Laugh While Learning

Laugh While Learning Another Language: Techniques That Are Functional And Funny. (Keith Maurice)

In this article the author main objective is to enumerate a series of activities based on humorthat can help the teacher improve student’s language acquisition in the classroom. At the beginning of the article the author talk about why he believes humor is an important tool. First, the authorremarks humor as a complex and ambiguous social phenomenon, that can bring a social group closer, while other times it can disintegrate any attempt of social cohesion. Secondly, the author establishes therole of the teacher as a guide, a generator of enthusiasm, and as a motivator for the student to get involve in the class. The author lists eight instructions which were humor can make them morefunctional: Activating motivation, Informing the learner of lesson objective, directing attention, simulating recall, providing learner guidance, enhancing retention, promoting transfer of learning, andeliciting performance; providing feedback. The author establishes that the objectives of the educator is not just giving the students knowledge, but also high motivation, self-confidence, and lowerstudent anxiety levels. The author explain briefly a list of techniques where the potential of humor is shown: on the listening subject the author mentions riddles, commands, pre-recorded comedy,teacher-made interview; on the reading subject the author mention cartoons, trick instructions, short readings, comedy cloze; On the writing area the author suggested creativity corner, Exaggerated advicecolumn, funny stories; On the speaking area the author suggested techniques like pronunciation power, comic-drama, telling jokes, giving humorous speeches and humorous debate. On the final remark theauthor points out that humor is one of the most valuable tools a teacher can have, and mixed with the functional part of a lesson can show good results.

Group: Eight peoples from eighteen to twenty...