Job Discussion Forums

[LongShiKong]

I'm not familiar with this genre and have never been to Japan but given the increasing popularity of anime / manga 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.

I've also posted this topic on...
General Discussions: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=93331
China: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=988091#988091

[G Cthulhu]

IMO, I wouldn't go *near* anime or manga in the classroom in Japan unless you *really* know your stuff and can *guarantee* the students know it too. In seven years I never once met a student that cared one iota about non-Japanese produced manga or graphic novels.

Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble.

[timothypfox]

Funny you asked this question!

I came across this kind of neat fan site for the popular manga and anime Fruits Basket.

The "fans" made a professional audio drama / radio play of the first 12 books of Fruits Basket complete with music, sound effects, and great voice actors.

I just tried it with my 2nd year high school writing class today to give them a break after exams, and had them listen and write as many words for each letter of the alphabet as they can.

Not sure I'm allowed to post a link here, but anyways:
http://furubadrama.weebly.com/episodes.html

Kind of cool with authentic high school idioms and dialogue!

[TokyoLiz]

I've worked in some Tokyo area schools that ban manga other than educational content manga books. Some schools have instituted morning reading (asa dokusho), and keeping manga out of the classroom is a huge issue.

The OP didn't say what kind of audience - elementary, secondary, domestic EFL or returnee - to teach manga to. I've only ever seen English versions of manga used in an extensive reading program for very low level learners (learners who have achieved Eiken 3 kyu). Even they struggle terribly with the casual language used in One Piece or Nana.

The most successful use of American comic books I've seen in junior high EFL was single comic book page dialogues. The ALT who made the dialogues chose pages from Spiderman, whited out all the speech bubbles, wrote in his own dialogue and blanked out selected words that the students could put in, either as a closed exercise (one answer possible), or open (the learner creates an original dialogue within a framework). The learners liked the images and could either demonstrate that they knew the textbook content from which the dialogues were derived, or could create original and sometimes very funny dialogues.

[marley'sghost]

Blanking out the words in the speech ballons is good one.
I'll have my JHS students divide a piece of blank paper in to 4 sections and give them 5-10 minutes to draw a comic (including some English dialouge of course) in the first section. Once time is up they pass the comic back to the student behind them in the row and continue the new comic that gets handed to them. Repeat for sections 3 and 4. I give them some stickers when the are finished and they can vote for the best comic by putting a sticker on it.
In a JHS you always run the risk of ...er...inappropriate content.... of course. Pick your classes carefully, or you will have to exercise your powers of censorship and strip the Best Comic prize from "Love Hotel Mickey Mouse". Which was too bad. There was some pretty skilled pencil work in that one.