Enhancing Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills among Taiwanese Young EFL Learners Using Digital Storytelling Technique

Abstract

Few studies have examined the effect of Digital Story telling technique (DST) on EFL young learners ’ reading and writing performance. This study thus aims to investigate the effects of DST on vocabulary learning, reading comprehension and writing skill development of 27 EFL sixth graders in Taiwan. In a three-period instruction, the participants were first required to read two self-created digital storybooks on the theme “Christmas” on the Storybird platform; next, they were given a pretest for vocabulary and reading comprehens ion based on the two instructional storybooks. Through the explanation of vocabulary and the use of a question-and-answer approach to facilitate comprehension , the participants received subsequent reading instruction focusing on examining the logical sequences of the two storybooks. The posttest was held at the end of the reading instruction. In the second session, they created one storybook on the theme of Christmas on Storybird through teacher-student and student-student collaboration. The results of a repeated measure t-test showed that the students improved their vocabulary and reading comprehension significantly after receiving the instruction using digital storybooks. Further analysis of the audio and video recording revealed that the students developed their writing skills through their prior reading experience of the two storybooks, the teacher-student collaboration and even the student-student interaction.