Narrative-oriented software for the learning of a foreign language: Tools Helping Young People to Develop Communication Skills

In this paper we present a selection of narrative-oriented software tools which can benefit young people's foreign language learning by encouraging the use of target language and helping to develop different communicarion skills, all within a motivating context. These programs allow students to create or interact with various types of narrative products, such as "talking" storyboards, animated cartoons, virtual dramatizations and interactive branching stories. We focus on the learning potential that can be realized within this kind of multimedia narrative fruition, comparing it with more traditional narrative activities carried out in the language classroom and highlighting the added value for learning that can be achieved through technology-mediated narratives.