"Language teachers’ self‑efficacy beliefs, agency, and students’ engagement in multilingual digital storytelling"

Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of training language teachers in digital storytelling – a multimodal approach that combines digital media and narration – to enhance their self-confidence and teaching skills in multiliteracies, ultimately fostering students’ multiliteracies development. However, the connection between multilingual digital storytelling (MDST) – which involves students’ entire linguistic repertoires – and factors related to the psychology of language teaching and learning, including teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, agency, and students’ engagement, remains underexplored. This study examined the effects of training on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and agency related to MDST, and it also investigated students’ engagement. It involved 19 in-service Italian language teachers in Argentina who participated in a professional development intervention about multilingual education, including the implementation of MDST activities with their 40 students. The research was framed within action research and designed as a longitudinal multiple-case study. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining both qualitative and quantitative data, which were gathered through teacher pre- and post-training questionnaires, reflective diaries, focus group discussions, and student questionnaires. Results reveal that teachers’ experiences and students’ feedback were deeply interconnected. Teachers’ increased self-efficacy beliefs and agency fostered students’ engagement, which, in turn, reinforced their commitment to continue implementing MDST in the language classroom.