Digital storytelling interventions to enhance the speaking abilities of elementary-level students with English...

This study examined the effectiveness of digital storytelling in improving English speaking abilities among elementary-level students with English language difficulties. The study responds to a gap in school-based evidence on how multimedia narrative interventions can support oral communication among young learners in Saudi public-school contexts, where English is taught as a foreign language and classroom practice may give limited space to spontaneous speaking. A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test control-group design was used with 30 fourth-grade students in the Aseer region of Saudi Arabia. The experimental group received instruction through a digital storytelling intervention, whereas the control group studied the same narrative content through a conventional printed-story format. Students' speaking performance was assessed through an oral speaking test covering fluency, comprehension, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Content validity was reviewed by specialists, construct validity was examined through correlations between each criterion and the total speaking score, and the results were analyzed using analysis of covariance at a significance level of 0.05. The findings indicated statistically significant improvement in favor of the experimental group in fluency, comprehension, pronunciation, and the total speaking score, while the vocabulary criterion did not reach statistical significance. Descriptive effect-size estimates further suggested that the intervention had educationally meaningful effects, particularly for comprehension and overall speaking performance. The study implies that carefully structured digital storytelling can support speaking practice, learner engagement, and confidence among elementary students with English language difficulties. However, the modest sample size and single-region design require cautious interpretation and further replication with larger samples and independent reliability checks.