HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 4 LIST OF FIGURE & TABLES.
Rational for the study. Aims of the Study. Significance of the Study. Structure of the Study.
13 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Difficulties in defining humor. Definitions of humor. Theories of humor.
Functions of Humor. Types of Humor. Humor in Education: Appropriate and Inappropriate Uses of Humor by Teachers. Humor in the Vietnamese EFL Class.
40 1 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION 2. Prospects of The Use of Humor in The Vietnamese EFL Class. Reality of The Use of Humor in The Vietnamese EFL class.
42 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Participants of the study. In-depth interview participants. In-depth interview.
51 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The extent to which classroom humor is supported by teachers and students. Humor and students’ interest in learning English. Humor and students’ English language learning.
Humor and teacher-student rapports. Humor and its psychological effects on students. Humor and its place in the English language classroom. Use of humor in the English class.
Use of 13 types of humor by teachers in the English class in the teachers and students’ perspectives. Use of 13 types of humor by teachers. Use of 13 types of humor by teachers in the students’ perspectives. Teachers and students’ likes and dislikes about 13 types of humor.
Reasons for using/not using humor in the English class. 69 2 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION. Restatement of the Study Purposes.
Summary of the Findings. Contributions of the Study. Implications of the Study. Limitations of the Study.
Recommendations for Further Research. i Appendix 1A: Letter of transmittal to teacher participants (English version). i Appendix 1B: Teachers’ questionnaire (English version). ii Appendix 1C: Letter of transmittal to teacher participants (Vietnamese version).
vi Appendix 1D: Teachers’ questionnaire (Vietnamese version). vii Appendix 2A: Letter of transmittal to student participants (English version). xii Appendix 2B: Students’ questionnaire (English version). xiii Appendix 2C: Letter of transmittal to student participants (Vietnamese version).
xvii Appendix 2D: Students’ questionnaire (Vietnamese version). xviii Appendix 3A: Questions for teacher interviews (English version). xxiii Appendix 3B: Questions for teacher interviews (Vietnamese version). xxiv Appendix 3C: Questions for student interviews (English version).
xxv Appendix 3D: Questions for student interviews (Vietnamese version). xxvi 3 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BRVT Ba Ria-Vung Tau CLT Communicative Language Teaching CT Communicative Approach TVQ Tran Van Quan VT Vung Tau 4 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION LIST OF FIGURE & TABLES Figure/Tables Names Pages Figure 2.3 Functions of Humor 24 Table 2.3 List of 24 documented functions 23 Table 2.4a Types of Humor 26 Table 2.4b Types of Humor According to Hay (1995) 27 Table 2.5a Humor Categories 29 Table 2.5b Twenty Item Taxonomy of High School Teacher 31 Humor Table 2.5c Categories and Subcategories of Appropriate Teacher 32 Humor According to Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk, & Smith (2006) Table 2.5d Categories and Subcategories of Inappropriate Teacher 35 Humor According to Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk, & Smith (2006) Table 2.
5e Thirteen Item Taxonomy of Teacher Humor 39 Table 3.1 Participants taking part in the study 43 Table 3.1a The number of the questionnaires returned by the 44 participants Table 3.1b Background Information on questionnaire 45 participants Table 3.2 In-depth interview participants 45 Table 4.1 Humor and students’ interest in learning English 52 Table 4.2 Humor and students’ English language learning 53 Table 4.3 Humor and teacher-student rapports 54 Table 4.4 Humor and its psychological effects on students 55 Table 4.5 Humor in the English language classroom 56 Table 4.2a The reality and the frequent use of humor by teachers 58 in the English class 5 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION Table 4.2b Factors affecting the frequency of teachers’ humor in 59 the English class Table 4.1a Use of 13 types of humor by teachers in the English 60 class Table 4.1b Further ways of using classroom humor suggested by 62 teachers Table 4.2 Use of 13 types of humor by teachers 63 in the students’ perspectives Table 4.3 Teachers and students’ likes and dislikes about 13 65 types of humor Table 4.4 Necessity and reasons for using humor in the English 68 class 6 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate high school teachers and students’ perceptions of teachers’ use of humor in the English language class. Setting its context at some high schools in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, the study looks at (1) the extent to which high school teachers and students support the use of humor by teachers in the English class, (2) the frequency of teachers’ humor in the English class, (3) types of humor used by high school teachers, and (4) teachers’ reasons for their use of/not using humor in the English class.
Multiple data-collection methods, namely questionnaires and in-depth interviews, were adopted in the study. Findings show that both teachers and students strongly support teachers’ use of humor. In addition, the study indicates that humor was actually used by teachers but only occasionally, not on a daily basis. As also found in the study, jokes, humorous stories, humorous examples, and using external objects were of more frequent use while teacher performance, making fun of abilities, making fun of mistakes, and teasing were of little use.
The study also indicates that among teachers’ reasons for using humor in class, putting students at ease was reported the choice of a majority of both teachers and students. The paper suggests relevant implications and ends with some suggestions for further research. 7 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.
Rational for the study BỜM Bờm is an old village man. One day he went to the City. This was the very first time he was there, so he was very surprised with everything around him, especially tall buildings. Therefore, whenever seeing a tall building, he stopped and counted how many floors the building had and he felt happy with this so much.
Unluckily, while Bờm was counting the floors of one of the buildings, a woman appeared in front of him. She asked Bờm, “What are you doing?” Bờm gave a look to the woman and replied, “I am counting the number of the floors of this building.” Hearing his answer, the woman got angry. She said, “This is my house. It wasn’t built to be counted.
So, because you have counted the floors of the building, you have to pay me money. How many floors have you counted?” “Ten”, replied Bờm. “One floor _ 10, 000 VND. You have counted 10 floors, so you must pay me 100,000 VND.
Bờm quickly took a note of 100,000 VND out of his pocket and gave it to the woman, and then walked away. Walking for a while, he looked back, smiled happily and said to himself, “City people are said to be intelligent, but I think that they are so stupid. I have counted 15 floors, but I just said 10 only, but she believed it.” 8 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION With the above story as a means of instruction while teaching the writing lesson on how to write a Narrative (Tieng Anh 10, Unit 1, Writing a Narrative), I left my students behind in great excitement as the bell went for the end of the lesson.
The class was much more successful than I had expected. Such happy faces of my students have always been very clear in my mind. The success of the class evoked an idea in my mind that humor could make my classroom a richer place because it not only gave my students a lesson of what a narrative was but also helped to capture my students’ attention and make them laugh. However, it was not until I familiarized myself with research in the field of humor in the English language class that I discovered a much more important role that humor can play in the classroom in general and in English language classroom in particular.
Humor together with its significance in the classroom has become the discussion of a proliferation of works and writers in the field. Click (1952) states that humor makes the classroom a warmer place to be. Gilliland & Mauritsen (1971) compare the role of a teacher with a cook and consider humor a necessary spice for teachers to keep their hungry customers coming, expecting to be nourished from an exciting menu. Kryston, Smith, Collins, and Hamilton, (1986) emphasize the importance of humor in binding the classroom in community.
Gorham and Christophel (1990), argue for classroom humor because they believe that it can reduce tension, disarm aggression, alleviate boredom, and stimulate interest. In a study related to the content of high school teachers’ humor in the classroom, Neuliep (1991) acknowledges that humor is used ‘as a way of putting students at ease, as an attention-getter, as a way of showing that the teacher is human, as a way to keep the class less formal, and to make the learning more fun and…as a strategy that renders the classroom environment more conducive to learning’ (p. Berwald (1992) considers ‘humor to be important for obvious reasons _ to enliven our classes, to establish and maintain rapport, to create the appropriate ambience for learning, and to enhance student acquisition and retention’ (p. Berk’s study (2000) concludes that humor in course tests helps to reduce anxiety and improve performance.
MacAulay (2009) states that ‘humor in the classroom can establish a 9 HUMOR IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS _ M. THESIS IN EDUCATION less strain environment and encourage very important teacher-student relationships. Furthermore, it has the potential to help alleviate stress, placate antagonism, and create a more relaxed and open learning environment. Humor can help set the classroom mood that will encourage learning’ (p.
The ideas discussed above help to show that there seems to be a general agreement between the scholars on the significant role of classroom humor: Humor in the classroom is believed to create a less strain learning environment, foster mutual openness and respect, and thus contribute to effective learning. In addition to the employment of such general humor for the creation of a conducive learning environment, in the English language classroom, especially in the classroom where English is taught as a foreign language ( EFL class), humor can be used as a specific pedagogical tool to illustrate and teach both linguistics and culture as well as pragmatic components of language. Trachtenberg (1979) contends that humor is uniquely and ideally suited to serve as a vehicle for classroom illustration and instruction of specific linguistic, cultural, and discoursal phenomenon in the target language. Ruggieri’s article (1999) reports on her success in using humor to teach tragedy.
She reveals in her article (ibid.) that using humor in her classroom has enabled her, as well as her students, to laugh and to learn much more about the curriculum. Schmitz (2002) argues in favor of the use of humor in the English class because it contributes to improve students’ proficiency, especially developing students’ listening comprehension and reading. Bell (2009) affirms that ‘humor has been touted as an excellent way for students to learn the vocabulary, syntax, semantics, and discourse conventions of the language, as well as to gain insight into the culture of those who speak that language’ (p.