The Effects of Comics on Second Language Vocabulary Development

Abstract

In the last two decades, L2 researchers have shown interest in employing visual aids to promote L2 vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension (Al-Seghayer, 2001; Basal, Aytan, & Demir, 2016; Kim & Gilman, 2008; Liu, 2004). However, a relatively small number of studies investigated the impact of visual aids on the development of L2 academic vocabulary within a classroom context. To contribute to this line of research, the current study explored the extent to which the use of comics in an EFL classroom affects L2 academic vocabulary acquisition. Following a pretest-posttest design, 98 middle schoolers studying at a private high school in the United Arab Emirates were assigned to comic, script, and control groups. As part of the intervention, eight target words were taught incidentally through task-based instruction which focused on character analysis through a series of narratives. The comic group carried out the tasks using comics, the script group using the scripted version of the same conversations used in comics, while the control group did not receive any form of instruction. Participants’ receptive vocabulary development was measured using a form recognition test, and their productive vocabulary development was measured using a meaning recall test. Inferential statistics results obtained through linear mixed-effects models fitted using the lme4 package in R showed that both the comic and the script groups had statistically significant gains on the posttest and the delayed posttest, whereas the control group did not show any gains. The results also showed that the comic group achieved higher recall and retention scores on the posttest and the delayed posttest compared to the script group. Findings are discussed in relation to using visual aids to promote L2 vocabulary acquisition.