A student centered reading approach : the use of comics-based reading tasks to enhance comprehension
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Archivos
Fecha
2009
Profesor/a Guía
Facultad/escuela
Idioma
en
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
Universidad Andrés Bello
Nombre de Curso
Licencia CC
Licencia CC
Resumen
Throughout this study we were aiming to prove that comics are effective and
complete devices to be used in English lessons. Students feel motivated by this
type of text which is based in images and literary texts. Because of this, the
severa! discourses present in comics enhance reading comprehension which
sometimes becomes a problem for teachers and students as well. However, in
order to prove this fact, it was necessary to discover which discourses present in
comics help young students with a lack of knowledge about the target language
in the hard task of comprehending the text in a successful way.
To achieve this goal, 17 students from three different schools were asked to
read a 68-page comic book. Afterwards, they were interviewed individually in
order to identify which discourses facilitated comprehension, the discourses that
made comprehension difficult, the discourses that called students' attention, and
finally, to see if they could comprehend the text as a whole.
The results were absolutely positive for our purpose. First of ali, students felt
motivated with this type of text, and that was demonstrated by the good will they
showed after reading the comic in answering the questions. Furthermore, we
were able to prove that the iconographic elements present in this type of text
were crucial for the understanding of the plot, while just few elements impeded
full comprehension. This means that the benefits of using this type of text
regarding levels of comprehension are many. Finally, it was stated that 77% of
the students got a high level of comprehension, a good percentage for students
who had a basic knowledge in the matter. Concluding, comics are effective
devices to be used in English lessons for teenagers with reduced knowledge
about the grammatical or lexical elements of the foreign language.
Notas
(Profesor de Inglés para la Enseñanza Básica y Media y al grado académico de Licenciado en Educación)
Palabras clave
Inglés, Libros de Lectura