Figures of substitution used in the language of advertising in some vietnamese and english advertisements

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 SC

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

CONTENT TABLE

A Statement of Problems……… B

Purpose of the Study………

1 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 ……… 4

2 “Motivation” in English language teaching……… 5

3 The use of comic in teaching vocabulary ……… 6

4 Background about Calvin and Hobbes comic……… 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

1 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……… 36

B Internet Source………

LIST 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

CHAPTER 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, theyare often off-task and not using their time effectively, or ―being stuck‖ and not knowingwhat to do next When teaching I noticed that many of them did not have the strategies ortools they need to proceed in writing or reading While observing the students reading fordetails, 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 materialsthat 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 helpstudents 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, comicswere 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 ofteaching English is making it fun and interesting Finding applicable techniques that studentscan relate to and have fun doing so is quite a chore The teaching could be so boring anddifficult without using interesting materials

Although we usually associate comics with entertainment, in fact they can have many moreserious applications Everybody loves comics - as we all know from the fondness they havefor 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 forthat 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 studentswith numerous possible ties for learning English

B Purpose of the Study

The use of comic for teaching is explored more thoroughly One of the more obviousapplications 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 whatthey 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 andtranslating 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 toadopt 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 thefollowing; how the teacher teaches the students, the curriculum the teacher uses, theenvironment of the students, and the home-life of the students However, students are rarelyasked what they think about how the type of material impacts their learning In particular, theimportance of this study is to find out from the students, if they feel whether they can learnbest when they use students books in class for a period of time of 100 minutes or whetherthey think they can learn better if they have additional material to work on This study mayhave 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 theframework of the school schedule, that incorporate these ideas Secondly, it might beinteresting in the future to continue this study with major students and see how the type ofmaterial they have impacts their learning? Another potential study in the future might be tointerview teachers who teach the students books only and those who teach with additionalmaterials, 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 haveused many strategies to enhance students learning and to teach new concepts I am still notconvinced that I thoroughly understand how students learn Yet, at this point, I do believe

students learn through experiences They build on past experiences and previous knowledge

to process new concepts Students need to be actively involved in their education Interestedand enthusiastic students are more willing learners, and I believe willing learners becomeactive participants in their own instruction As students become more actively involved intheir learning, they develop interest and enthusiasm for the content and/or the process that istheir conduit for acquiring new knowledge

During the process of conducting an action research on using Calvin and Hobbes in teachingand 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 materialthat my students needed to acquire new knowledge, develop new concepts, and expressstrong understanding in general In particular, I will focus on how this comic influences theusage of vocabulary as well as how their interaction is enabled Also, the study will test theusefulness of using picture-based text in teaching English of all levels Through the attractionand varieties of the comic, I hoped to tap the enthusiasm of my students towards learningEnglish and make them active participants in their own instruction

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

A Overview

Learning is considered a serious matter in helping learners to develop, is still a need to liventhe process of understanding different concepts Not only does humor offer a new type oflearning, but also is known to provide learners who are learning different topics with theability to remember different ideas at a more thorough level If you have students who arelearning vocabulary, writing or reading, then using vocabulary comic is a simple way to liventhe learning process

Even though most consider vocabulary comic as a secondary source or addition to thelearning 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 somethingthat can ever be fully mastered; it is something that expands and deepens over the course of alifetime Instruction in vocabulary involves far more than looking up words in a dictionaryand using the words in a sentence Vocabulary is acquired incidentally through indirectexposure to words and intentionally through explicit instruction in specific words and word-learning strategies According to Michael Graves (2000), there are four components of aneffective 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

 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 initialvocabulary, developing the learner's understanding of what learning words means, andshowing the learner how to learn the words most effectively

With the comic, students can choose to study vocabulary directly through dictionary orindirectly 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, communicativecompetence or even basic communication skills could be a goal In linguistics,sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, a number of language learner motivationmodels have been postulated (www.wikipedia.org) Gardner and Lambert (1972) distinguishbetween attitude and motivation They define ‗attitude‘ as the persistence shown by thelearner in striving for a goal, where as ‗motivation‘ is seen in terms of the overall goal ororientation However, attitudes are related to motivation by serving as supports of thelearner‘s overall orientation Brown (1981) uses the term ‗attitudes‘ to refer to the set ofbeliefs that the learner holds towards members of the target language group and also towardshis 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 specificattitudes), (b)Attitudes towards learning the language concerned; and (c) Attitude towardslanguages and language learning in general.' They may also be influenced by the particularsocial milieu within which the language learning process takes place Brown (1981) alsomakes 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.

3 The use of comic in teaching vocabulary

Comics as an educational tool have held the attention of teachers and academia for quitesome time now Coming from a tool to provide a non-animated entertainment to an age wheremovies are being based on such hit series, comics are a serious multi-million dollar businessnow And, all the adulation is well deserved, comics fulfill the inherent ability of humans tovisualize something in a better fashion and retain it for a longer period of time Over the nextdecade, comics began gaining ground in the world of education, slowly finding its way intothe 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‘veused Calvin &Hobbes in my English courses in France It makes an excellent vocabulary builder andconversation 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 reallywell 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 ofschools across the world ordered the curriculum before it was even complete The NationalAssociation of Comics Art Educators evangelizes colleges and universities on the importance

of comics-based courses Their website (www.teachingcomics.org) features the syllabi ofexisting courses, instructional units written by comic writers and professors, and an onlinecommunity 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 Inthe struggle to engage students of all learning dispositions, comics can prove to be aformidable tool

Permanent 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 researchskills 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 thecurriculum, teachers can bridge the separation many students feel between their lives in andout of school

Many teachers have discovered that when students associate an image with a word, they aremore 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 alreadyknow Visualizing a new word can help students make even stronger connections Thecartoons could be used as models or springboards to get students to make their own wordcartoons Moreover, comic language is real English which is said to be friendlier and mucheasier to remember than those in the book The reason why I choose Calvin and Hobbes asone 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 hisshoes that look like dinner roll ―Calvin and Hobbes contain hilarious pictures that cannot beduplicated in other mediums In short, it is fun to look at‖ (Charles M Schulz, quote on thebook) Together with the creative use of the vocabulary, Calvin and Hobbes comic hasbecome 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 thehumorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and

sardonic—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 Todate, 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 theoutskirts of suburbia (West 1989) Calvin and Hobbes themselves appear inmost of the strips though several have focused on Calvin's family The broadthemes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship withHobbes, his misadventures, his views on a diverse range of political andcultural issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents,classmates, educators, and other members of society The dual nature ofHobbes is also a recurring motif; Calvin sees Hobbes as alive, while othercharacters see him as a stuffed animal Together, they meet many of theproblems, 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 CincinnatiPost after he graduated with a degree in Political Science fromKenyon 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 theHarvey 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 stickysituations With no siblings or friends, Calvin lives in hisown world of fantasy, pushing the limits of his freedom tothe extreme When he gets into trouble, he points his finger

at Hobbes

Hobbes: 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 athim more often than usual, they love him allthe same They have no real names, only beingknown as Mom and Dad Bill Watterson hassaid that Calvins‘ dad is a satire of his ownfather

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 hiswives 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 tosmoke 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

Moe: Moe loves to bully Calvin Sometimes, he will pick Calvin

up and give him a beating He usually ends up trying to stealCalvin‘s allowance However Moe is not the brightest crayon inthe box so Calvin always gets the last laugh

I first met this interesting comic when it appeared at the last page ofthe Vietnam News Then I go deep insight discovering it in the website as well as in theConsultant 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 andmagazines seeking to ride the wave on using comics for educational purposes All of thesehave taken advantage of the inherent characteristics that make this medium as attractive as aneducational tool English now becomes more than a mere frill to a true vehicle to disseminateone'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 andHobbes in teaching English has never been conducted in any thesis in Vietnam but it is notthe new method among the teachers all over the world So I do hope that doing this researchwill help Vietnamese teachers know how to use these new materials in their professionalpractices

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

A Design of the Research

As the action research in a long lasting process that ―wecarry out with our students in order to try out an idea orand innovation, test their hypothesis about learning and tosee what would happen‖ as Gina Wisker( p.156-2001)mentioned, I would like to take a naturalistic researchapproach to examine objects of study through qualitativemethods The method is qualitative (words) with multiplemethods (triangulated data) During the evaluation study,data was obtained from the participants, i.e students andteachers After collecting the data needed throughquestionnaires, observation, interviews and samples ofstudent work, the data were calculated and analyzed In this respect, qualitative data isessential 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 fourclasses of pre-intermediate level with approximately eighty students Fifty of them were myresearch participants

I taught them twice a week for eight weeks, and will stay on to observe their work forapproximately 24 hours during the eight week period My primary focus was on theirprogression in using vocabulary which they learnt from the comic materials, although I alsoobserved (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 activitiesand exercises with Calvin and Hobbes for use in the class All the materials were downloadedfrom the website www.photobucket.com which has more than 3000 comics and those I gotfrom the United State of American Consultant in Hanoi

D 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 samplequestionnaire of the students‘ survey and students‘ reflection on the studying method isshown in the appendix

The instrument used for calculating the result is SPSS which is well-known as the mostwidely used programs for statistical analysis in social science It is used by marketresearchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers,marketing organizations and others In addition to statistical analysis, data management (caseselection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadatadictionary 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 toidentify confusing questions in the survey Researcher also tested out an implementationprotocol for directing the students through the study The pilot revealed that most instrumentitems were not confusing for students, and required only minor wording changes to clarifymeaning for a few items on the survey ( say: reorder the story and rearrange the paragraph arethe same, so one had to be omitted) Researcher also changed the implementation protocol toinclude 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

In order to gather additional qualitative data from participants, during the study theinformation 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 anddiscussion activities They are powerful teaching tools and can be used to: tell a complexstory in a few images, provide comment and provoke thought on events and issues in thenews, give an example of vocabulary related to current trends and fads, provide easilyidentifiable characters to form the basis for sketches, show culture in action with the waysthat people are behaving and are expected to behave While the characters Calvin, the younghuman, and Hobbes, his imaginary Tiger sidekick, are immature by nature, they use a widevariety of language to which students are seldom exposed By using comic with characterswith which the students could identify, I designed the activities as the following (note that allthe 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 toimagine 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 Thisstudent learning activity using comics should be fun and relaxed This will help students whohave 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 andchallenging linguistically by giving separate frames to each student in a group and askedthem to not show the pictures until they had arrived at an order through describing thepictures 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

I gave students a comic with a short paragraph for each frame Ask students to reduce eachparagraph to one sentence for each frame Compare their efforts to the original With higherlevels 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 writesentence descriptions of what happened in each frame of a comic in which little or no textappeared 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 toremember the words with respect to the topic While the comic provides little written text, itdoes provide the teacher an opportunity to teach an expression for which most students arecompletely unfamiliar, as well as open the door to finding out why Calvin would have such asarcastic 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 dividedinto teams and required to write their vocabulary down within an allotted timeframe Asimilar activity involved the same teams identifying as many different parts of speech withinthe 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 ofactivities, I was able to promote active learning through a medium in which studentsmaintained 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

stories 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 everydaystory 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 specialCalvin and Hobbes Vocabulary Notebook Then the students wrote all the vocabulary andslang 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 studentswrote with greater ease and success, I began using the comic to teach sentence constructionand grammar Using the comic and the descriptions the students had written, I was able to usethe 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!) andreported 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 presenttense 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 thestudents had to reorganize the paragraph so that the sentences flowed in an order that wasappropriate I tried to improve students' listening by asking them reading aloud what they haddone

Activity 11 Vote for the best comic

Which comic do you think is the funniest? After you read some of these comics, try to makeyour own comic! Think of an interesting word or phrase Students exchange papers in theirgroups, read each other's ideas, and then vote on the best story Comics are particularly usefulbecause 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 thecomic I asked students to take turns discussing the action in the story, paying special note tofacial expressions, gestures, setting, etc I then had students down a list of five things theysaw in each frame, focusing on new lexicon For homework, I assigned each student to writedown 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 theseitems 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 ashort story I also remind students that when writing a short story the character's reactions toevents make the story more interesting and move the story along The story should have adefinite 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

CHAPTER 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 thisfamous 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 behaviorand Vietnamese context So I had to read the stories carefully and choose the appropriate onesbefore using

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 asfollows:

 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.

Hobbes 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 explainingwhy they did not like the characters Of those who did not like the characters, their topreasons 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 includedscaled-response and open-ended items Due to language difficulties and time constraints,most of the ESL subpopulation completed only the scaled-response items, analyzedseparately below

Least Overall

The survey also asked students to explain what they liked least, overall, about the comic Atotal of 45 comments were given by 50 students (If a response cited more than one reason, itwas 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 appealbased on a series of statements to which they responded with how much they agreed ordisagreed with the statement (scale: 1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3= agree; 4= stronglyagree) Overall, students clearly found the comic appealing, as follows:

 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 inthe 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:

Table 1: Student Perceptions of Comic Appeal

40%

30%

36% 30%

this one understand the same

th story characters

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‘tenough 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

Distribution of Overall Responses

1.3 Survey Measurement of Students’ Perceived Learning

The survey asked students whether they learned anything new from the comic And thesubsequent 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 theparticipants 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 hadgreater zest and were entered on with increased interest It was also reported that the physicalform 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

were developed in connection with the comic for reading activities: reading for story andinterpretation; identification of new words; finding meaning from context and dictionary;carrying the thread of the story from installment to installment; anticipating the development

of continued stories; identifying allusions to characters, supplementary reading related to thecomic strips; and finally the use of the selected strips for diagnostic work in reading relating

to comprehension, word identification, interpretation and phonics

Selected comic strips were used to provide material to stimulate speaking and writing Theadvantage reported was that the class group had shared experience when they observed thesame strips with stimulated oral or written language The language activities mentioned wereoral re telling dialogue for pantomime strips, rewrite of balloons expressed in ungrammatical

or provincial language, writing scenarios for favorite comics and dramatization of selectedstories

When asked about the learning activities with regard to the comic they liked most, all of thestudents choose multitude activities In which most of them liked translating the stories(70%), creating a story based on the picture ( 30%) , noticing the words they didn‘t know yetand try to figure out what they mean by the context( 60%), creating the same comic and votefor the best one (34%) and reordering the story ( 50%) Learning activities they liked leastwere reflecting on interactive ( satire, irony, and cynicism ect ) techniques as used by writers(0%), reducing each paragraph to one sentence for each frame(0%), summarizing all thecomics that you have read so far, then writing a short passage about the American value (0%),exploiting characters ( 4%) and grammar building (10%) Such advanced activities might bemore difficult for them to follow In details, we had Table 3(from highest to lowest):

Table 3 Learning activities

Notice the words you didn‘t know yet and try to figure out 60%

what they mean by the context

Create the same comic and vote for the best one 34%

Create a written story based on the picture 30%