Last Friday
20, we attended the interesting workshop “Making the most of comics in the ELT
class” by Peter David and organized by the Regional English Language Office of
the United States Embassy in Lima. The talk by Mr David was followed by an
interesting hands-on session led by David Fay, RELO Andes, and Patricio Rivas,
a teacher at ICPNA Cuzco.
To be honest,
I attended the event for quite selfish reasons: I am on vacation (which means I
have the time), my son likes comics (especially “The Walking Dead,” of which he
is such a great fan that he made me buy the Compendium, a one-thousand-page
collection of the comic series, on Amazon), and a writer´s curiosity about the
creative process involved in the writing of the plots of comics (most of you
might know that I am a writer myself so this kind of input is attractive for me,
specially if the presenter is such a personality). Peter is not a teacher, he made it clear at
the beginning of his talk, so he aimed at the creative side of the comics
writing process: the script writing conventions and problems (he told us really
funny anecdotes), the different types of speech balloons used in comics, etc.
For me, the 90 minutes I spent listening to him were worth the time.
In the second
part, David Fay gave us ideas on how to use comics in class: Ordering panels,
filling in speech balloons with both pre-written dialogue and new dialogue,
adding speech balloons. He used actual student-made comics from around the
world. Patricio continued on this path and had us actually draw a comic starting
from the simple and traditional short story theory that says a story starts
with a problem and ends with the solution of the problem.
The material given to us had really good pointers
for those of us who want to experiment with comics. The theory behind using
them, how the create our own comics (if we are not the artistic type) and
ready-made comics we can use in class. Below, you will find a selection of some
of the web sites you can explore further.
Finally, we were
re-introduced to the new online English learning game Trace Effects –still a
beta version but soon to be officially launched. Learn all about it at: http://reloandes.com/2012/06/24/english-through-states-new-computer-game/
In short, the
event was inspiring and gave us a new area to experiment with. If you do
experiment with comics in your class, we would love to hear about it.
Theory:
Making your
cartoons:
Where to find
comics.
