Using digital storytelling to improve undergraduate students’ speaking skill: a case study at academy of journalism and communication

Abstract

In educational institutions, English is a crucial language that students must master. However, it is alarming that the majority of them cannot speak English fluently. In addition, due to COVID 19 pandemic, online educational technology has become a powerful tool to facilitate a language-learning environment. Therefore, there have been numerous suggestions to improve English speaking ability. This research was conducted to improve students' speaking ability by encouraging them to create digital stories thanks to the modern technology. Moreover, this study intended to investigate the students' perspective on the use of storytelling. To achieve these objectives, the researchers incorporated a digital storytelling assignment into a two-month online speaking course offered by the Academy of Journalism and Communication during the second semester of 2021-2022. There were 25 first - year English - majored students who took part in completing their individual digital storytelling projects, and then each student uploaded their videos to YouTube and calculated the number of like- and- share views. In conjunction with semi-structured interviews, the final survey questionnaire was used to determine their attitude, experience, and challenges while working on digital storytelling projects. The results show that the majority of participants found the projects inspiring and educational and were willing to implement this activity in future courses, despite the fact that some of them confronted technical difficulties. Additionally, most of them also reported that their self-assurance and competencies were also improved.