Ms. Inna Remez, an experienced English teacher with over 25 years of teaching at Dnipro School No. 21 in Ukraine, discovered MangaChat through the “Know My World” Exchange Program in the spring semester of 2023. The platform immediately caught her attention, and she decided to introduce it to her class of 11 to 12-year-olds through assignments on Google Classroom.
One of the aspects that enthralled the students was the opportunity to create their own artwork and journals in an engaging and enjoyable manner. Ms. Remez noted that traditional writing assignments often felt dull to students, as they were burdened with lengthy texts. However, with MangaChat, the process of crafting complete stories became effortless and captivating. As most of the assignments involved journaling, it provided an excellent outlet for students to express their emotions openly. Given the importance of emotional expression, particularly during times of hardship and war, MangaChat became a valuable tool to help students develop self-awareness and enhance their social-emotional learning skills, which in turn benefited their daily lives.
Beyond emotional awareness, Ms. Remez observed a significant improvement in her students’ vocabulary. In her regular lessons, she would prepare a list of vocabulary words for her students to learn, and they would typically learn these words by looking them up in their dictionaries. However, with MangaChat assignments, students actively incorporated these words into the creation of their own journals. Moreover, the platform’s feature that allowed students to view each other’s work proved beneficial, as it reinforced their understanding and usage of those vocabulary words by being able to see how other people used them.
Ms. Remez wishes that her students would continue using the platform as a way of self-expression even after the semester’s end, and she said that she might find different ways of using MangaChat in her lessons as she becomes more familiar with the site.
