DIGITAL STORYTELLING AS A TOOL TO DEVELOP MEDIA COMPETENCE OF FUTURE ENGLISH TEACHERS
The information society we live in is increasingly shaped and sculpted by audiovisual, digital and web information sources. The ability of a person to sort and assess information is viewed as a key competence for any professional. Future teachers are the target group here as well. Most young people are effective screen readers now. They read fast and find what they want, but their reading is inattentive and shallow. Critical reading skills are being neglected with such reading. As a part of consolidated efforts we view critical reading skills as an essential constituent of media literacy education. The focus of education should be shifted from isolated reading skills formation to critical media literacy education. The article deals with developing teacher-training university students’ media literacy skills through digital storytelling. Digital Storytelling is a universal teaching method that combines visual, imaginary, musical and verbal constituents and makes them appealing to different learning styles. It equally develops students’ traditional communicative and innovative digital storytelling skills. The authors present a step-by-step algorithm of digital story creation and provide an assessment tool to use in the classroom.