AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014 Pp.443-453
Reading, Speaking and Writing through Creative Resources: Comics in Second Language Teaching
Mª Victoria Guadamillas Gómez
Department of Modern Languages, University of Castilla-La Mancha
Toledo, Spain
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the intercultural and commutative potential of creative and literary materials such as comics, as a tool for English language teaching with a particular focus on cultural aspects and from a communicative approach. Firstly, the paper defines intercultural communicative competence, including different revisions of the term (Chen and Starosta, 1996; Byram, 1997; McAllister & Irvine, 2000). Secondly, it examines comics’ potential and their relationship with the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence from a theoretical point of view. Thirdly, it discusses about comics’ potential in motivating teaching English as a Second Language, giving a well-detailed description of those materials. Apart from defining comics, it also makes reference to their components and characteristics that help to understand their importance in teaching English as a Second Language. Later, it makes some considerations for the methodological use of comics for reading, writing and speaking to correctly develop intercultural and communicative competence in intermediate English learners. Finally, it states some conclusions that show the value of these resources in the classroom.
Key words: Comics, Intercultural Competence, Reading, Speaking, Writing.