One of the greatest challenges english teachers face nowadays is the duty of engaging students in a very creative, but very productive way at the same time. The classroom must be a place where the students feel free to develop themselves as human beings. It should be a created environment where the students enjoy spending their academical time, but the teachers cannot forget that once they(we) are tutors to the students, it is the teacher´s role to discuss which contents should or shoudn´t be in a classroom.
Considering these facts, for many teachers, to decide how to approach certain subjects become something really difficult because (at) the same time the teacher must actually teach languange, and sometimes very specific languange points(mainly in English Courses) during the class. Furthermore, it is necessary to establish connection with the students universe, (an aspect of education in which the books are not always able to provide) that not always the books are able to provide.
Ballance is an important word between what the teacher needs to teach, and the manner he/she is going to do so. If the language teaching professional is able to know the universe the students are emerged in, then honing the skills to be both complimentary and critical about it, while seeing the positive points in their universe, will be the most useful way to teach anything in a very pleseant way in an environment where the student body will value the development of language, as well as the fun of it. Among many possible strategies to develop these kind of activities, a very positive one is the Cosplay.
According to the Oxford Dictionary “Cosplay is The practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, or video game.” Initially, this practice was based on japanese material, but nowadays, all cinematical and TV universe inspire cosplays all over the world. Using Cosplay in a classroom offers infinity oportunities for interaction, which demands more than a text to explore, but it is also possible to briefly mention some strategies that can be built in this universe.
Parades: The students can use costumes and the teacher can prepare a parade, even in the class room, while asking students to describe how the friends are dressed, and what powers the characters have, if it is the case, or just describing who the Characters are.
Interactive Plays: The students and the teacher can come to the classroom dressed as characters from many universes, blended or not, and the teacher or the students can create stories using the characters. This activity can have many variations, it is possible to shift the students during the story telling, or even, on student can ask to take other students place in the middle of the story, it can be adapted to many proficience levels and classroom sizes.
Comic books: The teacher can use pictures took from the students and build Comic Book strips with empty speak baloons so that students can write the conversations the way they want, or even just cut images and let the students create the stories they want to.
Expo Comic download
