Hello! I want to use some kind of jokes while I'm teaching, to make classes more interesting for my students. However, I'm worried that the students who are learning with me at high school can't understand jokes in English. Can you recommend any kind of jokes to use, and how I can use them? I want them to have fun and study English at the same time.
This question is from Moe Moe Kyaw, Japan
Comments
joe
I have always successfully used Reader's Digest as a resource for adding humor to my classroom. The jokes genrally deal with day to day life incidents and happenings and besides humor they automatically add a healthy understanding of foriegn cultures.
Ahmed Afifi, Egypt
I think it's more important that teacher should have a good sense of humour so as to make his/her class funny and not dull. Concerning the sort of joke you are to tell, this depends on the nature of the students themselves and the Japanese people themselves. Anyway, here is an example of an Egyptian joke: a husband told his wife to give him a kiss everyday and in return he would give her a pound. This agreement took place at the beginning of the month. So that month, every day he kissed his wife and gave her a pound. At the end of the month he asked her how much money she had saved. She told him that she had saved 90 pounds. He told her she should have saved only 30 pounds. She laughed and told him that their neighbour kissed her twice every day. I hope it's clear...
Rob, UK
There is a very interesting article on the role of humour in the classroom here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/teaching/story/0,,1993619,00.html
Nidia Cecchetto Reuter, Argentina
The BBC and British Council are not responsible for the content of external internet websites.I think jokes open up the mind, relax the body and create a receptive atmosphere to teach in. I always use jokes in my class to have fun. However, jokes are sometimes difficult for students to understand because they have to spend time reflecting on the language.
Jay
Hi! I also use Readers Digest's jokes in the class room. Some laugh, some are left cold. All try to get the jokes, so ponder the language used.
I would recommend testing the jokes you are thinking of teaching on others from the same background, to find the language new to them, beforehand.
http://www.laughlab.co.uk/
This was a study to find the worlds funniest joke by Richard Wiseman. It also looked at popular humor around the world.
Showing learners that there is different humor around the word may help to get them interested in trying to understand jokes from outside there culture.
Green Tea
Well，that's one important activity. Can you recommend me some games or quiz used for oral english teaching 'cuz I have no experience on it.