Virtual Booth

Bound by Stone: Folktales of Filial Piety across the Nusantara addresses the pressing concern of diminishing indigenous storytelling traditions and the weakening of moral values particularly filial piety—among younger generations in an increasingly digital and globalised world. As children gravitate toward fast-paced digital entertainment, classic Nusantara folktales such as Malin Kundang, Si Tanggang, and Nakhoda Manis risk losing their place within communal memory, resulting in a cultural disconnect that threatens the preservation of heritage and valuable moral teachings. In educational settings, especially ESL classrooms, such culturally rich narratives are often overlooked despite their profound potential to enhance language learning, cultural awareness, and character formation. This innovation responds to these gaps by transforming these well-known regional tales into an immersive digital storytelling platform designed to revitalise interest in oral traditions through interactive narration, animated sequences, multimodal learning tasks, and reflective activities. By merging authentic cultural content with ESL pedagogy, the platform promotes vocabulary acquisition, narrative comprehension, and critical thinking while reinforcing values of respect, humility, and familial responsibility that are deeply rooted across the Nusantara region. Beyond enhancing classroom learning, the innovation carries significant societal impact by offering an engaging and accessible tool to preserve cultural heritage in contemporary forms, ensuring these stories continue to be transmitted meaningfully across generations. It also strengthens moral education by providing young learners with narratives that cultivate empathy, ethical reflection, and social identity. Through the inclusion of contextual materials and contributions from cultural custodians, the project fosters community participation and supports sustainable heritage preservation. Ultimately, Bound by Stone presents a powerful model for harmonising tradition and technology, demonstrating how digital storytelling can enrich ESL education while contributing to broader cultural continuity and societal well-being.