UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES& INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES --- --- LUU THI THU HA AN ACTION RESEARCH ON USING THE COMIC BOOK CALVIN AND HOBBES TO MOTIVATE NO
Trang 1UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES& INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES - -
LUU THI THU HA
AN ACTION RESEARCH ON USING THE COMIC BOOK CALVIN AND HOBBES TO MOTIVATE NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT AIC
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL TO LEARN
VOCABULARY
( Nghiên cứu về cách sử dụng truyện tranh Calvin and Hobbes để khuyến khích học
viên không chuyên tại trường Quốc tế Mỹ học từ vựng)
M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE
SUPERVISOR DO TUAN MINH (Ph.D)
Hanoi, 20 th May 2010
Trang 2CONTENT TABLE
A Statement of Problems……… 1
B Purpose of the Study……… 2
C The Significance of the Study……… 2
D Theoretical Frame Work ……… 3
1 How do Calvin and Hobbes comics help students at AIC learn vocabulary? ………
2 What are the students’ attitudes toward learning vocabulary through the comic? ………
3 What are the problems faced by students when learning vocabulary through the comic? ………
Chapter 2: Literature Review 4-10 A Overview ……… 4
B Literature Review ………
1 Aspects of the vocabulary teaching ………
2 “Motivation” in English language teaching………
4
5
Trang 33 The use of comic in teaching vocabulary ………
4 Background about Calvin and Hobbes comic………
6 8 C Conclusion……… 10
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology 11-13 A Design of the Research……… 11
B The Sample……… 11
C Description of Instruments……… 11
D Procedure of the Observations and the Interviews……… 12
E Pilot Testing……… 12
F Research Schedule……… 12
G Methodology……… 13
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion 17-29 A Overview ……… 17
B Result……… 17-27 1 Results of Questionnaire………
1.1 Characters………
1.2 Students’ Ratings of the Comic Appeal………
1.3 Measurement of Students’ Perceived Learning
2 Observations Result……… 27
3 Interview Result……… 28
C Discussion……… 29
Chapter 5: Recommendation 32-34 A Summary of Findings……… 32
B Recommendations……… 33
Trang 41 Teachers should show their enthusiasm for the comic
first………
2 Choose Your Comic Carefully………
3 Be more active and creative………
C Limitation and Suggestion for Further Research……… 34
Chapter 6 References A Book Source………
B Internet Source………
36
Trang 5LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Student Perceptions of Comic Appeal……… 20
Table 2 Text difficulty……… 20
Table 3 Learning activities……… 22
Table 4 Comic’ suitability……… 23
Table 5 Effectiveness of the method……… 24
Table 6 Substitute material for teaching……… 25
Table 7 Engagement into the lesson ……… 26
Table 8 Enhance the relationship……… 26
Trang 6CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
A Statement of Problems
Learners at the American International College (AIC) study English as a foreign language Their ages fluctuate from nineteen to thirty Although they are keen on learning English, they are often off-task and not using their time effectively, or ―being stuck‖ and not knowing what
to do next When teaching I noticed that many of them did not have the strategies or tools they need to proceed in writing or reading While observing the students reading for details, speaking to communicate, or convey a given massage; they ask a lot about words they do not know or words they need to use Therefore, I began to go through my own materials that I had collected in training sessions and look for good strategies for teaching vocabulary, writing process, and classroom management Bearing in my mind, it
is important for people to take responsibility for their learning and productivity in order to
be positive contributors in and outside the classroom What could I do as a teacher to help students develop the skills they need to take responsibility?
Comic Books took my interest in reading, and they also helped me in the subject of English Although some teachers thought that there were a lot of slang words and misspelling, comics were and still are proof read and checked for misspellings, grammar and punctuation Nevertheless, many successful English teachers say that one of the most important aspects of teaching English is making it fun and interesting Finding applicable techniques that students can relate to and have fun doing so is quite a chore The teaching could be so boring and difficult without using interesting materials
Although we usually associate comics with entertainment, in fact they can have many more serious applications Everybody loves comics - as we all know from the fondness they have for the comics - so why not make this attractive medium work for teaching and learning? Comic materials have been found to be highly motivational for improving language Spector (1992) insisted that ―it is vital for reading programs to provide plenty of opportunities for that one of the most difficult aspects of students to experience life‘s comical teaching English is making it fun and nonsensical characters and events.‖
Using comic can be a part of successful teaching that may make students enjoy Comic come
in a variety of forms and clearly demonstrate that a picture is often worth a thousand words Often comic contain written language, but even when they do not they can provide students with numerous possible ties for learning English
Trang 7B Purpose of the Study
The use of comic for teaching is explored more thoroughly One of the more obvious applications is to use comic to teach English and composition The students read the comic, and then discuss the plot, the characters, and the setting They then write the story of what they have done so far or their adjustment to the characters, ect
As a teacher of the American International College, I regularly use comic to teach such topics
as vocabulary, sentence construction, grammar, part of speech as well as speaking and translating Using comic can be a part of successful teaching, making English a real enjoyable
as ―through the lesson students could learn something about skill choosing words, ability to adopt linguistic accent, repertoire of jokes, imagination so on and so forth‖ (Peter Woods, p 85)
C The Significance of the Study
There are many factors that are important to how a student learns These factors include the following; how the teacher teaches the students, the curriculum the teacher uses, the environment of the students, and the home-life of the students However, students are rarely asked what they think about how the type of material impacts their learning In particular, the importance of this study is to find out from the students, if they feel whether they can learn best when they use students books in class for a period of time of 100 minutes or whether they think they can learn better if they have additional material to work on This study may have value to several different groups It can be valuable to the teacher, first and foremost, because if a teacher can decide what kind of material for teaching and learning that goes on in
a class, impacts a students, the teacher may be able to make modifications within the framework of the school schedule, that incorporate these ideas Secondly, it might be interesting in the future to continue this study with major students and see how the type of material they have impacts their learning? Another potential study in the future might be to interview teachers who teach the students books only and those who teach with additional materials, and see what differences exist between these two materials in terms of their effect
to the teacher‘s attitude and their teaching methods
D Theoretical Frame Work
Learning is an extremely complex human process During my five years of teaching I have used many strategies to enhance students learning and to teach new concepts I am still not convinced that I thoroughly understand how students learn Yet, at this point, I do believe
Trang 8students learn through experiences They build on past experiences and previous knowledge
to process new concepts Students need to be actively involved in their education Interested and enthusiastic students are more willing learners, and I believe willing learners become active participants in their own instruction As students become more actively involved in their learning, they develop interest and enthusiasm for the content and/or the process that is their conduit for acquiring new knowledge
During the process of conducting an action research on using Calvin and Hobbes in teaching and learning English, the following questions should be answered simultaneously:
1 How do Calvin and Hobbes comics help students at AIC learn vocabulary?
2 What are the students’ attitudes toward learning vocabulary through the comic?
3 What are the problems faced by students when learning vocabulary through the comic?
Through this study I hoped to find that the Calvin and Hobbes comic would be the material that my students needed to acquire new knowledge, develop new concepts, and express strong understanding in general In particular, I will focus on how this comic influences the usage of vocabulary as well as how their interaction is enabled Also, the study will test the usefulness of using picture-based text in teaching English of all levels Through the attraction and varieties of the comic, I hoped to tap the enthusiasm of my students towards learning English and make them active participants in their own instruction
Trang 9CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
A Overview
Learning is considered a serious matter in helping learners to develop, is still a need to liven the process of understanding different concepts Not only does humor offer a new type of learning, but also is known to provide learners who are learning different topics with the ability to remember different ideas at a more thorough level If you have students who are learning vocabulary, writing or reading, then using vocabulary comic is a simple way to liven the learning process
Even though most consider vocabulary comic as a secondary source or addition to the learning process, many others have found that there are more to comic then meets the eye
B Literature review related to the study
1 Aspects of the vocabulary teaching
2 ―Motivation‖ and ―attitude‖ in English language teaching
3 The use of comic in teaching English
4 What is the origin of Calvin and Hobbes? Its characteristics?
1 Aspects of the vocabulary teaching
Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings As Steven Stahl (2005) puts it,
"Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world." Vocabulary knowledge is not something that can ever be fully mastered; it is something that expands and deepens over the course of a lifetime Instruction in vocabulary involves far more than looking up words in a dictionary and using the words in a sentence Vocabulary is acquired incidentally through indirect exposure to words and intentionally through explicit instruction in specific words and word-learning strategies According to Michael Graves (2000), there are four components of an effective vocabulary program:
wide or extensive independent reading to expand word knowledge
instruction in specific words to enhance comprehension of texts containing those words
instruction in independent word-learning strategies, and
Trang 10 word consciousness and word-play activities to motivate and enhance learning
As a vocabulary teacher, we have to be focused on building the learner's 'start up' or initial vocabulary, developing the learner's understanding of what learning words means, and showing the learner how to learn the words most effectively
With the comic, students can choose to study vocabulary directly through dictionary or indirectly through studying activities The ultimate aim, of course, is to develop the learners
as independent word learners; and hence improving their English proficiency
2 “Motivation” and “attitude” in English language teaching
Motivation is often defined as the psychological quality that leads people to achieve a goal For language learners, mastery of a language may be a goal For others, communicative competence or even basic communication skills could be a goal
In linguistics, sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, a number of language learner
motivation models have been postulated (www.wikipedia.org) Gardner and Lambert (1972) distinguish between attitude and motivation They define ‗attitude‘ as the persistence shown
by the learner in striving for a goal, where as ‗motivation‘ is seen in terms of the overall goal
or orientation However, attitudes are related to motivation by serving as supports of the learner‘s overall orientation Brown (1981) uses the term ‗attitudes‘ to refer to the set of beliefs that the learner holds towards members of the target language group and also towards his own culture
Stern (1983:376-7) distinguishes three types of attitudes in second language learning situation : '(a) Attitudes towards the community and people who speak the L2 ( group specific attitudes), (b)Attitudes towards learning the language concerned; and (c) Attitude towards languages and language learning in general.' They may also be influenced by the particular social milieu within which the language learning process takes place Brown (1981) also makes the distinction between attitude and motivation He identifies three types of
motivation (1) Global motivation that consists of a general orientation to the goal of learning
a L2; (2) situational motivation, which varies according to the situation in which learning takes place and (3) task motivation, which is the motivation for performing particular learning
tasks
Trang 113 The use of comic in teaching vocabulary
Comics as an educational tool have held the attention of teachers and academia for quite some time now Coming from a tool to provide a non-animated entertainment to an age where movies are being based on such hit series, comics are a serious multi-million dollar business now And, all the adulation is well deserved, comics fulfill the inherent ability of humans to visualize something in a better fashion and retain it for a longer period of time Over the next decade, comics began gaining ground in the world of education, slowly finding its way into the course catalogs of American higher learning institutions Using comics, English teacher
Jenn Natalie (June 1, 2009 at 12.50pm) wrote in a teaching forum that ―I‘ve used Calvin & Hobbes in my English courses in France It makes an excellent vocabulary builder and conversation tool Plus it's fun to read! I also translated one of the strips in my German class (it was a group project) - we then performed it as a sketch In brief, C&H also works really well in foreign language courses‖ (http://www.w3c.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd)
Today, educators at all levels are designing new ways of teaching through comics Dozens of schools across the world ordered the curriculum before it was even complete The National Association of Comics Art Educators evangelizes colleges and universities on the importance
of comics-based courses Their website (www.teachingcomics.org) features the syllabi of existing courses, instructional units written by comic writers and professors, and an online community of comic‘s educators
Comics have good reputation for its varieties which are said to be:
Motivating By far, the most frequently mentioned asset of comics as an educational tool is
its ability to motivate students Pictures tell any story more effectively than words (Sones,
1944, p 239)
Visual Comics, being composed of "pictorial and other images" (McCloud, 1993, p 9), is a
fundamentally visual medium Pictures and text shoulder the burden of the story together In the struggle to engage students of all learning dispositions, comics can prove to be a formidable tool
Trang 12Permanent Williams (1995) cites comics' "permanent, visual component" (p 2) as one of
his many reasons for using comic books in his ESL class
Intermediary Comics can serve as an intermediate step to difficult disciplines and concepts
Many language arts educators have used comics in this manner with tremendous success
Comics can also scaffold to disciplines and concepts outside of the language arts In addition
to reading and writing, comics-based projects can develop drawing, computer, and research skills Many of the skills used in comic‘s creation can be applied to film-making, illustration, and even Web design (Sturm, 2002)
Popular While some educators simply ignore this reality, many others struggle to address it
adequately George Chilcoat (2002) suggests that, by incorporating popular culture into the curriculum, teachers can bridge the separation many students feel between their lives in and out of school
Many teachers have discovered that when students associate an image with a word, they are more likely to be able to retrieve that word and remember its meaning To learn new words, students must make connections between the new words and words or concepts they already know Visualizing a new word can help students make even stronger connections The cartoons could be used as models or springboards to get students to make their own word cartoons Moreover, comic language is real English which is said to be friendlier and much easier to remember than those in the book The reason why I choose Calvin and Hobbes as one of the teaching materials in the class is the author of the story are very creative in bring
us the image of great water splashed, living room couches, chairs , lamps, yawns, screams, and all the things that make the comic strip fun to look at I like the thin, little arms and his shoes that look like dinner roll ―Calvin and Hobbes contain hilarious pictures that cannot be duplicated in other mediums In short, it is fun to look at‖ (Charles M Schulz, quote on the book) Together with the creative use of the vocabulary, Calvin and Hobbes comic has become the most favorite teaching materials among teachers all over the world
4 Background about Calvin and Hobbes comic
Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and
Trang 13sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger Syndicated from November 18, 1985 until December 31,
1995, at its height Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide To date, more than 30 million copies of 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed
The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States, in the outskirts of suburbia (West 1989) Calvin and Hobbes themselves appear in most of the strips though several have focused on Calvin's family The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his views on a diverse range
of political and cultural issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other members of society The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif; Calvin sees Hobbes as alive, while other characters see him as a stuffed animal Together, they meet many of the problems, gaining lots of bizarre insights and
misadventures along the way
Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has certainly
made peanut butter out of his life Born on July 5, 1958, Watterson got a job as a political comicist at the Cincinnati Post after he graduated with a degree in Political Science from Kenyon College in 1980 Fired after six months, he worked at
an advertising firm for four years before he came up with Calvin and Hobbes Some of the people who have inspired him are Charles Schulz, Walt Kelly, George Herriman, and Winsor McCay From the Reuben Award in 1986, Watterson has won many awards, his last being the Harvey Award in 1996 Worldwide sales of the book makes Watterson's heartwarming depiction of precocious six-year-old Calvin and his imaginary, pouncing pet tiger Hobbes unquestionably one of the most popular and beloved comics of all time
Main Character List ( Pictures adapted from www.photobucket.com)
Calvin: The star of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is
self-centered and full of mischief, just like most 6 year old kids Highly imaginative and stubborn, he often runs into sticky situations With no siblings or friends, Calvin lives in his own world of fantasy, pushing the limits of his freedom to the extreme When he gets into trouble, he points his finger
at Hobbes
Trang 14Hobbes: Hobbes is actually a stuffed tiger brought to
life by Calvin‘s imagination Sort of a guardian angel,
he annoys Calvin with his philosophical ramblings
and jumps on him when nobody is around
Calvin’s Parents: Like all parents, they want
the best for Calvin Though they are mad at him more often than usual, they love him all the same They have no real names, only being known as Mom and Dad Bill Watterson has said that Calvins‘ dad is a satire of his own
father
Susie Derkins: The girl next door, Susie
is head over heels in love with Calvin
She is smart, kind and generous Her
greatest wish is to be his friend and his
greatest thrill is to make fun of her Bill
Watterson named this character Derkins after his wives own family dog
Miss Wormwood: Poor old Miss Wormwood is
approaching retirement Since she‘s Calvin‘s teacher, she‘s not so sure she will get there She tends to smoke and meditate when she feels stressed
Rosalyn: Calvin is afraid of his babysitter,
Rosalyn She‘s really brave because nobody
else would take the job However, Calvin is
always plotting some sort of problem for her
Trang 15Moe: Moe loves to bully Calvin Sometimes, he will pick Calvin
up and give him a beating He usually ends up trying to steal Calvin‘s allowance However Moe is not the brightest crayon in
the box so Calvin always gets the last laugh
I first met this interesting comic when it appeared at the last page of the Vietnam News Then I go deep insight discovering it in the website as well as in the
Consultant of United State Embassy in Hanoi where I can read books free of charge
C Conclusion
The resurgence of interest in this form of entertainment has spawned a host of texts and magazines seeking to ride the wave on using comics for educational purposes All of these have taken advantage of the inherent characteristics that make this medium as attractive as an educational tool English now becomes more than a mere frill to a true vehicle to disseminate one's ideas With the emergence of such a need, comics can fill this gap because of its multi-dimensional nature, combing both words and pictorial images The study of using Calvin and Hobbes in teaching English has never been conducted in any thesis in Vietnam but it is not the new method among the teachers all over the world So I do hope that doing this research will help Vietnamese teachers know how to use these new materials in their professional
practices
Trang 16CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
A Design of the Research
As the action research in a long lasting process that ―we carry out with our students in order to try out an idea or and innovation, test their hypothesis about learning and to see what would happen‖ as Gina Wisker( p.156-2001) mentioned, I would like to take a naturalistic research approach to examine objects of study through qualitative methods The method is qualitative (words) with multiple methods (triangulated data) During the evaluation study, data was obtained from the participants, i.e students and teachers After collecting the data needed through questionnaires, observation, interviews and samples of student work, the data were calculated and analyzed In this respect, qualitative data is
essential It focuses on real life problem
B The Sample
I conducted my study with students of the American International School which has location
in 68 Nguyen Hong Street, Hanoi Currently I am teaching communicative English for four classes of pre-intermediate level with approximately eighty students Fifty of them were my
research participants
I taught them twice a week for eight weeks, and will stay on to observe their work for
approximately 24 hours during the eight week period My primary focus was on their
progression in using vocabulary which they learnt from the comic materials, although I also observed (and perhaps enquired about) interactions during their other work
C Description of Instruments I used reconstruction activities based on comics to get my
pre-intermediate level English students to interact with texts I designed kinds of activities and exercises with Calvin and Hobbes for use in the class All the materials were downloaded from the website www.photobucket.com which has more than 3000 comics and those I got from the United State of American Consultant in Hanoi
Trang 17D Procedure of the Observations and the Interviews
The student‘s questionnaire has three parts regarding on the following information: background information, enjoyment experiment and helpful motivation A sample questionnaire of the students‘ survey and students‘ reflection on the studying method is shown in the appendix
The instrument used for calculating the result is SPSS which is well-known as the most widely used programs for statistical analysis in social science It is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations and others In addition to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadata
dictionary is stored in the data file) are features of the base software
E Pilot Testing
Once instruments were developed, the study was piloted in November 2009 with students in
the AIC College in Hanoi in order to test and refine instruments for full-scale implementation
Seventeen students participated in the pilot, during which time researchers asked students to identify confusing questions in the survey Researcher also tested out an implementation protocol for directing the students through the study The pilot revealed that most instrument items were not confusing for students, and required only minor wording changes to clarify meaning for a few items on the survey ( say: reorder the story and rearrange the paragraph are the same, so one had to be omitted) Researcher also changed the implementation protocol to include reading aloud the surveys to support student understanding of instrument items
F Research Schedule
The study was conducted in January 2009 to compare students‘ ability of using language before and after the application of the comic
For the researcher:
1 Design the activities and survey questionnaire to gather information from the students
2 Conduct the experimental activities for one and a half hour per lesson, two lessons per week during eight weeks
For the students:
1 Did the activities with the comic in assigned tasks
2 Responds to surveys and interview to gather information about their measurement of language perceived and their opinions about studying with the comic
Trang 18In order to gather additional qualitative data from participants, during the study the
information on observable student behaviors and performance in the class were also gathered
G Methodology
Comics can be used from beginner level to advanced level for a variety of language and discussion activities They are powerful teaching tools and can be used to: tell a complex story in a few images, provide comment and provoke thought on events and issues in the news, give an example of vocabulary related to current trends and fads, provide easily identifiable characters to form the basis for sketches, show culture in action with the ways that people are behaving and are expected to behave While the characters Calvin, the young human, and Hobbes, his imaginary Tiger sidekick, are immature by nature, they use a wide variety of language to which students are seldom exposed By using comic with characters with which the students could identify, I designed the activities as the following (note that all the activities listed were mixed during the conducting period)
Activity 1 Create a written story based on the picture
I removed speech from a comic Cut them up and gave out Then I asked them to order and to imagine what the story or situation is Groups act out their version for the class The purpose
of this activity is for them to tap into their creativity and flexibility when using comics This student learning activity using comics should be fun and relaxed This will help students who have difficulty with creative writing
Activity 2 Aim To practice telling the story of a sequentially-ordered comic that has been
scrambled up and to reinforce the use of time-sequence transition words to maintain the unity
of a paragraph or story (e.g., First, the boy left for school Next…)
I cut up the pictures and got students to reorder the story I made this more difficult and challenging linguistically by giving separate frames to each student in a group and asked them to not show the pictures until they had arrived at an order through describing the pictures Then, I removed the last picture of a comic and asked students to think of an ending Students voted for the best ending
Activity 3 Aim To help student recognize word reductions in written text, identify the corresponding long form, and practice these reductions orally
Trang 19I gave students a comic with a short paragraph for each frame Ask students to reduce each paragraph to one sentence for each frame Compare their efforts to the original With higher levels I have them discussed about techniques of summarizing the message
Activity 4 Fill in the blank
I wanted to allow students to be creative, relaxed, and productive I asked them to write sentence descriptions of what happened in each frame of a comic in which little or no text appeared They were required to describe each aspect of the comic and draw conclusions
Activity 5 Exploit the topic inside
I chose a key situation which would involve language students might need to practice, such as agreeing with opinions, asking permission or saying you are sorry Students need to remember the words with respect to the topic While the comic provides little written text, it does provide the teacher an opportunity to teach an expression for which most students are completely unfamiliar, as well as open the door to finding out why Calvin would have such a sarcastic expression
I asked students to notice words they didn‘t know yet and tried to figure out what they mean
by the context Then they made a dialogue using the words that they had found out
Activity 6 Comics also often lend themselves to functions lessons In this activity, I created
games to develop vocabulary and identify parts of English sentences Students were divided into teams and required to write their vocabulary down within an allotted timeframe A similar activity involved the same teams identifying as many different parts of speech within the comic as possible We used four major categories, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, because those were the categories we had already discussed By using these types of activities, I was able to promote active learning through a medium in which students maintained active interest
Activity 7 Exploit characters
After doing a set of tasks, I asked the students to do the following set of tasks:
Describe one of your favorite characters in the story ( Calvin, Hobbes, Susie, Mrs Woodworm, Calvin‘s parents, ect ): appearance, character Retell one of your most favorite
Trang 20stories Why do you like it? What makes the character special? What are their weaknesses? What do they look like? Then ask each group or pair to choose a favorite character and make
a simple situational dialogue which is typical for them The final stage is to tell an everyday story involving the character
Activity 8 Aim To learn the culture-specific words and phrases, synonyms and antonyms to expand vocabulary
Comics are a great way to learn new vocabulary and slang I asked students to make a special Calvin and Hobbes Vocabulary Notebook Then the students wrote all the vocabulary and slang that they had learnt from C and H If they could not understand a word, they would try
to figure it out from the context of the comic before using the dictionary
Activity 9 Grammar building
The idea was to keep the process simple while developing their creativity As the students wrote with greater ease and success, I began using the comic to teach sentence construction and grammar Using the comic and the descriptions the students had written, I was able to use the students' own writing to teach nouns, verbs, and grammar We also looked at topics such
as subject-verb agreement, reported speech, direct speech (e.g., Hey, move your car!) and reported speech (The man said, "Move your car!"); as well as article and preposition use Then students would practice formation of different verb tenses (i.e., changing the present tense of the action in the strip to the past tense)
Activity 10 Rearrange the paragraph
Still later I was able to provide students with the entire paragraph written incorrectly, and the students had to reorganize the paragraph so that the sentences flowed in an order that was appropriate I tried to improve students' listening by asking them reading aloud what they had done
Activity 11 Vote for the best comic
Trang 21Which comic do you think is the funniest? After you read some of these comics, try to make your own comic! Think of an interesting word or phrase Students exchange papers in their groups, read each other's ideas, and then vote on the best story Comics are particularly useful because they have pictures to accompany what might otherwise be somewhat dense language
(particularly with Calvin)
Activity 12 Aim To practice describing characters using adjectives (e.g., Calvin is a very
creative boy);
I assigned students to work in small groups (preferably three to a group) then I gave them the comic I asked students to take turns discussing the action in the story, paying special note to facial expressions, gestures, setting, etc I then had students down a list of five things they saw in each frame, focusing on new lexicon For homework, I assigned each student to write down his or her own predictions on how the story begins and ends, in three sentences
Activity 13 To introduce paralanguage lexical items without a written correlate (e.g., Uh-oh,
you're in trouble now for lying to Mom; Pssst What's the answer to number five on the test;
Uh, let me see) Paralanguage is perhaps the most used, yet most pervasive, language form,
and many teachers are slow to introduce them because they are not aware of how much these items permeate everyday language Fortunately, comics are rich in paralanguage content
Activity 14 Aim Use comics as writing prompts for students
I allowed students to pick a comic that would be the basis for the characters and plot of a short story I also remind students that when writing a short story the character's reactions to events make the story more interesting and move the story along The story should have a definite beginning, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement
Activity 15 I had students write a short paragraph interpreting the comics I had to instruct
them to use good grammar and spelling I used the written work to evaluate the students' progress in writing and grammar
Trang 22CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A Overview
Questionnaire are designed to find general evaluation of study by responding
participants (in percent)
Used device for the first time
Enjoyment experiment (yes, not, uncertain or no answer)
Found helpful for motivation
Increased individual participation
Helped student- teacher relations
Increased interesting in reading
At first I intended to use both teachers‘ survey and students‘ survey for the research However, when going further, it came out that not every English teacher knew about this famous comic let alone as using it in their academic performance Also no teacher helps me
in using the worksheets I prepared for them so I decided to omit the teacher‘ surveys
Also I found out that some stories do not appropriate to students in terms of children behavior and Vietnamese context So I had to read the stories carefully and choose the appropriate ones before using
with no significant differences by gender and comic format (N=50) Students who liked the
characters provided 30 comments about why they liked the characters The top reasons are as follows:
The majority of students thought that the characters were funny/entertaining (33.3 %)
Some students liked that the characters because they were ―human-like‖ (26.7%)
Students liked that the characters explained information (6.7%)
Students also liked that the characters were lovely (33.3)
The following quotes further illustrate what students liked about the characters:
The characters all had a personality, even Hobbes, a stuffed animal They were funny and acted like humans
Trang 23Hobbes was kind of animal-like and that caught my eye
They explained stuff that you might not know
Calvin and Hobbes are good character, they are so lovely though naughty
Calvin was funny He always try to behave well to get X’mas present from Santa
I thought that they were very funny and interesting But the guy was a little creepy If
I were the woman, I would have flipped out on that fool!
The characters gave me a good image so I could understand what was going on in the story
Respondents who said they did not like the characters (20%) gave 10 comments explaining why they did not like the characters Of those who did not like the characters, their top reasons were:
Students thought the characters were not funny (10%)
Some students did not like children story (50%)
Some thought that studying with comic is not effective (40%)
1.2 Students’ Ratings of the Comic Appeal
To measure the appeal of the comic, students were asked to complete a survey that included scaled-response and open-ended items Due to language difficulties and time constraints, most of the ESL subpopulation completed only the scaled-response items, analyzed separately below
Least Overall
The survey also asked students to explain what they liked least, overall, about the comic A total of 45 comments were given by 50 students (If a response cited more than one reason, it was counted as more than one comment) Forty percent of students‘ comments indicated that
there was nothing that they liked least about the comic
Best Overall
The scaled-response items were designed to gauge students‘ perception of the comic‘s appeal based on a series of statements to which they responded with how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement (scale: 1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3= agree; 4= strongly agree) Overall, students clearly found the comic appealing, as follows:
Trang 24 The majority of students agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed each format (80%)
About three-fourths of the students agreed or strongly agreed that they liked the drawings and that those drawings helped them understand the story
A majority of students also agreed or strongly agreed that the information was interesting (74%)
Most students disagreed or strongly disagreed that the story was too boring (86%)
The aspect of the comic that students liked best was the drawings, pictures and colors
(88% of comments) Students explained that the pictures helped clarify concepts presented in the text and made the comic more interesting Others felt they added a helpful level of detail
Students praised the humor of the comic (30%) Students reported especially liking
specific comics
Students made positive comments about the story, including the setting, the narration, and the dialogue (20 %)
Students said that they liked that the story was easy to read (20%)
Students also liked the length of the comic (10%)
The following quotes further illustrate what students liked best about the comic:
I like[d] the pictures and the story were cute I like the fact that it is attractive though it was not colorful
I liked the pictures, the very good drawings and how they showed the animal interacting like humans
For most of the closed-ended survey items, students‘ positive opinions about the comic did not differ significantly Table 1, below, shows these items:
Trang 25Table 1: Student Perceptions of Comic Appeal
Overall, the story was too long
I liked the drawings
The drawings helped me understand
th story
I'd like to read more stories about the same characters
I strongly disagree
I disagree
I agree
I strongly agree I'm not sure
Text Difficulty
The survey asked students if the words were hard to read, why they were hard to read The
most common concern was that the vocabulary was difficult to understand (30%), followed
by too many words in the text (20%), other responses (26%) (e.g., ―the screen was blurry‖;
―the words were underlined between shots‖; ―too many words in one area‖; ―there wasn‘t enough space between words‖; and ―they were boring‖), and the text being too small (8%) Some words do not appropriate (16%) As shown in Table 2:
Table 2 Text difficulty
Statement
Distribution of Overall Responses
disagree
I disagree I agree I strongly agree I’m not sure
The story was easy
Trang 261.3 Survey Measurement of Students’ Perceived Learning
The survey asked students whether they learned anything new from the comic And the subsequent item asked students to explain what they had learned Students offered a total of
A little over a quarter of students said they learned about the American culture (17.5%)
Some students said they learned Calvin and Hobbes do not suitable for them to study (20%)
Examples of their comments are included below:
Student 1 I think I learn more new words, grammar and most reading skill
Student 9 [I liked] that it was funny, but I still learned a lot I was having fun and learning at the same time
Student 5 With Calvin and Hobbes, I can understand the nature of children and their innocent Moreover, I also get knowledge about the culture and living style of American people
Student 8 Frankly speaking, sometimes I met stories that do not appropriate in terms of behavior Calvin is somewhat too rude to his parents Besides, the author seems try to impose his view on socialism and capitalism which may not be welcome in some way
Learning activities
A wide variety of instructional methods as applied in different areas were reported by the participants The largest number was in the subjects reading and orals and written language The participant generally agrees that with interested, reading and language activities they had greater zest and were entered on with increased interest It was also reported that the physical form of the comic strips which give clues in the pictures to the meaning of the printed text, was and aid in assisting poor readers Following is the instructional methods and devices that