The Effect of Storytelling through Puppets on Speaking Fluency and Motivation of preintermediate Iranian English as Foreign language learners

Among many factors affecting learning a language, motivation is the most well- documented in theory and less operationalized in practice entity and it calls for consideration when it comes to learn speaking skill in English as Foreign Language (EFL) education ecology. This study investigates the effect of storytelling through puppets on 60 Iranian pre -intermediate EFL learners' Motivation and speaking fluency. Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) and speaking part of Preliminary English Test (PET) were used at pretest and posttest stages of experimental and control groups. The stories were selected on the basis of their difficulty level to ensure their concordance with proficiency level of the students.  The puppets were designed to represent the characters of the stories. The results of Analysis of Variance indicated that storytelling through puppets have not only affected learners' speaking fluency but also motivation. This suggests that language teachers should make principled decisions about the techniques by which they build confidence for the most motivation requiring classroom skill; speaking.