USING HUMOUR IN

ELT CLASSES

By Selen BİLGİNER
 Do you include humour
as an
integral part of your lessons?
 I love humor, but
Students can’t be learning if they’re laugh
I don’t know how to use it.
I don’t want to look foolish...

I’m not funny.

I don’t like humor!
ling jokes because I will just lose control of my
• Using humor can play an
important part in helping to
relax students and help them
overcome stress and so make
them more receptive to
learning. Humor can also help
to improve the classroom
atmosphere particularly for
students who are worried
about making mistakes or
Benefits of using humor…


•Reduces student tension



•Improves the classroom

atmosphere


•Increases student & teacher

enjoyment


•Enhances student-teacher
So, humor creates an affective second-langu
environment where students are not afraid
take risks and feel comfortable using Englis
There are various ways of
using humour in class.
• Telling a joke
Just telling a joke can be a great
listening activity for your students
and really there's no need to
prepare anything. Every joke
comes with its own comprehension
task. If the listener laughs at the
end of the joke then they have
understood it.
 Advantages of using

jokes in class.
• Students like them, so they are a
source of motivation.
• They lower the affective filter and
create a relaxed atmosphere in the
class.
• Most jokes are short so it does not
demand long periods of attention
while listening.
• Many jokes are a good way of
presenting cultural aspects of the
language.
• If we choose the correct ones, jokes
are easy to tell and easy to
understand.
• Jokes integrate psychological,
psycholinguistic, sociological
discourse and strategic
components.
• They employ a variety of skills: first
reading, second speaking, and

There are several ways of using
jokes in class.

1- Matching the punch line.

2- Guessing the punch line

3- Jocloze test

4- Making up endings to the jokes

CARICATURES

• Another way of using humour in

class is showing
caricatures or funny
pictures to the students.
• You can be sure that they like
being shown funny pictures
and they are more willing to
talk about the things they
 VIDEO
• If you have access to video
recordings of popular comedy
programmes, these can form a
fantastic resource for
exploitation in the language
class. They can be used in
many ways, for general
listening activities or you
could just focus on one
SONG PARODIES

• Another way of using humor in class

is using songs. Especially the
examples of song parody. (It is a
kind of music which mocks a well-
known theme by putting new lyrics
to a largely unchanged music.)
• Students like listening to song
parodies because they try to
understand the humour in each line
of the song.
• Finally, some jokes are very
good at illustrating social
events while others distract
from the lesson. Attention
must be paid to the selection
of the type of the humor used.
Good selections have the
power of killing two birds with
one stone, they teach both the
• References
Canale, M. & Swain. M. (1980).
Theoretical bases of
communicative approaches to
second language teaching and
testing. Applied Linguistics, I (1): 1-
42.

Dong, L. (1997). A collection of

English humor. Beijing: Foreign

There are two ways to get to
know people well in a short
time,

one is to work alongside them
at a hard and unpleasant job
such as cleaning latrines or
picking potatoes,

and the other way is to tell
jokes.