Chapter II advantages and challenges of using comics in language teaching

1.2. Challenges and solutions in implementing comics-based language teaching
Comics have been around for a long time, and they have always been used as a medium of entertainment. However, in recent times, comics have found a new use in education. Comic books and graphic novels are increasingly being used in classrooms to teach various subjects. There are several benefits of teaching through comics, some of which are discussed below.
1. Increased Engagement
One of the biggest benefits of teaching through comics is that it increases student engagement. Comics are visually appealing, and they use images to tell stories. This makes them an excellent tool for capturing students' attention and keeping them engaged. When students are engaged in learning, they are more likely to retain the information being taught.
2. Improved Comprehension
Comics can also improve comprehension by presenting complex information in a visually appealing manner. The combination of words and images helps students understand concepts better than when presented in text-only format. The use of comics can also help struggling readers or those with learning disabilities because they provide visual support while reading.
3. Enhance Creativity
Teaching through comics encourages creativity among students by allowing them to create their own comics based on what they have learned. This not only enhances their creativity but also helps reinforce the knowledge gained from the lesson.
4. Promote Critical Thinking
Comics can promote critical thinking by challenging students to analyze the storylines, characters, and themes presented in them critically. Students can be asked to identify the central message or theme of a comic book or graphic novel and explain how it relates to the subject being taught.
5. Foster Multimodal Learning
Using comics in education fosters multimodal learning by engaging multiple senses simultaneously (sight and sound). This approach helps learners process information more effectively than when presented through one sensory modality alone.
6. Increase Vocabulary
Teaching through comics can help increase vocabulary by exposing students to new words that are often used in context within the storyline or dialogue. This approach provides an opportunity for learners to understand the meaning of new words and how they are used.
7. Enhance Cultural Awareness
Comics can help enhance cultural awareness by introducing students to diverse perspectives and experiences. Graphic novels, in particular, can help students learn about different cultures and their histories, as well as provide insight into the experiences of marginalized groups.
8. Develop Social and Emotional Learning
Teaching through comics can also develop social and emotional learning by presenting characters that face challenges, make mistakes, and learn from them. Students can learn empathy and problem-solving skills by identifying with the characters' experiences.
In conclusion, teaching through comics has several benefits that make it an effective tool for educators. Comics increase engagement, improve comprehension, enhance creativity, promote critical thinking skills, foster multimodal learning, increase vocabulary knowledge, enhance cultural awareness, and develop social and emotional learning. As such, educators should consider using comics as a teaching tool to augment traditional methods of instruction.
Therefore, it is an excellent teaching technique that should be included in language classrooms to help students become more effective speakers of the target language.⁶ As the preliminary aim of the session is to enhance the language teaching of the learners, the teachers should try to motivate them whenever they feel nervous or disappointed. From these sessions, the learners’ language teaching will be developed and with this motivation, the learners can perform very well in their job interviews, prepare their own speeches, and even guide their peers. Without any hesitation, one can say that those who develop their communication skills through these sessions will create wonders and make miracles in their life. With these sessions, the learners develop not only their language teaching , but also get a good command over their vocabulary and grammar. Even though sessions seem to be very short, but they enhance the learners' confidence, fluency and time management skills. Hence, the English language teachers are suggested to implement this kind of activities in their classrooms as a regular practice.
Another important activity that develops the English language learners' language teaching is an ‘Impromptu Speech’ or ‘Extempore’. Most speeches are structured, well prepared in advance and prepared with careful planning, revision and practice. An impromptu speech is a talk that the speaker gives spontaneously without any preparation. Whatever the topic may be, the speaker is expected to say something witty, smart and charming. Even the topic for the speech is given on the spot; the learners will have almost always with some advance knowledge on it. These impromptu speeches bring out the inherent talent of the learners as they have to deliver a speech on the given topic with zero preparation time.
Moreover, the speakers have to understand that their speech has to stand out and be hailed as the best at the end of the session. In this case, the speakers must be shrewd, intelligent and smart. These qualities help the speakers influence their colleagues or peers and leave an indelible impression in the hearts of the audience. It is the duty of the teachers to teach their learners some important techniques and ideas to keep in their back pockets. Hence, the teachers should teach the learners about the familiarity of some mechanics such as the duration of the speech, the way the session goes on, the theme of the questions and so on.
Then, the teachers should also advise the learners to engage with the audience by maintaining eye contact, by injecting humour on and off and by creating an organized speech with a good opening including some related quotations or adages. Moreover, the teachers have to encourage the learners to be with happy thoughts as it boosts the learners' confidence. Therefore, the teachers have to motivate the learners to impress the audience using various styles and techniques mentioned above. There is no doubt that the English language teachers have freedom to apply any suitable techniques that develop the communicative competence of the learners, but they have to implement them sincerely with more commitment to their profession. The teachers should understand that merely completing the whole syllabus was the concept of the old generation teachers, but now it is the responsibility of the present generation teachers to concentrate more on application-based activities that enhance the learners’ required skills.
Information Gap Activities Another spoken interaction activity that takes place in the English language classroom is ‘Information Gap Activities’. Harmer says, “Where two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole, because they have different information, there is a gap between them”. Gap activities are the most useful activities to promote a foreign language or second language acquisition.
According to Hedge, “These provide negotiation of meaning and the conversational adjustment which push students to more accurate output”. He further says, “These involve each learner in pair or group processing information which the other learners do not have. These activities have requirements for information exchange”. Information gap activities are useful for various reasons. They provide an opportunity for speaking practice and real communication. The English language teachers can motivate the learners to acquire different skills such as clarifying meaning and rephrasing. There are other typical types of information gap activities including describe and draw, spot the difference, jigsaw reading and listening and split dictations⁷.
Particularly language teachers have to focus on different activities that make the classroom more interactive and promote target language use. In fact, information gap activities are excellent activities because they provide an opportunity for the learners to ask each other questions and give answers to the questions that are asked. Hence these activities make the language classroom more meaningful and authentic. Role Plays ‘Role plays’ are activities adopted by the language teachers when they want to vary the kinds of the spoken situation experienced in the English classroom.
Through role plays, learners get opportunities and revise their understanding and perspective by enhancing their thoughts and feelings of certain characters in the given situation. Ur says, “Role play are used to refer to all sorts of activities where learners imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom, sometimes playing the role of someone other than themselves, and using the language appropriate to this new context”. Through role play activities, learners develop their problem-solving and decision-making skills that lead them to gain more experience in cooperative learning and independent learning.
Moreover, in describing reactions, perceptions and emotions, a foreign language or second language is used where the learners get an opportunity to practise their interpretations and oral skills. Role plays also give empathy because they aim at examining the others’ feelings, ideas and points of view. While speaking about the advantages of a role play, Doff rightly says, “Role play gives a chance to use language in new contexts and for new topics, because they are ‘acting out’ a situation. Role play encourages students to use natural expressions and intonation, as well as gesture”. Role plays in classrooms are drama like activities that take various forms like simulation and role cards. Therefore, role plays are effective techniques to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of learners and make the language acquisition impressive. Role plays are implemented by English language teachers to take the most advantage of it in improving the language teaching of the learners.
Thus, incorporating role plays into the English classroom adds variety, a change of pace and opportunities for a lot of language production and a lot of fun. Talking Circles ‘Talking Circles’ is another strategy to promote learners’ language teaching . Talking circles create safe environment through confidence where learners are given opportunities to share their points of view with their peers using the target language without fear of judgment or criticism. These activities are of immense use when the learners are feeling, sharing, considering moral or ethical issues.
These activities are effective strategies for real life solving problems and reaching group consensus. Here the main concern of the teachers is to encourage the learners to share their views and opinions in talking circles. Another type of enhancing the learners’ language teaching in the English language classrooms is storytelling based on activities where these activities function as clear tools toward learner autonomy. These storytelling activities take many forms such as guess the lie, insert the word and so on. So the teachers have to encourage the learners to narrate the stories, may be short or long, related to their daily life, morality, humanity, ethics, social problems, and so on⁸.
Debates’ are one of the most useful activities implemented by the English language teachers to develop the learners’ language teaching . According to Collins English Dictionary, “A debate is a discussion about a subject on which people have different views”. According to Vocabulalry.com Dictionary, “A debate is a kind of respectful, well-reasoned argument over opposing points of view, although tensions can run high and voices can be raised”. It further says, “A debate is a discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal”. It is a fact that both pros and cons of a topic are discussed in detail in any debate.
Through debates, the learners acquire mastery over the content and conceptual knowledge while using the English language in a meaningful way. These debating activities enhance critical thinking and public language teaching , promote collaborative and autonomous learning, emphasize research skills, and promote positive thinking as well as assessment. Nesbitt asserts, "Debate is an important educational tool for learning analytic thinking skills and for forcing self-conscious reflection on the validity of one's ideas". Davidson further states, "With practice, many students show obvious progress in their ability to express and defend ideas in debate and they often quickly recognize the flaws in each other's arguments». Debates are one of the interactive public speaking activities that require a greater degree of organization.
Debates are generally held with a range from most common to highly structured ones with two or more participants in English classrooms. Learners can develop critical thinking throughout the debate activities. According to Yamashiro, “Debate is a method of performance assessment which taps many of the instructional goals of the language classroom”. Debates are used in the English classrooms as a tool to make language learners practise the skills of English language in real-life situations. According to Krieger, “Debate is an excellent activity for language learning because it engages students in a variety of cognitive and linguistic ways. In addition to providing meaningful listening, speaking and writing practice, debate is also highly effective for developing argumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing”
Debates enhance the learners to acquire content as well as conceptual knowledge on the topics given. The topics that are to be explored include religious expression, cultural differences, peace education and diversity. The language teachers can include any of the controversial issues going on in the society. The teachers should encourage the learners to think of both positive and negative aspects of the given task to prepare arguments both for and against the topic. In this regard, Stroller states, “The preparation and participation in debate addresses the issue of opposing viewpoints and helps create ‘positive tension⁹’”.
The teachers should not keep the classroom silent during the debate session, but they have to keep the classrooms always active, lively and noisy. Debbie Newman says, “We need a “noisy classroom” to advocate active roles for students through debating and similar communicative roles”. During these debate activities, the teachers have to act as facilitators whereas the learners collaborate and share ideas in groups in order to prepare arguments for and against the given topic. As these debates enhance the learners’ critical thinking and promote the learners in understanding the material of any subject, the English language teachers can continue the debate activities in their classrooms in order to increase learners’ engagement with the given material.
While using debates in the English language classroom contexts, there are many advantages for both the teachers and the learners as they develop incorporating critical thinking, public language teaching , research skills, reading skills such as skimming and scanning, the language skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, academic writing skills, vocabulary enhancement and so on. Discussions or Group Discussions ‘Discussions’ or ‘Group Discussions’ are one among the best ways of speech presentation and it is considered as an interesting form of oral practice in the English classroom. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the definition of 'discussion' is, "The activity in which people talk about something and tell each other their ideas or opinions". In this context, Harmer says, “This can provide some of enjoyable and productive speaking in language classroom”
According to Thornbury, “Many teachers would agree that the best discussions in class are those that arise spontaneously either because of something personal that a learner reports or because of a topic or a text in the course book triggers some debate”. Discussions play a very valuable role in seminars, lecture courses, studios, labs, quiz sessions and a variety of other settings. A well-planned and well-prepared discussion not only encourages the learners and stimulate their learning but also adds variety to the English classroom. Hence, the responsibility of the English language teachers is to encourage the students to prepare plans for the discussion such as establishing goals, the expectations from the students that they have to accomplish, clarifying and summarizing some key points during the discussion, developing a questioning strategy and choreographing group dynamics by involving the whole class.
Here the teachers have to divide the whole class into smaller groups where the learners have to deal with the same or different problems or questions. During this session, the teachers have to move around the class to check the progress of the students in preparing them for the discussions and give proper guidance and answer their questions whenever they need help by being themselves remaining neutral. Once the small groups complete the task of preparing notes for the discussion, the duty of the teacher is to reassemble the class and invite all the small groups to report and invite a healthy discussion on the reports. This skill improves the learners' speaking as well as reasoning and problem-solving skills.
The English language teachers should always encourage the learners to have healthy group discussions in their classrooms as they enhance the learners' proficiency and communication skills also. Mock Interviews In the present global market, getting opportunities has already become a nightmare for many of the job aspirants. The situation is clear today that there are very few jobs and the number of job seekers has been on increase by leaps and bounds. In this scenario, getting a right job for the qualifications has become a daydream. After completing their education with good credentials, many of the well-educated young people are struggling for jobs as they have lack of oral communication skills¹⁰.
The main technique used in these mock interviews is that the questions are asked using the semi-structured method of interview rather than asking using the regular formal structured questions from the list that have been prepared in advance. These questions are asked depending on their qualifications and the jobs that they have applied for. So it is the duty of the counsellor to train them to be successful in the real interview and give proper training to them until they hit the winning pole. After giving a proper training for the interview, some consultancies arrange interviews by inviting the subject experts of the interview board to arrange for the real sample interviews. With the advantage of these mock interviews, the candidates’ confidence levels boost a lot and there is a possibility for them to perform well in the real interviews.