent ability to write two
very different kinds of texts in
L2 English.
(Li, 2012)
Art: Foxestacado

12. Fans of the band One
Direction who were
members of a fanfiction
group recognized that
certain language skills they
developed through
fanfiction transferred to the
classroom and their
academic writing:
vocabulary and grammar
knowledge, identifying their
own errors.
(Korobkova & Black, 2014)

13. What happens when
you bring fanfiction
tasks into an advanced
English as a foreign
language class?
(Sauro & Sundmark, 2016; 2019)
Art: mudblood428

14. The Context: Malmö
A first year required
university English teacher
education course (B2-C1)
on teaching literature and
creative writing for
secondary and upper
secondary school in
Malmö, Sweden.
(Sauro & Sundmark; 2019, 2016)

15. A six-year project that
explored collaborative
fanfiction writing in a
university English as a
foreign language class:
• The Blogging Hobbit
• A Study in Sherlock
• The Potter Project
(Sauro & Thorne, forthcoming
2021)

16. Components of the
Fanfiction Project
1. A collaborative fanfiction
story written in groups of 3-
6 students
– 1000 words from each
student.
– Stories ranged from 3000-
16,000 words
2. An individual reflection
paper asking them to explore
which linguistic features and
literary devices they
attended to in their
fanfiction.

17. “this writing activity has
influenced my language
skills…. During this project I
have been able to expand
my repertoar [sic] of English
words which are not so
commonly used in everyday
English anymore.”
(Sauro & Sundmark, 2016, p. 420 )

19. “…my interest in Doyle and
the Sherlock Holmes world
is still at an intermediate
level…. On the other hand,
my knowledge of the
Scooby Doo universe is far
greater and I could enter
that verse much easier than
the universe of Sherlock
Holmes.”
(Student 18, Cohort 2015)

20. “This project made me pay
attention to grammatical
aspects in the Harry Potter
books. For example, Rowling
doesn’t use a lot of
transitional words, which we
just used a lot in academic
writing, but rather she uses
colons. I have never used
colons before in my writing
so that was fun to learn.”
(Student 44, Cohort 2017)
Art: Foxestacado

21. What happens
when fanfiction
tasks are brought
into the secondary
school foreign
language
classroom?
(Cornillie, Buendgens-Kosten,
Sauro & Van der Veken,
forthcoming 2021)

22. • 21 Belgian upper secondary
school students (aged 17
to 18)
• B2 English proficiency
according to the Common
European Framework of
Reference.
• Organized into eight
collaborative groups (2 - 3
students per group).
Tales from an EFL
Classroom

23. This multiweek assignment
(approx. 25 classroom hours)
was based upon Assassins
Creed, an action-adventure
video game with a narrative
element, each version of which
features a different time period
and region where the story
takes place (e.g. the
Peloponnesian War between
Athens and Sparta in Ancient
Greece; Paris just before the
French Revolution.)
The Quest

24. Extract from ‘Not about pyramids’ incorporating the
setting of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag

25. “It improved our writing
skills because first we
never wrote such an
extensive text and now,
we did, and we did it
descriptive. So, it
improved our writing
skills.”
(Interview 1, Participant 5)

26. “I think that with the English we
had to pay attention to the
structures of the sentences
because it was very tempting to
start every sentences with “he…”,
“he did this…”, “he did that…”,
and then continue like that or to
just make very short sentences
instead of kind of trying to build a
decent, beautiful sentence that
you would actually read in a
book.”
(Fanfiction interview 2, participant 4)
(Cornillie et al., forthcoming 2021)

27. The tale continues…
What does this mean
for other foreign
language classes??

28. The FanTALES project merges
practices from fanfiction,
interactive fiction (a form of
non-linear narrative that verges
on the world of gaming) and
multilingualism to deliver
technology-mediated
storytelling tasks to the
European language classroom
and beyond.
https://www.fantales.eu
Fan Fiction
Multilingual
storytelling
Interactive
Fiction
Tele-
collaboration

29. FanTALES Teaching Resources
• Storytelling Prompts and
Rubrics translated and
adapted for English,
German, Dutch and
Swedish.
• Teacher Handbook including
sample lessons and detailed
guidance on implementing
and adapting materials for
different languages and
learner populations.
• Interactive Online Platform
(Freely available to download at
https://www.fantales.eu/results/ )

30. Example Fanfiction
Prompt
Fusion is a type of fanfiction
where two (or more) source
texts are combined.
In your story, you will combine a
fairy tale with another story
(either a fairy tale or a non-fairy
tale).

31. Example Multilingual
Storytelling Prompt
Somebody has cursed Harry
Potter. He is no longer able to
speak in English.
To keep young Harry Potter
safe and to allow him a normal
childhood, Dumbledore sent
Hagrid to leave Harry with a
Belgian wizard family. Harry
therefore never acquired
English.
Art: Foxestacado

32. Example Interactive
Fiction Prompt
The Evil Queen from Snow
White is in an even fouler
mood than usual.
Alternatively, she has fallen in
love, and is exceptionally kind
to Snow White. Rewrite the
Magic Mirror scene in such a
way that the reader can
decide on how the queen
expresses her mood.

33. Evaluation Tools
In addition to storytelling
prompts, FanTALES has
developed assessment tools
(checklists, rubrics, peer
assessment) that teachers can
adapt for fanfiction, multilingual
storytelling, and interactive
fiction.

34. Teacher Handbook
• Example surveys for gathing
information on potential source
texts.
• Suggestions for adapting tasks
for different levels of proficiency
and learner populations.
• Additional classroom teaching
ideas to scaffold.
• Suggestions for adapting
activities for online teaching.

35. https://www.fantales.eu

36. Fanart Acknowledgement
Fox Estacado of The Art of Fox
Estacado: Fine Fan Art and
Geekery (artbyfox.storenvy.com).
All rights reserved and used in
this presentation with permission.
Mudblood428 of Potter on Paper
(http://www.mudblood428.com).
All rights reserved and used in
this presentation with permission.
@shansauro l ssauro.info l ssauro@umbc.edu