ELL Comic Conversations Tips

Why Use ELL Comic Conversations

The ELL Comic Conversations are designed to engage and motivate beginning to intermediate language learners as they develop social and academic listening and speaking skills.

These resources demonstrate a variety of basic and necessary language functions that students can apply in their own lives at school and at home.

The lesson plan and student resources use role-play as a strategy to build students' confidence in speaking in the safety of the classroom.

How to Use ELL Comic Conversations

Preparation

• Select a comic based on language proficiency level, content area, or language function.
• Determine which grade level of the comic is appropriate for your students.
• Review the Lesson Plan and comic-specific resources.

Instruction

• Use the Lesson Plan to introduce the language function and to provide guided instruction to students as they read the comic, learn new vocabulary, and practice a conversation.
• Project and distribute the Vocabulary Chart to support students with acquiring key vocabulary related to the language function and topic of the comic.
• Use the wordless comic to preview the story and to practice using the pictures to predict what the story might be about.

Practice and Assessment

• Have students use the accompanying worksheet to practice the conversation and key vocabulary.
• Guide students to use the Student Checklist to help them understand how to perform a role-play well and to evaluate themselves.
• Use the Role-Play Cards and the Role-Play Script to support students in performing the role play.
• Use the Performance Rubric to assess students as they present a role-play to the class.

Comic Resources

• Lesson Plan
• Wordless Comic
• Comic
• Role-Play Cards
• Role-Play Script
• Vocabulary Chart
• Worksheet
• Performance Rubric
• Student Checklist
• Blank Comic

Extensions for Comics

Blank Comic

• Have students create their own version of a comic centered around a language function as an in-class or at-home creative assignment.
• Ask students to work as a group to create a comic together. Assign roles such as writer, editor, and illustrator.

Role-Play Cards

• Use the Role-Play Cards as a card game. Have student pairs draw a card each and role-play a conversation between the two characters. As an option, create additional cards using student drawings or magazine cut outs.
• Have students pick their favorite character and write a character profile. Encourage them to include information such as likes and dislikes, personality traits, and family background.

Wordless Comic

• Have students write their own dialogue or narration for each panel.
• Ask students to improvise the scenes from the comic as they are shown panel by panel.

Vocabulary Chart

• Invite students to use the information on the Vocabulary Chart to create their own conversation.
• Cut out words to create sentence scrambles for in-class student practice.