LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:10 October 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

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The Impact of Comic Stories on L2 Speaking

Mr. V. S. Civa Prasaanth
Dr. S. Shanmugasundaram and
Dr. P. Thiyagararajan

Abstract

This paper attempts to highlight the use value of comic stories in L2 speaking. For this purpose, it makes use of interesting comic stories chosen from the point of view of ESL learners. Comic stories such as Kalia the Crow, Shikari Shambu, Tantri the Mantri, Champak, Tenali Raman, and Akbar & Birbal are used. These stories include spoken utterances and visual clues that are essential for comprehension and reproduction. The learners in the study are from Rajah Serfoji Government College, Thanjavur. Making use of these stories, the target group of students are given immersion practice in L2 speaking for 14 sessions. They are given a speaking task in which they are supposed to go through the comic stories and narrate them in their own language. The experiment, based on this structured speaking task proves to be effective in terms of
i. their ability to expand or generate spoken utterances.
ii. narration based on the prompt (comic stories).
iii. confidence level
Further, the evaluation of the scores for the speaking performance of the learners shows that there has been a significant improvement in terms of speaking in the second language.

Keywords:L2 Speaking, evaluation, utterances, visual clues, immersion practice, use value, ESL learners

Introduction

Speaking in the second language has been given great attention for about five decades. Though there have been many approaches, methods, strategies and experiments that continue to contribute to the development of speaking skill, even today there are experiments being attempted to enhance the same skill. Because of the subtle complexity and inherent nature of acquisition, it presents a great challenge to the learners.

Some of the processing skills involved in speaking are very complex in nature. For instance, the generation of spoken utterances by the ESL learner comes after a linear thought process - conceptualization, formulation, articulation and self-monitoring (as referred to by Levelt, W. J. M. 1989). This paper attempts to give an immersion practice with the help of popular comic stories such as Kalia the Crow, Shikari Shambu, Tantri the Mantri, Champak, Tenali Raman, and Akbar & Birbal. Each comic story has a word limit of 300 to 500. The very reason why comic stories are chosen is that they are in the spoken format (unlike complete written sentences) which is essential for L2 speaking practice as well as comprehension.

Unlike the written language, spoken language / oral communication depends on spoken units and utterances (at the time of speaking). In other words, it is an online, or real time, process. People take no time to respond or reply in the middle of a conversation. Moreover, there is a lot of difference between spoken and written language. As said in Key Differences, 2023, “Oral communication is the process of conveying or receiving messages with the use of spoken words… This mode is highly used across the world because of rapid transmission of information and prompt reply. Written communication, on the other hand, is a formal means of communication, wherein the message is carefully drafted and formulated in written form. It is kept as a source of reference or legal record.”

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Mr. V. S. Civa Prasaanth
Ph.D. Research Scholar (Part-Time),
Department of English,
Thanthai Periyar Government Arts & Science College (Autonomous)
Affiliated to Bharathidasan University
Tiruchirappalli- 620 023, Tamil Nadu
civaprasaanth@gmail.com

Dr. S. Shanmugasundaram
Associate Professor,
P.G & Research Department of English,
Thanthai Periyar Government Arts & Science College (Autonomous)
Affiliated to Bharathidasan University,
Tiruchirappalli- 620 023, Tamil Nadu.
srishanmuga75@gmail.com
&

Dr. P. Thiyagararajan
Associate Professor,
P.G & Research Department of English,
Rajah Serfoji Government College (Autonomous),
Thanjavur – 613 005, Tamil Nadu.
ptrajan22@gmail.com
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