Making Your Stories Work: Storytelling as a Democracy Hub in EFL Teacher Education
Project members: Prof. Dr. Bianca Roters (University of Education Ludwigsburg, Germany) & Dr. Saskia Schabio (University of Stuttgart)
Storytelling as a Democracy Hub investigates how narrative practices can support democratic professional learning in English language teacher education. In a period shaped by global uncertainty, polarisation and ecological and social challenges, democratic education must go beyond the cultivation of empathy. It also needs spaces for critical reflection, multilingual engagement, dialogue and collective action.
The project brings pre-service teachers and teacher educators together in a cross-institutional Community of Practice. Storytelling functions as both subject matter and collaborative method: participants encounter global narratives, examine how stories position people and communities, and develop their own multimodal responses. The Democracy Lab creates a shared space in which pedagogical ideas, disciplinary perspectives and emerging teaching materials can be tested and discussed across institutional boundaries. Drawing on Critical Cosmopolitan Citizenship, civic education and sustainability discourse, the project combines creative and digital storytelling, cognitive literary approaches, socio-emotional reflection and sociolinguistic story mapping. Graphic novels, podcasts, reflective journals and digital showcases invite participants to question positionality, explore identity and connect language education with social and environmental justice. The project’s distinctive focus lies in collaborative professional learning. While the project Narrating Futures of Well-Being concentrates on inclusive narrative spaces for young EFL learners, the Democracy Hub examines how a funded, cross-institutional Community of Practice can prepare future teachers to create democratic spaces in and through English language education.
Guiding question
How can a cross-institutional Community of Practice use storytelling to foster critical reflection, democratic agency and action-oriented EFL teacher education?
Project Activities & Outputs
Funding:
This project is funded under the Innovationsinitiativen 2026 call as part of the Professional School of Education Stuttgart–Ludwigsburg (PSE).
Project title: Making Your Story Work: The Democracy Lab as a Community of Practice (CoP).
Conference Presentation:
Symposium as part of the international conference ” language education for sustainable development” at the University of Münster, March 2025: Building a community of practice of critical cosmopolitan citizens with digital storytelling (together with Dr. Helga Haudeck, University of Education Ludwigsburg & Prof. Adriana L. Medina, UNC Charlotte)
Publications:
Making Your Stories Work: Storytelling as a Democracy Hub in EFL Teacher Education, together with Dr. Saskia Schabio (accepted for the edited volume by Matz & Römhild, Bloomsbury)
Research–Teaching Connection:
Selected courses provide spaces for connecting current research with the analysis, design and reflection of story-based learning environments in EFL teacher education.
Teaching as Storytelling: Narrative, Cognition and Task Design in EFL, Ludwigsburg University of Education & University of Stuttgart