INTELLIGENT NARRATIVE ECOSYSTEMS: GENERATIVE AI-AUGMENTED DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR LANGUAGE SKILLS

Abstract

Digital storytelling (DST) has been proven to be an effective multimodal pedagogical tool in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) for a long time. Digital storytelling’s production, mediation and reception have been changed by the recent emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, like large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, and multimodal systems that can create text-to-image, text-to-video, and interactive narratives. This systematic review is based on the PRISMA 2020 guidelines for conducting systematic reviews in the field of language learning, with empirical and conceptual literature regarding both traditional and GenAI-augmented DST reviewed from 2010 to mid-2026. After thorough screening, 68 studies were included in the final dataset from a pool of 1,847 retrieved from four disciplines, namely: Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, IEEE Xplore and Google Scholar. The results show that traditional DST regularly improves in terms of writing fluency, oral fluency, vocabulary acquisition, motivation, and intercultural communicative competence, especially in the context of collaborative pedagogies with emphasis on process.