The Development of Vocabulary Acquisition for Thai Kindergarteners through Digital Storytelling (DST)

บทคัดย่อ

          While Digital Storytelling (DST) is an effective teaching and learning resource that has been implemented at many educational levels, particularly in young learner classrooms, its effectiveness in developing vocabulary acquisition of Thai EFL kindergarteners is still understudied. This study investigated the effectiveness of Digital Storytelling (DST) on very young learners’ vocabulary acquisition. A group of 22 kindergarteners aged between four and five years old was exposed to ten target words selected from two types of Digital Storytelling (DST) – a combination of a story and animation, and a combination of a song and animation. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Cohen’s d were adopted to compare the mean scores and observe the effect size of both combinations of Digital Storytelling (DST) respectively. Additionally, content analysis was adopted for qualitative data from the interview. Results indicated that both combinations significantly improved learners’ vocabulary acquisition at the significance level of .05. This study also highlighted the effectiveness of Digital Storytelling in that both song and story could enhance the kindergarteners’ vocabulary growth greatly. Moreover, the song was selected as their favorite choice the most. The implementation of digital storytelling in kindergarten classrooms could support learners to improve their vocabulary size effectively and positively.