ENHANCING GRAMMAR COMPETENCE THROUGH DIGITAL STORYTELLING: EVIDENCE FROM MULTILINGUAL ELT CLASSROOMS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

This paper investigated the effectiveness of Digital Storytelling in the development of grammatical competence in first semester undergraduate students in a multilingual Pakistani ELT context. The study included sixty students, with half in an experimental group and the other half in a control group, with Digital Storytelling taught to the former and traditional grammar instruction taught to the latter. The performance was measured using pre- and post-tests on sentence transformation and sentence formation activities and a brief survey on engagement and motivation was administered to the experimental group. The results indicated that learners who received DST activities exhibited statistically significant improvement in grammatical accuracy and sentence structure, whereas the control group showed limited improvement. Moreover, in response to the survey questionnaire, the learners reported that DST-based learning was encouraging and highly motivating. The findings of this study can be interpreted in light of cognitive, input-based, and sociocultural theories. Based on these perspectives, DST is an effective and contextually appropriate pedagogical approach in ESL classrooms.