The Impact of a Proposed Interactive E-Book on Developing English language Skills of Kindergarten Children

This study aimed at investigating the impact of designing and using an interactive electronic book (e-book) on developing the English as a foreign language (EFL) skills necessary for kindergarten children at the Egyptian language schools. Kg children are required to master some early language skills (namely, word meaning, listening, print awareness and phonological awareness) which were targeted in the current study. Multiple multimedia features were employed in the proposed interactive e-book such as animations, videos, interactive games, interactive worksheets, audio files and songs. Children also were able to video call their teacher through using FaceTime App. Participants were (30) Kg 2 children (aged 5-6 year) at Al-Wady language school. The quasi-experimental design was adopted in which the participants were equally assigned into two groups: a control group and an experimental group. Children in the experimental group were selected based on a written consent from their parents to participate in the treatment. Instruments used in the study were a checklist for identifying the target EFL skills, a standards checklist for the instructional design of the e-book and an English language test with an analytic rubric for scoring the oral and written parts of the test. Results proved that the experimental group children outperformed their control counterparts especially in the skills of listening, print and phonological awareness. However, no significant difference was found between children of the experimental and control groups in word meaning. The findings indicated that if e-books will be generalized in schools and for maximizing their benefit, they cannot be used totally online with teacher absence, they should be employed in a blended format with the teacher's physical presence as no electronic means can replace the effect s/he leaves through his/her direct verbal and non-verbal communication with the children.