Comic Relief: Boosting ESL Skills Through Comics

Comic Relief: Boosting ESL Skills Through Comics

with Susie Holman

Table of Contents

1. Why Use Comics

5. Cultural Competence

2. Classroom Uses

6. Assessment

3. Class Activities

7. Resources

4. Pragmatic Intelligence

8. Comics Activity

Why Use Comics: Affect

• Fun
• Similar to using games or music
• Positively impacts motivation
• Lowers affective filter
• Allows for creativity – with language and art
• Target-language culture

Why Use Comics: Language

• Higher levels of linguistic competence – pragmatic intelligence

• Expandable – role plays, writing, etc.

• Small chunks of language

• Grammar and vocabulary in context

– Particularly good for colloquial language and register

Why Use Comics: Pedagogy

• Promotes target language through student-centered work
• Negotiation of meaning: target-language practice through groupwork
• Promotes use of higher-level thinking skills

– Analysis (comparing two panels) and – Synthesis (creating a comic) in Bloom’s Taxonomy

Why Use Comics: Vocabulary & Grammar

• In context
• Accompanied by visual support

– Visuals promote meaning

• Colloquial language
• Idiomatic speech
• Reduced speech
• Slang

Why Use Comics: Four Skills

Comics can help develop improved skills in:

hover over the images

Why Use Comics: Print Literacy

• Sequencing left to right
• Thought bubble, dialogue bubble, onomatopeia
• Punctuation marks
• Italicizing, boldfacing, underlining, fonts, etc.

Why Use Comics: Assessment

• Oral assessment

— Look at a comic & explain what you see (also past & future) - no reading or writing - needs to be a comic without text

• Listening (dictation)

• Focused written assessments
• Cloze for grammar or vocabulary

Classroom Uses: Vocabulary and Grammar Cloze Activities

• Excellent way to highlight or practice specific grammar or vocabulary items

• Remove words from one or more panels

• Connected to specific grammar and/or vocabulary being taught
• Advanced levels: remove a sentence or group of words
• Less-advanced students: provide choices of potential words

Grammar in Context

Fill in the blanks with appropriate vocabulary

click on the panels to see full screen

Classroom Activities: Jigsaw

• Cut comic strip apart
• Ask students to put it back in “correct” order
• Student justify their ordering
• Higher-level thinking skills (Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)
• Promotes reading and vocabulary skills
• Sequencing
• Use of target language if done in groups
• Negotiation of meaning

Jigsaw

Put the comic in the correct order

click on the panels to see full screen

Jigsaw Variation: More Advanced Students

• Each student gets one part of a comic and describes it to their groupmates but does not show it

• Members describe their section, the group, still without looking, agree on the sequence

• Promotes directed target-language usage – student-directed speech with visual guide

• Can be done with comics that have only images, or with images and words

Classroom Activities: Fill in the Blank

• Remove one character’s dialogue from a panel
• Students fill in this bubble
• Can be done individually, in pairs, or as a group
• Can promote pragmatic intelligence
• Appropriate response

Fill in the Blank

click on the panels to see full screen

Pragmatic Intelligence: Politeness & Sarcasm

Comics can promote the acquisition of L2 pragmatic intelligence as students discuss “appropriate” responses

• What makes this comic funny, or not?

click on the panels to see full screen

— Unexpected response, outcome, or behavior

• Higher-level thinking skills (Analysis and Evaluation)

Classroom Activities: Sequencing & Prediction

• Give students a sequential comic strip with a panel missing
• Ask them to write the missing panel
• Can be done in a group to promote target-language use

Sequencing and Prediction

click on the panels to see full screen

Target-Language Culture

• Comics offer a way to bring in target-language culture

— Comics are often culturally contextualized

• Opportunities for collaboration with other content-area teachers

• Editorial cartoons for higher-level students

Target-Language Culture

click on the panels to see full screen

Classroom Activities: Student-generated comics, part 1

• Students draw and write their own comics
• A childhood memory, for example
• Small group or pairs write and draw together
• Retell a story, visually, that they have read
• Students work in illustratror-writer pairs

Classroom Activities: Student-generated comics, part 2

• Students act out the comic
• Retelling a comic – with and without the visual aid of the strip
• Compare the retelling with the actual comic
• Prediction skills – what’s coming next, after the last panel
• Negotiating this with partners
• Writing out and/or drawing the predictions

Adaptable for varying ages and abilities

• Wordless books (add dialogue and text)
• Cartoons
• Single panel
• Multiple panel
• Follow a daily comic strip in class
• Comic books
• Graphic novels
• Animation and gifs

Advantages Summarized

• Fun, interesting and motivating for students

• Opportunities to incorporate target-language culture and pragmatic intelligence

• Student-directed and student-centered

• Real world and authentic language

Advantages Summarized

Promotes

• L2 negotiation and communication

• All four skills
• Creativity
• Independence of thought
• Diversity of opinion
• Higher-level thinking skills

Potential Drawbacks

• Not perceived as serious

– Pushback from parents, administration, colleagues, or students themselves

• Requires buy-in

• Others?

Resources

click on the panels to see full screen

LinkTree

https://linktr.ee/ComicsInTheClassroom

Activity: Bring the Panels to Life

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Activity: Bring the Panels to Life

05:00

Adapted from "Using Comics in the English Language Classroom" by James Whiting, Ph.D. Plymouth State University, New Hampshire

For more information:

@ELPrograms

fellow@elprograms.org