Job Discussion Forums

[LongShiKong]

I'm not familiar with this genre but given the increasing popularity of anime / manga in Asia and elsewhere, I'm wondering if anyone's tried using it in a kids/teens classroom? Are there existing TEFL-related resources or coursebooks using manga-like characters or graphic novels (I'm thinking of Gene Yang's highly acclaimed graphic novel ABC (American-born Chinese) ?

A quick search on these forums resulted in a number of hits but almost all from Korea and none pertaining to classroom use--just personal interest which strikes me as strange. Is it because the English dubs/translations are substandard or the content, as with Tintin, doesn't easily lend itself to effective language practice?

Any recommendations, ideas for primary, middle school classes would be welcome.

PS: I've also posted this on:
General Discussions: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=93331
Japan: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=988090#988090

[xiguagua]

Death Note and Detective Conan are both pretty popular i've found. A lot of students know it and when I was teaching high school they loved Death Note. Kinda a morbid story but ya know, whatever works. I also see rurouni kenshin pop up every so often. I think Kenshin would be harder to do in the classroom, but Detective Conan and Death Note you could do some interesting things with.

[DosEquisX]

Many of my male students liked Bleach. Multiple female students enjoyed watching One Piece

[macroidtoe]

This is something I do for "fun time" in English Corner rather than in class (where I'd do something a little more structured), but one way you can use manga/comics is to blank out the dialogue and let the students fill it in themselves. The results are often entertaining for both the students and the teacher:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=296