COMICS IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: BUILDING SOCIO-CULTURAL COMPETENCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The article investigates the instructional potential of comics in building the socio-cultural competence of secondary school students in the Ukrainian language classroom. The urgency of the problem is related to the task of reforming Ukrainian school education to create learning conditions aimed at the development of a learner as a subject of culture and multicultural language personality, able to successfully engage in social interaction with the bearers of another culture. Moreover, there is a lack of research of the educational potential of comics in the Ukrainian context, which also determines the relevance of this article that aims to explore the ways of using comics in the Ukrainian language classroom to boost the socio-cultural competence of secondary school students. Apart from reading comics, the creation of them in the classroom is extensively used as a means of building socio-cultural competence in the context of world education. It is the syncretism of graphic and text-verbal components that makes the genre of comics a unique teaching tool. Although using comics in language instruction is viewed as an innovative technique of building socio-cultural competence as well as enhancing the communication skills of students, it has limited application in Ukrainian secondary schools. Therefore, based on the analysis of the available research and the authors’ experience, the paper proves the effectiveness of comics in boosting socio-cultural knowledge, increasing motivation to learn, developing critical and creative thinking of students. The authors of the article substantiate the instructional advantages of using comics in language teaching and offer a lesson plan in the Ukrainian language for 6th-grade school students.

Key words: comics, socio-cultural competence, creative thinking skills, teaching Ukrainian.