The language teacher’s sidekick: harnessing comics to motivate learners

Comics have historically been looked down upon, particularly as instruments of learning and instruction. The general emphasis, even in the context of second and foreign language (L2) instruction, is usually placed upon more traditional novels and other works of fiction lacking in any visual aspect; where pictures are used, they are usually limited to lists of vocabulary words or worksheets. Despite this, research shows that comics and visual novels are uniquely suited for use in the language classroom due to their positive correlation with intrinsic reader motivation. Incorporating them effectively into the language classroom causes students to be more engaged, which increases their motivation and leads to better overall results. This paper provides a brief analysis of the benefits using comics can bring and presents several use cases for review.