Communication with English is one of the primary skills students as second language
learners must master in the fourth industrial revolution era due to its significance in
determining their professional future. It is not very pleasant to realize that many Omani
students finish high school without having the ability or the motivation to speak
English fluently and accurately, although they have learnt English for 12 years at
school. Therefore, the foremost purpose of this study is to investigate whether digital
storytelling (DST) can foster students’ ability and motivation towards speaking English
in Omani public schools. The study adopted a quasi-experimental methodology with a
group pretest-posttest design where students created digital stories as teamwork and
presented them in class. The sample was 28 female students in grade seven in AlQuryatain primary school in Al-Dakhlia governorate, Oman, during the academic year
2023/2024. The sample was convenience sampling due to the school policy.
Quantitative data was collected through 1) a speaking pre-posttest using the speaking
assessment form validated by the Ministry of Education and 2) the motivation survey,
the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS), which was validated by seven
validators. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics through
SPSS software. The researcher also interviewed six students after the experiment to
uncover their perceptions towards creating DST. The findings revealed that DST
positively affects students' speaking proficiency as the participants outperformed in the
posttest. Moreover, DST enhanced the participants’ motivation to speak English.
Therefore, the study recommended integrating DST into the school curriculum.