Replacing Traditional Texts with Graphic Novels at EFL Classrooms

Abstract

As part of an experimental study carried out at a Turkish university about the effects of graphic novels in improving reading comprehension skills of EFL students, this paper intends to introduce the process of pre, during and after reading activities applied both to traditional text and graphic novel groups as production and reaction of students to those activities. Thus, we aim to demonstrate how graphic novel form as being an authentic material can be adopted to EFL classrooms to improve (critical) reading skills.

Using Comics with Novice EFL Readers to Develop Reading Literacy

“…He stresses the importance to consider both the amount and level of the text but also the pictures, their details and how (or whether) they support text understanding. Basol andSarigul (2013, p. 1625) bring an interesting a comment -they conducted research comparing the used of traditional and graphic novels in EFL classes. They used the Paul Auster's City of Glass and found out that "in the traditional text format of the novel, related with the postmodern style of the author, it was sometimes hard to distinguish the reality and delusions in the novel; however, in graphic novel format, the balloons and images that clearly represent the story line helped students a lot to connect the panels".…”

Using Graphic Oral History Texts to Operationalize the TEIL Paradigm and Multimodality in the Malaysian English Language Classroom

“…A significant body of research has highlighted the significance and value of graphic novels as multimodal texts in the English language classroom. The novels have been found to provide motivation and engagement for struggling and hesitant readers (Brozo et al, 2013;Öz & Efecioğlu, 2015); improve learners' language learning strategies, critical thinking, and comprehension (Basol & Sarigul, 2013;Öz & Efecioğlu, 2015;Sabbah et al, 2013); and aid teachers in teaching new lexical items (Basal et al, 2016;Öz & Efecioğlu, 2015). The appealing illustrations of graphic novels offer contextual clues to the written text; thus, they provide support and a sense of confidence to struggling or remedial readers.…”

Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible a través de la novela gráfica en la Educación Superior

“…Son varios los ejemplos donde el uso de la novela y el cuento ha sido aplicado como medio didáctico en el aprendizaje de las Ciencias (Petit Pérez y Solbes Matarredona, 2012) y de las Ciencias Sociales (Nolasco, 2012;Palma Valenzuela y Cambil Hernández, 2019). Concretamente, en el caso de la novela gráfica, este formato narrativo ha sido empleado también para la enseñanza de materias tan diversas como las lenguas extranjeras (Caglar et al, 2013), la historia (Cromer y Clark, 2007;Decker y Castro, 2012), las matemáticas (Cooper, Nesmith y Schwarz, 2011), la teoría de la comunicación (Meyers, 2013) o en campos como la farmacia (Muzumdar, 2016). En la educación universitaria, donde destaca la tradicional clase magistral y, en algunos casos, la escasa interacción y/o relación entre alumno y profesor (Cotten y Wilson, 2006) es menos evidente el uso del cómic que en la educación primaria y secundaria.…”