Citation of "Effects of Comic Strips on L2 Learners' Reading Comprehension"

Liu, J. (2004). Effects of Comic Strips on L2 Learners' Reading Comprehension. TESOL Quarterly, 38(2), 225-243.

Article Summary:

This study explores how comics as visual support for ESL texts increase reading comprehension. It reveals that the low-level students receiving the high-level text with the comic strip scored significantly higher than low-level students receiving the high-level text only in the content immediate recall. It also shows that providing a comic strip with the high-level text did not enhance the high-level students' recall.

The study reported in the article involves two groups of students, low intermediate-level proficiency group and high intermediate-level proficiency group. The texts within which comics are shown are also divided into low-level texts and high-level text. Students in each group were presented with either a high-level text or a low-level text, and the text was presented with or without a comic strip.

Article Assessment:

Liu did a very good job designing the study. It involves two groups of students, low intermediate-level proficiency group and high intermediate-level proficiency group. The texts are divided into low-level and high-level too. It proves to be very effective. This article is worth reading if the researcher is interested in analyzing comic book and cognitive theories such as mental model, noticing, and the repetition.

Key Article Quotations:

On five major functions of visuals in reading

“• Representation: Visuals repeat the text’s content or substantially overlap with the text.

• Organization: Visuals enhance the text’s coherence.

• Interpretation: Visuals provide the reader with more concrete information.

• Transformation: Visuals target critical information in the text and recode it in a more memorable form.

• Decoration: Visuals are used for their aesthetic properties or to spark readers’ interest in the text” (p. 226) (see also, e.g., Levie & Lentz, 1982; Levin, Anglin, & Carney, 1987).

On appropriate visual materials

“Teachers should also consider which types of visuals work better for learners at different proficiency levels” (p. 239).

Citation of "The text-image interaction and second language learning" 

Astorga, M. C. (1999). The text-image interaction and second language learning. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 22(3), 212-74.  

Article Summary:

This study analyzes the relationship between text and image in two picture books: The Ugly Duckling and Mrs Wobble the Waitress. The analysis enables an examination of the assumption underlying the study that the more fully the illustrations depict each significant stage in the text, the major participants, the processes in which they engage, and the circumstances surrounding their activities, the more support second language learners will have in drawing the connections between the visual and the verbal text, thus enhancing their comprehension and recall.

Article Assessment:

Astorga did a good job providing a systematic picture of the relationship between images and texts in the picture books. More specifically, this study is valuable in that it explores how and to what extent the visual images representing the meanings communicated by the verbal text affects English as a second language learners.

Key Article Quotations:

On practical use of visual and text analysis

“The second language learners can be made aware of the generic structure of a story by comparing how each stage is realised both visually and verbally. For example, they may be asked to analyse the picture that goes with the orientation in order to determine whether written text and visual text convey the same meanings about the characters and the setting; or they may be asked to examine the pictures that illustrate the action stages in order to compare the events that the visual images depict with those that are verbally recounted” (p. 217).

Annotated by Yi Yu