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Friday, August 10, 2012

AMIGOMAN: A Bilingual Children's Comic Book

I don't know how I stumbled upon Amigoman Comics, but I just received my first issue in the mail yesterday. I am thrilled! I shared the comic with a young 1st grade student today and he begged me to keep my copy.

Amgioman is a comic book about a teacher by day and superhero by night. The comic is leveled for different readers and is written in both Spanish and English. I also like that the pictures are in black and white, giving student the opportunity to color them in and really make the comic their own.

In the middle of the comic there is an activity page that teaches students a little bit of Spanish and English at the same time. In my issue there is an activity where you can match numbers to the written form of the number in both English and Spanish.

It is really rare to find such fun and interactive materials for young language learners. You should definitely check it out!

NOTE: I was not compensated for this endorsement

UPDATE:

I came up with a lesson to accompany the comic that I want to share with all of you. I started by playing the game 'pasa la bola' that I found from Fun for Spanish Teachers. In my version of the game, when the ball stops on a person, they had to say who they were, which could include their name, or any other identifying information about them. For instance, when the ball lands on my I say "Soy su maestra." All of the phrases should start with 'soy.'

Then I read a copy of Amigoman #1 Hola, soy Amigoman. I explained that just like the main character in the comic I had two identities...
Then I asked the students to create their own secret identities. They then could hide their secret identities inside of their comic books. Here is an example from a second grader who's secret identity was Hombre Rapido: