This workshop is designed to enhance communication skills through interactive visual storytelling and reflective activities. In the first part, participants will mark major milestones in their lives—such as graduating from school—on a timeline using simple symbols like a graduation cap. They will then exchange their timelines with peers who interpret the symbols and recount the life stories behind them, promoting collaborative discussion and authentic communication. In the second part, students complete an additional worksheet that focuses on visualizing their future by projecting significant milestones for both the near and distant future. Once again, they engage in discussions, interpreting the symbols and expanding them into rich narratives. The objectives of the session are multifaceted: to encourage self-reflection by having students identify and reflect on meaningful personal milestones; to promote independent thinking and creativity by reducing reliance on AI; to emphasize humanistic, student-centered learning that prioritizes personal growth and self-expression; to motivate students with different learning styles (e.g verbal, visual, kinesthetic); to foster peer interaction through collaborative interpretation; to reinforce practical language use, such as practicing various tenses; and to connect language learning with real-life skills like goal setting. The approach is underpinned by robust theoretical and empirical research. Robin (2008) shows that storytelling is an engaging teaching tool that boosts creativity, reflection, and communication. Similarly, Sadik (2008) explores digital storytelling as a means to enhance student engagement and learning, noting that the process of creating and sharing narratives reinforces communication skills and reflective learning—key elements in language education. Moreover, Wammes et al. (2015) demonstrate that drawing during learning significantly enhances memory recall, suggesting that learner-generated drawings improve retention of vocabulary and concepts. Complementing these findings, Van Meter and Garner (2005) provide meta-analytic evidence that student-generated drawings generally improve comprehension and retention, supporting their use to deepen linguistic processing.
References
Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom.
Theory Into Practice,
47(3), 220–228.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405840802153916 Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: A meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning.
Educational Technology Research and Development,
56(4), 487–506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-008-9091-8
Van Meter, P., & Garner, J. (2005). The Promise and Practice of Learner-Generated Drawing: Literature Review and Synthesis.
Educational Psychology Review,
17(4), 285–325.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-005-8136-3 Wammes, J. D., Meade, M. E., & Fernandes, M. A. (2015). The drawing effect: Evidence for reliable and robust memory benefits in free recall.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(9), 1752–1776. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2015.1094494
