ESL Comics

From the ICAL TEFL wiki

Comics are an excellent medium to introduce your ESL/EFL students to current, everyday English, in a non academic format.

Comic strips, books or magazines all contain sequential art. In fact, sequential art is often used as a synonym for comics. But sequential art is a term that encompasses much more than comics, like animation, storyboarding, children’s book illustration, and game design.

Sequential art in the form of comic strips is generally published in newspapers and magazines. Comic strips are similar to comic books, but they generally consist of about four panels of images and text.

Comic strips sometimes flow together from one strip to the next. In this way, a person who reads comic strips in the newspaper may get the next episode within a story each day until a particular story is told. Popular comic strips are sometimes compiled in a book after they have been published in newspapers or magazines.

Comics lend themselves to be read individually or as a story to be followed over a long period of time. Through comics students learn a lot of English (some good slang, too!) and they can also pick up on cultural aspects that may have been portrayed in the comics. The subject matter in comics is not necessarily humorous; in fact, it is often serious and action-oriented giving a wide spectrum of topics to address in class.

ESL Activities

You can create great lessons around a comic strip. Here are a few ideas.

• Select a comic strip that can be suitable for your students and tipex out (blank out) the text in some of the speech bubbles. Photocopy that and hand it out to your class. Encourage students to think of what the characters might say or think and get them to write it in the empty speech bubble. Then with the whole class go through some of the answers suggested and compare them to the original to see if they managed to create a better comic strip!

• Supply the text in the speech bubbles as simple text, without putting it into sequence or saying who said it. Then supply pictures of the characters whose words you have transcribed. Ask your students to match words with characters.

• Cut up your comic strip and jumble up the frames. Get students to put in the right order.

• Get your students to create their own comic strip. You can restrict the activity to target problem areas like a specific grammar item or new vocabulary by getting them to base their strip around it. To increase motivation you can have each student portray themselves as a carton character or get each student portray their class mate.

• [This idea is good for an ongoing project.] Select a suitable theme for a home made comic strip and divide the class in two teams. Get one team to work on the text for the speech bubbles and the other on creating the characters. Set a specific time during which students can work together - perhaps 10mins before the end of each lesson. Once the preparation work is completed bring the two teams together and work on building the comic strip as a class. Once competed display it in class or in the school hall for all to see!

You can adapt these ideas, and expand on them, to fit various levels and ages. You can also use them to get students to work in pair, groups or individually.

External Links

A useful source of comics can be found online at King Features Syndicate