Evaluation of the Uses and Usefulness of Comics as a Tool in Second Language Teaching

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2.0, University of Dortmund, course: Academic Writing: Understanding Comics, language: English, abstract: Modern school books are filled with cartoons and comics, which are supposed to support the students in their learning efforts. Before it can be discussed whether comics are a useful tool in second language teaching or not, it is necessary to understand why comics have made their way into the classroom. Then, a discussion about the effects of comics on children and their abilities follows. The last part of this essay deals with concrete examples of how comics can be used in second language teaching. It is very obvious that children are the major consumers of comic books. Paul Burgdorf, the author of the book 'Comics im Unterricht', conducted a survey among students, in which he found out that 82.4% of them read comics in their spare time. Paul Witty, a former professor of education and director of the Psycho-Educational Clinic at Northwestern University of Illinois gave an answer to the question why children read comic books by providing these eight reasons: [...]