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English Vocabulary Learning through Comic Strips

Kagawa National College of Technology, Takuma Campus

<Introduction>
B: Hey, don't we have a test in Mr.Mori's class tomorrow?
A: Yeah, But I don't feel like studying, ...you?
B: Me, neither. It would be so easy, if we had I/O ports in the back of our heads like in “The Matrix”.
A: Yeah, that would be awesome! We could just upload the words into our brains!
B: But, that kind of technology isn't possible, yet….
A: Man, I give up! This is too boring! No more English! I'm gonna read some comic books instead.
B: Yeah, me too. Comics are way better.
A: Yeah! ….. Hey, wait.... why don't we make our own comic books in English to study with?
B: Good idea! ... Heck, we could make some money if we sold them on the internet.
A: Yeah! We'd be…millionaires.

Today, we will talk about “English Vocabulary Learning through Comic Strips”. I think everyone here has spent many hours studying English. And most of that study time was filled with boring vocabulary drills and memorization. You all are highly motivated people, so you were able to study diligently and probably managed to memorize tens of thousands of words.

But what about students like the two in our story? It's not an easy task for everyone, and more difficult for some than others. Most Kosen students hate studying English, especially, memorizing English vocabulary words. Most will lose motivation the instant they open to the first page of a vocabulary textbook like the COCET 2600.

On the other hand, almost all Kosen students like comic books! What if we could make comics that explain the meanings and origins of English words. We thought that vocabulary learning through comic books could increase student motivation. So we made a few and tested to see how well they might work in the classroom. Today, we will take you through our experiences and the results of their actual use in class.

<Explanation about software>
Making comic books may seem difficult. But in fact, it is not as difficult as it seems. We used a software package called “ComiPo!!”. With this software, all you need to do is to arrange the page layouts and add images and text to it. Although you can use your own illustrations, Illustration skills are not required. The software handles a lot like Microsoft Power Point. Just drag and drop. Furthermore, you can edit built-in stock character images.

You can change hairstyles and clothes. You can choose poses and expressions from the stock images. Also, it is possible to import images from other software. These functions make it easy for beginners to get started designing their own comics in no time at all!

Now, let's go into the contents of the comics. As for the story, a lazy male student, Yuta is taught by two smart female students. Readers of the comics learn about technical terms about computer science along with Yuta. There is a reason why we chose this theme. Our English teacher stated that most English teachers are professionals of teaching English, but not teaching computer science. So, sometimes it's hard for them to teach about the English words that are used in computer science. Although we chose computer science for our theme, if you arrange the story differently, you could also make your own comics for TOEIC preparation or just everyday English.

<Instruction about experiment>
We conducted an experiment with two classes to compare the effects of the comic strips study aids. To the control group, Class A, we handed out ordinary vocabulary study lists. To the test group, Class B, we handed out the comic strips that we prepared. The English vocabulary words presented in both the lists and the comics were identical. We told the students that they had one week to learn the words, and that they would have a test the next week to compare the scores. Students were also told that the test scores would not affect their grades.

<Report of result>
Here are the results of the test scores displayed as a graph. You can see that the test scores of Class B, the class that studied from the comic books is higher than Class A, the class that studied from plain vocabulary lists. However, it is not significantly different. On the lighter side of things, we did get positive opinions from the questionnaires. Let's look at this graph. This is a graphic comparison of student learning preference through comics as opposed to rote memorization. The affirmative opinion to learning through comic books was 62 percent. 60 percent of the students felt motivated. 54 percent of students felt that memorizing words through comics was easier than rote memorization. Based upon these results, it can be said that learning vocabulary through comic strips may promote student motivation.

However, the opinion that the comics were not interesting was 46 percent. Some students stated, that the story was terrible or that the artwork was bad. But then again, our main purpose was to help students memorize the vocabulary words.

The disadvantage of using comics for vocabulary learning is that it is difficult to write phonetic symbols. If you put phonetic symbols in the comics, it creates an obstacle to the flow of the story. However, students cannot know the pronunciation without the symbols. That is a problem that has to be improved upon.

<Conclusion>
When you use a software package like “ComiPo!!” just about anyone can make comics. It requires only a PC and a little money for the software. It can be said that vocabulary learning through comics doesn't necessarily speed up memorization. But it does seem to be effective in raising the students' motivation, which does affect learning outcomes. We challenge you to try making educational comics about your engineering fields! Make learning about different fields of engineering a bit more interesting for your students. They could be shared and distributed to other teachers for use at other Kosens and could become a powerful tool teachers could use to further motivate and educate Kosen students.