Using Storytelling to Improve Afghan EFL Students’ Oral Communication Skills

Abstract

Good oral communication is widely considered a coveted skill for learners as it has implications on their employability prospects and career development at their workplace. Mastering oral communication skills in English is a great challenge for English as Foreign Language learners in the context of countries like Afghanistan. Studies have highlighted that storytelling technique has been used to promote language learners’ oral communication skills in various educational contexts. However, the effectiveness of this technique for the language learning purposes has been scarcely examined in Afghanistan. Hence, the present study aims to (i) investigate the effect of storytelling technique on Afghan EFL learners’ oral communication skills development, and (ii) to determine Afghan EFL learners’ improvement of speaking skill aspects after using the storytelling technique. Using convenience sampling technique, 31 Afghan EFL undergraduates were sampled from a public university in Afghanistan. A quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design was employed and the data analysis was performed using SPSS version 25.0. An independent sample t-test to compare the pre-test and post-test scores showed a statistically significant difference (t [30] = -10.98, p< 0.05). The result obtained from the t-test indicated that storytelling had a significant effect on Afghan EFL learners’ oral communication skills development. This suggests the incorporation of the storytelling technique in language classes to enhance EFL learners’ comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and fluency in the target language.