Pre-Service Primary Teachers’ Beliefs, Practices, and Needs Regarding the Teaching of a Second Language Through Book Creator

Abstract

Several studies have investigated the use of Digital Storytelling to foster Second Language Acquisition at primary school level from pre-service teachers’ perspectives. However, research regarding the employ of Book Creator, a digital book-making tool, to enhance students’ language, digital, and intercultural competences according to student teachers’ perceptions is still lacking. This article presents a case study carried out with 35 student teachers who participated in a workshop on teaching Italian as a Second Language through Digital Storytelling during a single cycle degree programme in Primary Teacher Education, at an Italian university. The study aimed at exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs, practices, and needs regarding the use of Book Creator to train pupils’ language, digital, and intercultural skills within the multilingual and multicultural Italian primary school. Student teachers were asked to experiment Book Creator and to reflect about its didactic potentialities, from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives. Data were collected through a questionnaire, student teachers’ multimodal artifacts and teaching materials. Results show the efficacy of Book Creator as a learning tool aimed at enhancing pupils’ language competences, digital literacies, and intercultural awareness, as well as pre-service teachers’ interest in discovering further digital resources to foster Second Language Acquisition through Digital Storytelling.