Articles Review(1)

A Review on Using Humour in the Second Language Classroom
                                           By
                              Paul-Emile Chiasson
                                    Zahra Mojib
                                 Dr.Hassaskhah
                                       2010


This article examines the reasons why humour is effective and why it’s sometimes avoided. It focuses on the use of cartoon as an example. The idea is that classrooms in which there’s an affective environment, students take risks and don’t face negative criticism. Moreover error correction is constructive.

As Kritmanson says, in order to take risks you need to feel that what you’re saying is worth hearing. In order to succeed you need an atmosphere in which anxiety levels are low, also you need to feel motivated.

The author says that some teacher may avoid humour since they believe it makes them seem foolish or may bring disorder to the class.Others may just find it difficult to use, saying that it need humoristic skills.Some say that students can learn while laughing. Yet humour is as authentic and as communicative a human reaction and social skill as is greeting and conversing with friends.

Although humour and laughter have not been closely studied,we all have the personal views on the value of humour and know it as the best medicine. Considering its pedagogical value, studies suggest that the use of humour in the classroom reduces tension, improves classroom climate, increases enjoyment, increases student-teacher rapport and even facilitates learning.This is of particular importance in a communicative classroom where authentic communication and interaction is emphesized.Humour plays a major role in our everyday social life and we should make it part of our everyday class learning.

In the next part the author provides some guidelines for the actual use of humour and some practical examples will follow the guidelines. Proper preparation is considered as the key element. In doing so ,the following point should be remembered:

1. Don't try too hard. Let humour arise naturally, encourage it, don't force it.

2. Do what fits your personality. Never force it, it won't work.

3. Don't use private humour or humour that leaves people out. Your goal is not to become a comedian. It shouldn’t make fun of any particular group, nationality, etc ...

4. Make humour an integral part of your class, rather than something special. With practice you will develop a style and comfort zone with humour. The use of humour will depend on the content you are teaching and the availability of appropriate humorous material.

5. Humour and cartoons should be related to what your are doing in the classroom. It is useful, on occasion, to present a cartoon on an overhead projector as students come into class.

6. Interpretation, discussion and analysis will vary on the proficiency of your class. The humour must be comprehensible, with themes that your students can relate to. keep it simple, with a specific objective. Don’t use it for multidimensional purposes.

The author suggests the use of multi panels since They provide more material for communicative questioning and discussion.It is important to decide beforehand why you want to use it and how you want to use it. The absence of a title or any written dialogue allows your students to use their imagination and express themselves orally or in written form. It is motivating and interesting to have students suggest a before and after sequence to the situation illustrated by the cartoon. Another approach is to ask your students to actually create, or imagine the dialogue for each panel. It could be an opportunity to introduce or review expressions of emotion. For example one could use a cartoon that depicts, what one would assume, is a mother scolding her child. However, in the final panel we discover that it is the house pet.Moreover you may want to examine the role of intonation and stress related to such a situation. Vocabulary work begins immediately with the presentation of the first panel, when the class begins to describe the scene and brainstorm what they see and understand to be happening. Open-ended communicative questions force students to go beyond a simple "yes" or "no". They can write the story as if reporting the news for a newspaper Another option is to have students write out the dialogue.. Such an exercise is motivating and enables you to see if students have mastered, in written form, the point of grammar, structure, vocabulary or expressions of emotions you have taught and have examined with them.

As a conclusion the author believes that humour enables you not only to create an affective or positive environment, but is a source of enjoyment for you and your students. Language is seen in authentic and real life situations. The point is that As with all language activities care must be taken to prepare students before the activity and guide them along the way. Specific goals and objectives must be pre-established and clear in the mind of the teacher. Humour, along with encouragement and praise should be one of the many useful tools used by language teachers to make their classrooms more inviting to learning.

The first thing that absorbs me is the topic area of the article which is different and new. Although there was not enough literature available on the topic,the author provided simple and comprehensible facts about it. Starting from the importance in everyday real life situations up to its pedagogical values.The language was smooth and moving and the reader felt willing to follow the logical and neat order that the ideas were presented. The importance of the subject was demonstrated in an acceptable way.Also the reasons for looking down on the subject were counted and countered reasonably. There were some practical and useful guidelines, which was of importance ,since a full demonstration oof the topic needed practical examples to convince the reader. Specially the parts dealing with how different skills can be developed by the use of cartoons and humour was of interest. Since the pedagogical aspect of using humour is of primary importance for some teachers. I think the limitation of the study was that it was merely devoted to examples of cartoon while there can be a number of different practical and useful examples. So it would be better if the author provided some other examples as well as the cartoons.sAs the title suggests the reader assumes she’s going to find different examples of humour ,but not just cartoons.All in all the importance of the use of humour and its advantages and practicality was demonstrated in a good way.