Students’ Experience of Using Storybird in Writing ESL Narrative Text

Abstract

Equipping students with 21 st century skills has become the main focus among educators. In line with the Ministry of Education initiatives in transforming the framework of Malaysia Education system, 11 shifts charted are steered to witness the nation stay abreast, if not ahead of global trends. One of the major shifts is to leverage Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in order to escalate quality learning experience in the classrooms across the country. Therefore, preparation of teaching materials with meaningful technology integration is imperative to prepare students for the mastery of 21 st century skills. Thus, the assimilation of online tool into teaching and learning of writing skills is stimulating to elevate students' writing competency and motivations along the process. This study aims to identify students' experiences in using digital storytelling tool called Storybird in writing English as a Second Language (ESL) narrative text. Semi-structured interviews and observation are the instruments employed to collect data from 15 diploma students of a private university in Malaysia. The findings show that majority of the respondents reflect their positive experiences in using Storybird in writing ESL narrative text. This study has significant implications to shed some light on the potential use of Storybird as a pedagogical tool for English course.