A Study of Primary Children Learning Communication Skills by Making Cartoon Film

This paper examines whether a software tool, which was developed for children to learn communication skills by making cartoon films, can assist primary teachers to explore verbal and non-verbal communication behaviour in the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme. The study has been undertaken with a class of students to help them discuss their feelings if there are some changes happening in their life such as moving house, a new baby, or going to a new school. The children were divided into two groups: the experimental group used the software tool to make a cartoon film; the control group acted out their story in front of their classmates and were video for later discussion. Comparison with the control group showed that the tool can bring some new perceptive communication issue for discussion; the tool addresses a drawback of the acting approach where children concentrated on speaking too much so that they paid less attention to the value of their posture, gestures and expressions.