Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

The Use of Digital Storytelling in Bilingual/Multilingual Students' Meaning-making: A Systematic Literature Review

My study is a systematic literature review regarding the use of digital storytelling in bilingual/multilingual students’ meaning-making at different educational levels. This review demonstrates how digital storytelling can empower these students’ voices across sociocultural and educational boundaries. The review asks: (1) What are the reported uses of digital storytelling for bilingual/multilingual students? (2) What are the reported benefits and challenges of using digital storytelling for bilingual/multilingual students? (3) What are the pertaining curriculum and pedagogical implications of using digital storytelling in bilingual/multilingual education? 24 studies from five ProQuest Education databases are reviewed. These studies were empirical and published from 2013 to 2022 in English. The review is informed by the theoretical lenses of multiliteracies, multimodality, and translanguaging. Because this review foregrounds that digital storytelling would be a powerful tool for students from minoritized communities to employ their heritage languages in literacy learning, it has the potential to enact educational equity.

Qianhui Ma
MA candidate
Faculty of Education - Western University

Supervisor
Zheng Zhang

Qianhui is an MA student in Curriculum Studies with the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario. Through the lenses of multiliteracies, multimodality, and translanguaging, her current research study focuses on digital storytelling and bilingual/multilingual meaning-making. Qianhui received an AER Graduate Scholarship for Literacy Studies in Education in 2021. She is now working as a research assistant in a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) IG project: Composing stories across the borders: Promoting equity through digital storytelling with biliteracy curricula.

You can connect with Qianhui on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qianhui-ma-6858321ab/.

View Qianhui's work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/inspiringminds/294/.