Student Storytelling for Communication Skill Development Online (in the Time of Covid-19 Quarantine)

Along with switching to on-line conversations on a global level due to quarantine restrictions, the importance of English language competency, becomes from day to day more and more evident. Since the initiation of quarantine it has become essential for higher education institutions to launch the search on new forms and methods capable of not only teaching foreign language, but of developing creative thinking and communication skills in future professionals. The paper describes the specifics of storytelling as a modern communication tool, suggests a new approach to the development and evaluation of communication skills in English by the technique of student storytelling online and proves the effectiveness of this technique. The research was conducted on the basis of Foreign (Professional) Language Curricula at three Ukrainian Universities, namely: Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, Lutsk Pedagogical College, and Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University. The research included 78 participants (16-18 years old). The technique, based on the developmental and evaluation criteria related to the structure and style of the whole online student story, was tested in three stages - introductory, intermediate and final evaluation of online student storytelling skills. Each of the stages was followed by the training on the rules and strategies for effective storytelling and individual analysis of student’s mistakes. By the results of the pilot study, all of the three experimental stages are characterized by the dynamic increase in general level of online student storytelling skills (p<0.01). Thus, a designed technique for communication skills development and evaluation by means of student storytelling online has been proved to be effective.

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