It must be easy to imagine the following scene for any ESL/EFL teacher in an English-speaking country: You enter the classroom full of your newly registered intermediate level ESL students from all over the world, looking at you with semi-anxious eyes in a neon-lit, predictably boring looking classroom. What might the students be thinking at such moment: Will I be able to understand what she/he says? Is she/he going to treat me kindly? Will there be a lot of homework? What countries are the other students from? Will I have some friends here? Will I be able to get good marks? You write your name to the board, greet the class and say: “My name is Leyla; it means a “ night” in Arabic and “tired” in Chinese… Do I look like a night? Or maybe tired?” They might possibly get this self-deprecating joke and the teacher’s—the authority figure’s—poking fun at her own name might make them relax, smile, and get easily ready for the upcoming learning activity. Having majored in acting and being considered one of the renowned humorists and award-winning TV hosts /advertisers in my native Turkey, I have produced and experienced humour in many contexts, from politics to social settings. Understandably, after becoming a teacher in Canada, witticisms continued to dominate my life—this time in my classrooms, which my students positively received.
Not surprisingly, humour —as a communication tool—has been linked both to intelligence and “fun”. It must be difficult to deny the positive effects of an amusing/fun environment, in social, educational, or professional settings. However, it might be worth examining the types and functions of humour as well as the various impacts of humorous discourse in order to place it “in its right form in the right place at the right time”. When research around and about humour started, various scholars categorised humour in different groups. Surely, the main groups have been considered as verbal and visual. Similarly, Wandersee (1982) provides us with a list of sources and forms of humour ranging from wordplays to satire, to visual pun.
Before questioning the effects of humour in learning process, it might be worth briefly looking at the neuro-scientific processing of humour; in other words, what happens in the brain while being exposed to humour?
Upon having analysed brain patterns, regions, and various test results, Mobbs et al. (2003) concluded that humor appreciation is closely related to decision making and managing complex social interactions. Apparently, visual and verbal humour keeps the brain more active—activates left-lateralised activation in the left posterior and left interior gyrus— and triggers “reward” mechanisms and challenging cognitive processing.
As widely accepted, styles and perception of humour predominantly depend on time and space; however, which student would not enjoy when teacher hands out some quiz by saying: “Don’t worry, nobody died on this exam so far. You might certainly be the first, but I can bring you back to life!”
If the language level of the class allows doing so, talking about the differences between student-centered classrooms and teacher centeredness—as it might be the case in many Latin, Asian, and Middle Eastern education cultures—could provide a smooth start before any “humorous discourse” takes place:
Teacher: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am certainly not your master; please see a servant in me! The class might first not exactly get it. Teachers— as they would think— are authority figures, how could they be servants? The teacher might continue as follows:
“Imagine I am your waiter! Instead of serving you food, I am serving you what I know, my knowledge, experience and help—she /he grabs a couple of papers or book and holds it like a menu on her arm and says: “What would you like to learn today? We have…. uhhm…Modal verbs with sauce…orrr… Some very delicious idioms with spice…”
As knowledge can be considered “brain food”, students could understand this metaphorical joke easily regardless of their cultural background. Secondly, humorous approach should be appropriate as well as adjusted to the English levels of the students. Beginners might be better served with visual humour, cartoons, and other types of jokes.
While teaching the “non-phonemic” character of English language—which must make spelling not easy to tackle—students could be introduced to homophones, homonyms, and homographs in a humorous way, which would both entertain and create phonemic awareness. Some examples spring to our minds as follows:
Yesterday, I went to my hair salon and asked the following:
“Could you show me how to dye properly?” My hairdresser: “Oh my God, Madame, why should I do it? You should live for many more years; it’s not time to die yet at all!”
Disciplining students is also hard work without “punishing “them. Here again, humour might be a very efficient tool.
Certain examples could be cited:
The teacher has already started the class, writes something on the board with her back to class when a sleepy Japanese student, about 20 minutes late, tries “to sneak in”. This particular student had always been late but today it was almost half an hour. The teacher turns to the class, without looking at him, she asks other Japanese students:
“How do you say “punctual” in Japanese? Apparently, some students do not understand the word in English.” “Jikan doori!” other Japanese students answer, while starting to laugh. “Aha, thanks! —to the late comer— “Good afternoon, next time be jikan doori, ok?”
Although it might look like “teasing”, provided that the teacher had already built a good rapport between students, the tardy student might certainly be embarrassed but improve his behaviour.
Especially in ESL/EFL education, in which students are being challenged by using new verbal and non-verbal communication tools, a “smiling” classroom climate certainly affects their learning process positively. Enjoyment that is generated by humorous pedagogical approach has also been observed to facilitate language learning objectives in classrooms. Furthermore, as neuro-scientific findings reveal, “rewarding” the brain with enjoyment might result in enhanced attention spans and increased memory for learning objectives, of which English learners surely benefit.
References
Mobbs, D., Greicius, M. D., Abdel-Azim, E., Menon, V., & Reiss, A. L. (2003). Humor modulates the mesolimbic reward centers. Neuron, 40(5), 1041-1048.
Wandersee, J. H. (1982). Humor as a Teaching Strategy. American Biology Teacher, 44(4), 212-18.
