Investigation of the effect of digital storytelling on expressive language skills of bilingual 48-60 months-old children

The aim of the study is to reveal the effect of digital storytelling on the expressive language skills of bilingual children aged 48-60 months. The research was carried out in a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group, one of the quantitative research methods. The research group consisted of 30 (Experimental group 15, Control group 15) bilingual children, 48-60 months old, 16 girls and 14 boys, with normal development, in a kindergarten and a nursery class affiliated to Kilis Provincial Directorate of National Education. 36 different stories were used in the application process of the research. The application process was completed in 12 weeks. The stories were told to the groups with 2 different narration methods. While digital storytelling was done to the experimental group, the control group was narrated with a traditional storybook. Expressive language development of children; were examined according to the types of words used, the total number of sentences, the total number of words they used in a sentence and the average number of words they used in a sentence. A silent/non-verbal storybook was used to collect both pre-test and post-test data. In the analysis of the data, SPSS 22.0 statistical program and non-parametric tests, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Mann Whitney U Test were used. As a result, it was seen that digital storytelling had a significant effect on the expressive language skills of bilingual children in the 48-60 month group. It was found that digital storytelling provided a significant increase in the use of verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and conjunctions of the children in the experimental group and contributed to the increase in the total number of sentences used by the children, the number of two and three-word sentences, the total number of words in the sentence and the average number of words in a sentence conclusion has been reached. Keywords: Bilingualism, Digital Storytelling, Expressive Language, Preschool Education