Artistic strategies to improve oral production in Mexican students: a pilot study

The aim of this research was to implement a didactic intervention through clay modeling and sculpture activities to favor oral expression in elementary school students. A sample group of 28 children aged 6 to 8 years employed an artistic technique known as “family sculpture” to communicate their perceptions and feelings regarding their family. The methodology used for this pilot study, following a quantitative paradigm with a pre-experimental design and the application of a pretest-posttest, allowed us to deploy the aforementioned strategy to help the students develop their manual skills and oral expression by supporting their arguments about their sculptures. Our preliminary findings revealed that this intervention is promising and that it might enhance and stimulate the level of oral expression in elementary school students, as well as inform future intervention work at a larger scale to assess its efficacy and effectivity.