O n f e r e n c e

Fenfang Hwu 
 
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, United States of America 
[e-mail]
A Comic Creation Tool for Adaptive-Imitation Practice: Research 
Design Considerations
Bio data 
Fenfang Hwu
is an associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and 
Literatures at the University of Cincinnati, USA. Her recent research projects include the 
development of instructional techniques to accommodate individual differences in second 
language learning and the use of tracking technology in CALL research.
Abstract 
Second language teachers would instinctively want to integrate an easy-to-use comic-
creation tool in their classrooms as it provides a fun and creative outlet for learners while 
allowing them to demonstrate understanding about the language. Conversely, the 
circumstance under which such tool is beneficial for learning is not as straightforward for 
CALL researchers. In this study we present the considerations we took into account to 
frame our research questions and the corresponding results. 
Firstly, we identified the context in which such tool would be beneficial. As the tool lends 
itself perfectly to having learners produce everyday conversation and there is a serious 
lack of opportunity to learn the pragmatic meanings of Spanish simple past tenses with 
this discourse type at the intermediate level, we chose this tool for intermediate learners, 
who used it to author conversations and recorded their voices for the characters. 
Additionally, they modeled their conversations from the input we provided, consisting of 
soap opera clips and pedagogical grammar explanations.
We envisioned that such learning activity would benefit learners according to various 
theoretical perspectives. It elicits ‘imitation’ (Tomasello, 2002), a fundamental process in 
learning from the perspective of Vykotskyan sociocultural theory. It also provides 
production practice, hypothesized to offer a number of benefits that input alone does not 
provide. Particularly, it helps internalize and deepen learners’ linguistic knowledge 
(Swain, 1995), thereby transforming declarative knowledge into procedural (De Bot, 
1996). We also took individual differences into account; kinesthetic/tactile learners and 
learners with poor language aptitude and proficiency might benefit more from this 
learning environment. Given the abovementioned considerations, we ask the following 
research questions. What evidence supports learner’s thoughtful and creative 
reproduction of the input they receive while performing the output activity? Does input + 
output improve learning better than input alone? What types of learners benefit most 
from this learning activity?
 

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-178- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be