Creative and visual pedagogy: formation of university students' communicative competence based on comic book technology

Abstract

In the modern educational environment, traditional methods of teaching dialogical speech in a foreign language demonstrate insufficient effectiveness, forming rigid speech skills among students who are not ready for spontaneous communication. The relevance of the research is dictated by the need to move from reproductive techniques to constructivist ones that meet the cognitive characteristics of the digital generation. The aim of the work is to experimentally prove that the use of comic book creation technology based on the principles of visual pedagogy and an activity–based approach is an effective tool for the integrated formation of foreign language communicative competence and related flexible skills among university students. As part of the pedagogical experiment, a control group was formed that studied according to the traditional methodology, and an experimental group that actively used the online platform StoryboardThat to create their own comics. The research methodology included pre- and post-testing to assess the dynamics of speech skills development (vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics), as well as questionnaires to measure the level of educational motivation and self-assessment of creative abilities. A qualitative analysis of the comics created by the students was carried out to assess the depth of assimilation of the material and the development of storytelling skills. The discussion of the results confirms that the comic book is not just an illustration, but a full-fledged pedagogical technology. The visual series reduces cognitive load, and the creative process of creating a plot and dialogues transforms students from passive recipients of knowledge into active constructors of their own learning experience. This technology contributes to the development of a whole range of competencies of the 21st century: communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. It forms educational autonomy and changes the role of the teacher to a facilitator, which corresponds to modern trends in pedagogy. The method has a high potential for interdisciplinary application and can be integrated into project-based learning.