Russell Stannard shows how to make sophisticated cartoons quite simply.
ToonDoo is a great fun site, which can be used with both children and adults. In essence, it allows you to make your own comics: anything from a single strip right up to a sophisticated book with pages and pages of content. This might not sound all that interesting, but when you take a look at the site and understand the tools it provides to enable you to build cartoons and add dialogues, then I’m sure you will begin to understand why I like it so much. It is certainly the most powerful website for building cartoons and stories that I have ever come across (though I am sure there are readers out there who will have seen better ones!). I also can’t believe that it’s free. You do need to join first, but all you have to do is give a password, a name and your email address and you are all set.
Making comics
On the site you will find a massive collection of characters, props and backgrounds which you can use to make your cartoon. You might begin by choosing a background and then deciding if you want to add a character into your scene. You have literally thousands of characters to choose from, as well as objects which you can add to the picture. Not only that, but once you have brought a character into the scene, you can choose to change its size, its posture, its expression, even how it is positioned in relation to other objects and characters you choose. You can also change the size, colour and position of any objects you introduce. The ability to change the expressions of characters’ faces, their posture, etc really allows you to build some very professional-looking comics (ToonDoo calls them books).
By repeating a page and then changing a few of the expressions on the faces of the characters you can instantly build the next page of a story. You can also add dialogue bubbles of all sorts to build up a complete story.
Using comics
So how do I use this site in class? Well, at the moment, it is holiday time and so I don’t actually have any university language classes to teach. However, I have been using ToonDoo in some private lessons and it has been lots of fun. I did an exercise where I built up a single-frame cartoon with lots of characters and props. As I did this on my computer, I described what I was doing to my two students and they had to work together to do the same on theirs. They couldn’t see my screen, so they had to listen to me and search for the same background, the same props and the same characters as I was describing. This produced a lot of discussion between them as they tried to find the items and place them onto the screen in the same place. It was quite a successful exercise, firstly because they had to listen to me and understand what I was describing, and secondly because they then had to work together, go to the correct section, grab the correct characters, etc and place them onto the screen in the correct place.
The second activity I have done with ToonDoo was a homework exercise. I set the situation by telling my students that they had to create a cartoon dialogue where their mum or dad was nagging them and asking them if they had done all their chores (eg Have you done your homework? Have you tidied your room? Have you made your bed?). I then got the students to present their cartoons to me in the next lesson. This worked quite well, but if I did it again, I would set a word limit or a page limit. One student really got into the idea and made a story of about five pages, the other student did only two.
Of course you don’t even have to get the students to make their own cartoons or books. You can also get them to look at the hundreds of amazing books and stories that are already on the site. You could get the students to choose their favourite ones and present them to the rest of the class or you could even read a few of the stories together or set comprehension questions. This is an amazing source of reading content as well as a site where you can have lots of fun.
One last thing. If you get bored with the wealth of characters, objects and backgrounds that are already available, you can produce your own and upload them onto the site. There are also drawing tools to enable you to customise characters and make changes to them on the screen.
To make things easier for you, I have prepared a video in which I take you on a tour of ToonDoo and show you how to use the site to make a basic story. Go to www.teachertrainingvideos.com/ toon/index.html.
I know from reader feedback that some of the most popular Webwatcher articles I have written have been about where to find good video content easily. This site has collections of specialist video content for ESL/EFL classes and it is completely free. It was recommended to me when I was at a conference in Japan. The videos are nicely organised in levels and you can build your own quizzes around them. Take a look and try it out!
Russell Stannard is a principal lecturer at the University of Westminster, UK, where he teaches using technology on multimedia and TESOL courses. He also runs www.teachertrainingvideos.com, a website that trains English teachers to use technology.
This article first appeared in English Teaching professional, Issue 57, 2008
