TELL-ABILITY: STORYTELLING AS LIFE SKILL AND INTERACTIONAL COMPETENCE IN L2 LANGUAGE EDUCATION

The telling and sharing of stories have long been viewed as central to human experience, memory, and imagination.

While the importance of narrative competencies is emphasized in the literature, knowledge about the practices and potential of oral storytelling in compulsory education; in particular, in second language (L2) teaching and learning is sparse (cf. Kasper & Monfaredi, 2021; Lucarevschi, 2016).

Situated at intersections of second language, social interaction, and narrative research, the present project addresses several gaps identified in the literature with an exclusive focus on oral storytelling in two language subjects in Sweden – English as a foreign language and Swedish as a second language in secondary school.

Oral storytelling is approached a specific type of narrative competence: as a collaborative achievement and an aspect of L2 interactional competence (IC).

We investigate storytelling in and for practicing L2 proficiency and IC, and for broader goals of education, such as preparing students for participation in a globalized, multilingual, and multicuItural society.

Four research questions will be addressed in three work packages, and data includes teacher interviews, learner life-story interviews, video-recorded  classroom implementation of narrative tasks, and textbooks.

Long-term goals is to gain knowledge which can support oral narrative engagement in learners, and awareness of the functions and practices of storytelling in L2 social interaction.