Pop A Tale: Popularizing Indigenous Folktales in Digital Media

Abstract

One of the issues pertaining to the construction of stories for 21st century young ESL learners is the accelerating concerns with its content. As children’s stories are globally accessible through multi-media today, they are also vulnerable to criticism by diverse groups of people holding on to different political and cultural values. Some children’s stories are rendered as racist, colonialist, satirical, speciesism, sexist or encourage homosexuality POP A TALE: POPULARIZING INDIGENOUS TALES is a product designed to tailor to the needs of 21st-century learners. For decades Malaysian young learners have been fed with western story like Cinderella and local folktale like Si Tanggang have become cliche. Sadly, initiative to popularize indigenous tales have not been addressed. Indigenous folktale is a precious heritage that must be safeguarded to avoid complete disappearance consumed by globalization and profit-making entertainment. Popularizing the indigenous tales through innovations via digital media is desirable because such practices ensure the sustainability of these folktales, as well as help, engage students’ interest and motivation in the language classroom.  The team has taken the initiative to collect the Semai indigenous people's original stories and has obtained five stories from a Semai storyteller. The aim is to popularize the tales of indigenous people in Malaysia to young ESL learners. The project required the students to retell the story read from a book entitled The Myths of Semai in the form of digital stories. The storyboards helped to dramatize the tales and then video editing apps were used to compile the storyboards into videos of the chosen folktales. The product was five digital videos of indigenous folktales to be showcased in all English language learning classrooms. The videos uploaded to YouTube for other ESL educators and learners to use. Based on students' feedback on their experience with the indigenous tales, they had an amazing experience working on a noble project to help popularize and preserve the indigenous tales.