ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the research findings related to curriculum policy, planning and professional development. In adopting a dialogic approach towards learning, the Critical Connections project opened up alternative spaces for both teachers and students to be creative. Teachers took steps to plan, initiate, and take risks in their teaching, and students took risks, created, and enacted knowledge alongside their teachers'. The success and achievements of the multilingual digital storytelling project relied upon lead teachers engaging with professional development and being open to new pedagogical approaches to learning languages. Lead teachers engaging in the project were required to critically reflect upon their own teaching practices and foster a dialogic approach towards language learning. Media training was important for pre-production, production and post-production so that students developed skills in planning, storyboarding, editing and presenting as well as filming. In presenting their final multilingual digital story to a large film festival audience, students gained further transferable language skills.
