Comics in the Foreign Language Classroom: Pedagogical Perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT Popular comics have generally been relegated to the status of ‘diversionary’ activities in the foreign language classroom, a medium which teachers have turned to only in an effort to rekindle waning enthusiasm in their students. Recently, however, scholars in France have been devoting considerable time to develop innovative uses of comics in the foreign language classroom. Most of the methodologies so far devised center on pedagogical applications of comics to the teaching of language, culture, and literature. In an effort to encourage North American scholars and teachers to exploit the pedagogical potentials of comics, this essay has three aims: (1) to propose a theoretical framework in which comics may be studied in the foreign language classroom; (2) to review the major areas in which scholars in France have formulated a pedagogy of comics; and (3) to provide a short bibliography of the most recent studies on the subject.