The Effect of Interactive and Non-interactive Digital Storytelling on EFL Kindergarteners’ Learning of Challenging English Phonemes

Abstract

Children learning English as a foreign language (EFL) face challenges in recognizing words starting with similar phonemes such as /p/ and /b/ as in pin and bin, /f/ and /v/ as in fast and vast, /ʧ/ and /ʃ/ as in chair and share, and so on (Kharma & Hajjaj, 1989, p. 16). This issue seems to be caused by transferring L1 linguistic system while learning L2 vocabulary (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992). To help children recognizing words accurately, this study investigates how improved phoneme perception using interactive and non-interactive digital storytelling (DST) techniques can improve children’s recognition of /p/ and /b/ initial phoneme words. Saudi EFL kindergarten students (N = 75) were randomly assigned to participate in three groups: an interactive group, a non-interactive group, and a control group. A pre-posttest design was used to investigate the effect of each condition. Findings showed that there were no differences in the accuracy of words recognition between children in the interactive and no interactive DST conditions. However, there is an improvement in children’s words recognition by perceiving the difference between /p/ and /b/ initial words more accurately in the interactive and non-interactive DST groups compared with children in the control group.