Oral Mediation Strategies: An Analysis of the Interactional Monologues of a Comic-Based Task

Abstract

This article explores the design of a mediation task based on a comic strip and the response of a group of 30 teachers’ trainees to it. To know the possible flaws and strengths in the productions, six criteria have been designed ad hoc according to the existing literature. First, the theoretical framework explores the definition of mediation, and focuses on comics as a source text for mediation tasks. Then, the objectives and the method are explained. After that, section four shows and discusses the results of the analysis and, finally, in the last section the conclusion is presented. It should be noted that the analysis reveals numerous flaws in the participants’ productions in aspects of interest to mediate successfully. Among them, being aware of the necessities of the audience or checking the comprehension of the transmitted message are the most important issues. In contrast, some strengths have been observed related to the participants’ ability to explain the information in a sequential way or to transmit it with an appropriate use of examples. The previous aspects can be highly valuable as mediation strategies.