SUBMITTED BY: Patrick Bickford     BORROWED FROM / INSPIRED BY: Niigata's Lost Horizon (1989)     EDITED BY: まだ

Manga Reading

GRAMMAR: Comparative/Superlative     EXAMPLE: Ann is the most beautiful girl in school.     DATE ADDED: Oct 28, 2009 

ÒÓ    êë    15-30 min.   8 Votes: 3.5 Stars If you're going to give this activity a low-rating, please post a useful comment to help make it better. SearchJHSActivity

Materials Needed:

• MangaReading attachment
• Dictionaries: Enough for each group

Detailed Explanation:

1. This activity is pretty self-explanatory. After splitting up the class into groups, have one student from each group come to the front and retrieve a worksheet for each person in their group and one dictionary. The students shouldn't need the dictionaries unless you do the variation described below.
2. Have the students read the comic and answer the questions in full-sentence form: "Ann is the most beautiful girl at school."

Variations:

• If you have time and the students are into it, have them turn over the page and draw their own comic, but make sure they do it in English.

Teaching Suggestions:

• This activity is best reserved until the students have learned all the various comparitive and superlative forms: er / est / most / as...as.
• This activity is fun enough it could be given out as homework.

Comments:

• (Jan 18, 2012) englipatrick (mod) said: @Ali, send in your worksheet. I'll post it.
• (Jan 18, 2012) Ali said: I think this is a great activity as well.
  Because the comic was 'dated', I found another comic to use instead. I also wrote my own dialogue to cover comparative and superlative words only (as requested by my JTE). I thought my worksheet was simple but the students had difficulty in answering it - they had trouble with some of the meanings and writing in full sentences. I revised it by asking the students to match the meanings of the word and asking them to fill in the blank sentences. As a variation, I gave them a blank comic and asked them to write their own dialogue.
  (I'm just wondering whether I can post my revised worksheet for people to give me feedback and suggestions.)
  I believe the success of the activity will depend on whether the kids thoroughly understand on how to use comparatives and superlatives. I suggest using a Fill-In-The-Blanks Comparative and Superlative worksheet first before trying the manga reading and manga writing activity.
• (Dec 14, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said: @Tara, a good way to fix mistakes when they are difficult to fix, is simply tell the students there is one mistake in the manga and challenge them to find it. :)
• (Dec 14, 2011) tarasensei said: Sorry to nitpick, but "beautiful" is misspelled in this. Top righthand panel.
• (Nov 14, 2011) Jessica said: It`s working for me now! Thank you so much!
• (Nov 9, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said: Reloaded, again. Try it now, Jessica.
• (Nov 8, 2011) Jessica said: Wasn`t there a worksheet along with the manga file? When I opened it a week or two ago I remember there being one. But now that it is this new Windows live file, I only can find the manga image. Help?
• (Oct 31, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said: Reloaded.
• (Oct 31, 2011) Cam said: I really want to see this, alas the website 'live' cannot be open from my school PC. Could you please post an alternative?
• (Mar 14, 2011) Eric said: - This is great as a filler activity or as a reward for finishing an assigned task early.
  - When I printed out the graphic, the text was difficult to read. I went over it in pen before copying and that worked pretty well.
• (Feb 8, 2011) the haze said: This overall was a good activity... I had the kids write the sentences on the board. I did not choose to do the Variation.