Comic Strips: lesson activities

Visual aids such as pictures, flashcards, cartoons, comics and etc. areone of the essential tools that are widely used by English teachers. These aids are very effective as they make a lesson fun and interesting, motivate and engage students in the learning process. 

Comic strips which are sequences of images with some text inside speech bubbles can be a great way to practice and improve the students reading, writing, and speaking skills. We have prepared some activities which will help your students not only to improve different skills but also to see the real use of language in authentic materials.   

Discussion 

Prepare a comic strip with the topic which will be interesting for your student to discuss. Show a comic and ask questions: 

Do you read comics? What is your favorite one? What do you enjoy about it? 

Why do people read comics? 

Are books and comics the same? What is the difference? 

Is reading comics useful? 

After that ask the student to look at the comic scene once more and say what types of characters he/she sees in it and what role each of them has in the comic as a whole. 

Jigsaw

Choose a short comic strip, divide it, and mix the pictures. Ask the student to read the dialogue and look at the pictures. Then give him/her a few minutes to put them in the correct order. When the student finishes the task, ask to explain how he/she came to that decision.

Teacher’s key: 

You can also choose comics without dialogue, mix pictures, and ask the student to put them in the correct order and then create dialogues. 

This activity is simple, but it develops reading skills, enlarges  vocabulary and promotes thinking skills as a student uses logic and context to make correct decisions.   

Cloze Activity 

Choose a comic strip, which vocabulary is connected to the topic of the lesson. Remove some words and ask a student to try to guess them. Provide options if necessary.   

Teacher’s key: chilly, warm, enjoy. 

You also can use a comic strip to practice grammatical forms. Choose a comic with dialogues with necessary grammar. Remove the phrases which you want to practice with the student. 

Teacher’s key: at, she isn’t, she doesn’t, you were.  

Filling Bubbles

Choose a comic strip, blank out the speech bubbles and ask the student to write an alternative dialogue for the scene. You can blank out only one character’s speech. In this case, the other character’s responses will guide a student to an answer. Or you can blank out all speech bubbles that promote creative writing. 

Teacher’s key: How’s it going? I’ve been better.  

Alternatively, give the student a prompt what the dialogue is about. For example, the topic of the comic is about Valentine’s day. 

When the student finishes the task, show him/her the original comic strip to compare.

Guess the Ending

Choose a comic strip and remove the final line. Ask the student to write an appropriate ending. Or you can remove the last scene at all and ask him/her to predict what is coming next. This task will help to practice the form «be going to». 

Teacher’s key: 

How do you vary your lessons? Share in the comments!