In the area of language instruction, teachers are constantly searching for new and innovative materials to enhance learning in the formal classroom environment. To meet this demand, publishers try to promote their material as being authentic, but many teachers (and more important, students) believe that no matter how appealing texts might be, they still ring of artificiality and are just a representation of the real thing. A textbook is just thatÇÇmaterial that has been altered and simplified for the consumption of the learner. That is not to say that there are not quality books out there; in fact, I am suggesting that a book be used as the core text of any class. I do believe, however, that other materials should be introduced into the class that expose students, both physically and mentally, to the outside world, particularly in EFL settings where authentic models are scarce.

One authentic material that has been explored over the past few years is the comic strip or comic book (see Davis, 1990, for a detailed bibliography). Before this form of educational entertainment emerged to the foreground, it was often believed (and still is by some social critics) that "comic books were so educationally unsound that their use would lead to mental stagnation (Ellman, 1979, p. 24; MacGregor, 1996, p. 7).

Teachers, businesses, and publishers, however, have realized that comic strips and comic books have a widespread appeal to all age groups and levels of society because they reflect authentic language and culture, for example, social commentary, human idosycracies, stereotypes, and life conflicts (Conrad, 1993; Elkins & Bruggemann, 1971), and contain a richness in story content and character development (Yoshihiro, 1992). In fact, it is one of the most widely read media throughout the world, especially in Japan where comic books accounted for 22.9% of the entire publications in 1994 (Weng Kin, 1995).

The resurgence of interest in this form of entertainment has spawned a host of texts and magazines seeking to ride the wave on using comics for educational purposes. All of these have taken advantage of the inherent characteristics that make this medium so attractive as an educational tool: (a) A built-in desire to learn through comics (Richie, 1979); (b) easy accessibility in daily newspapers and bookstands; (c) the novel and ingenious way in which this authentic medium depicts real-life language and "every facet of people and society" (Yoshihiro, 1992, p. 9); and (d) the variety of visual and linguistic elements and codes that appeal to students with different learning styles (Bangs, 1988; Davis, 1990; Kossack & Hoffman, 1987). Furthermore, many lessons can be adapted to bring the material within the linguistic reach of different levels of students.

Many native English teachers in Japan are assigned listening and speaking classes, with limited opportunities to teach the other skills areas. There is, however, a general movement on many fronts to shift this once generic class towards more content-based or ESP courses. The result has been that English now becomes more than a mere frill to a true vehicle to disseminate one's ideas. With the emergence of such a need, comics can fill this gap because of its multi-dimensional nature, combing both words and pictorial images.

The classes I teach generally meet twice a week for 90 minutes over 20 weeks. The underlying framework behind group-oriented projects takes root in the concept of cooperative learning, where the groups' efforts are focused on accomplishing a meaningful task with shared rewards. Here is one of a group of five projects I carry out during the year.

Purpose: To have students predict the beginning and outcome of a story.

Materials: An uncaptioned comic strip, preferably comprises of more than four panels.

Time: Four and a half hours over three classes.

Day 1: I assign students to work in small groups (preferably three to a group). For a comic's unit on sports, I give students an uncaptioned, multi-panel story from a Japanese comic book. (Any comic strip can be used regardless of language and culture as long as the story is apparent.) I ask students to take turns discussing the action in the panels, paying special note to facial expressions, gestures, setting, etc. I then have students down a list of five things they see in each frame, focusing on new lexicon. For homework, I assign each student to write down his or her own predictions on how the story begins and ends, in three sentences.

Day 2: Students exchange papers in their groups, read each other's ideas, and then vote on the best conclusion to the story. Then, I ask them to draw a first and final panel to the comic strip, write and then type their stories, and then turn in the product to me.

Day 3: I help students to put their pictures and stories up on a bulletin board outside the classroom or my office, and ask students in my other classes to select the most creative (not necessarily the best written or most plausible) story by writing the number of the story on a piece of paper and hand it in to me. The winning group receives extra credit points. This story can also be included in a class newsletter.

In addition to the uses mentioned in the summary lesson above, comic books and comic strips can be used to teach a wide variety of skills including: