The KA2 project “EdComix” aims at developing the technical skills of teachers for them to create inclusive digital comics for practical use tailored to their classrooms’ needs. We will focus on English language lessons for secondary level students.

OBJECTIVES: to create a methodology to make the most of comics as a pedagogical tool to learn English in an inclusive way (SLD, cultural differences) and to provide teachers and students with the tools to create their own comic pages for innovative pedagogy.

NEEDS: fluency in English for employability, need for alternative and inclusive pedagogical tools, need to strengthen teachers’ ICT skills

TARGET GROUPS:

1. European learners in general, secondary school learners in particular
2. Teachers in secondary education, English teachers in particular

In addition to basic skills in reading, maths and science, the ability of citizens to communicate in at least two languages besides their mother tongue has been identified as a key priority in the EU cooperation in Education & Training 2020 framework, as it promotes the intercultural dialogue in Europe, improves employability and facilitates the free movement of workers across the EU. According to the latest European Survey on Language Competencies, in 2012, English was a mandatory language in 14 countries or regions within countries of the EU. It is by far the most taught foreign language in nearly all European countries at all educational levels. But, even though most secondary schools students study English (94% of upper secondary students in the EU studied English in 2016 according to Eurostat), this critical skill on the job market is not mastered by all learners.

On the other hand, visual material such as comics are perceived as easy tools to study languages, but they have limits. While more than 98% of teachers surveyed by the French Association of Publishers stated that they perceived the pedagogical potential of comics, only 30% of them had use them as part of their teaching practice in the previous year, mostly due to a lack of practical guidance.

The educational advantages of comics in the classroom are well identified in theory:

-They allow to turn lessons into stories, which makes concepts less abstract,

-They can be perceived as informal learning resources in complement to text lessons, thus less intimidating to students who have difficulties,

-They provide visual articulation cues which supports the reader to read at their own pace and go back to the critical points more easily,

-When the reader is trained to make a comics strip or page, comics become a means of self-expression and knowledge restitution.

 

In practice, however, it appears that the potential of comics as educative tools is not yet realised in education institutions in general. With the development of increasingly accessible online resources, there has been a growing interest from teachers to develop new ways to present their lessons, including comics strips & comic pages. Several platforms exist today to support this effort, such as Pixton, Storyboard That, or Stripgenerator for example, that relieve teachers from being able to draw to create their own comics for the classroom. However, drawing is only one of the 3 main skills to create comics, with storytelling and storyboarding. Teachers would benefit greatly from being guided to learn these 2 skills in order to make comic pages & strips that are really useful to convey their messages to their students, in addition to practical guidance on how to link comics resources with the lessons and school programme as a whole.

 

Expected project outcomes:

-1 Pedagogical guide in 5 languages (digital) “Using comics in education“ aiming at explaining how to use comics in school education and especially in English, including good practices, practical examples and integrating methods and advices on the inclusion of learners with SLD

-1 Digital comics creation guide in 5 languages (in digital format), including practical examples and advice for teachers as well as tools for all aspects of creation and road maps for content creation and integrating methods and advices on the creation of inclusive comics for the learners with SLD

– 45 English lessons with 90 comics strip and pages for levels A2 and B1 to show practically to the teachers how to integrate the method in their class and in addition to give them directly applicable content for their classroom

-1 online training course module worth 1 ECVET point followed by 40 people by the end of the project

-A method on how to organise and animate comics creation workshops with students with examples of pages created by students

-1 implementation guide gathering participants’ experience in using the lesson + comics packages and on using comics created by students as a knowledge restitution tool

 

Project website: www.edcomix.eu

Facebook page: @EdComix

Project duration: 1st November 2019 until 31^st  October 2021 (24 months)

Project number: 2019-1-FR01-KA201-062855

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.