Unveiling the Power of Storytelling to Enhance EFL Listening and Speaking: An Action Research Study

Abstract

Storytelling is an important tool for teaching and learning a language. This research was undertaken for the purpose of improving the listening and speaking skills through adopting story-telling teaching strategy. It aimed to improve students' listening and speaking skills by incorporating storytelling into the teaching process. Many students have trouble understanding listening scripts in class, and struggle to articulate their thoughts in the speaking sessions. To address this issue, a classroom action research (CAR) study was conducted with 70 first-year Algerian EFL students, based on listening to stories, assessing comprehension, and then evoking interaction through discussing the plot, the characters, and asking for alternative endings. The results showed that listening to stories stimulates the critical and creative thinking of the students, develops their mental imagery, increases motivation, and boosts their engagement. The findings also revealed that the speaking skill improved significantly. The storytelling strategy creates intense emotional involvement among the students, new vocabulary is easily retained, the lexicon repertoire increases, and language is more accurately used. The study, therefore, calls for the implementation of the storytelling strategy in the EFL curriculum as an essential teaching and learning tool.