Humor in the Language Classroom

Humor in the classroom is always a welcome aspect.  In Spanish 4, I created a unit around humor.  This year I added humor found on Twitter.  It was easy to find Tweets with jokes in the target language; the challenge was finding jokes that were funny AND school appropriate.

I used the below paper of Spanish tweets with jokes as a warm-up.  We read the jokes together and I, or other students, helped clarify the jokes in Spanish, to anyone in the class that didn't understand the joke.

 

To download the above paper, click HERE. 

Click HERE for the  link to the powerpoint of jokes I used in class.


I have a Pinterest board "Funny/chistes" at:
 http://www.pinterest.com/srahitz/funny-chistes/ 
with some funny pins that I share with my students. 

Using humor in the classroom creates a relaxing, safe zone, conducive to learning.  Humor makes the class more enjoyable, allows the students to focus on the context and communication, and opens up the pathways to learning.  As some say:

Resource for Discussion Questions, Jokes, Games

This is a short post to share a site that I had bookmarked at one point, but had not returned to the site since I bookmarked it.  The page on the site that will be useful in my upper level classes for discussions in the target language is called "Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom" (a project of the Internet TESL Journal).  This page has a long list of discussion topics. When you click on a topic, you'll be directed to another page with possible questions concerning that particular topic.  The questions are written in English (since it is meant to be used with English learners), which means any MFL teacher will be able to use the questions when they translate them to the language they are teaching.  

This website includes other resources too.  Under the title there are tabs to click on such as: Games and JOKES! (I enjoy using jokes in the TL). 

In regards to the Games Tab, I'm very particular in any games I play during class time because they need to pass my test on whether they are helping to acquire the language rather than simply a fun activity.  There are some good ideas in the Games Tab, but I may need to alter them as necessary.  An example of a popular game that is altered to improve it is Martina Bex's version of BINGO.  
 
Hopefully, this resource will prove useful for you.
  
Happy discussions!

Jokes in the TPRS classroom

http://youtu.be/GHX2mvFVQMs

Last month I was reading a blog in which someone made reference to a handout that was posted on Bryce Hedstrom's blog regarding a workshop that Bryce did on how to include jokes into your TPRS material (The handout is called: STORIES WORTH RE-TELLING: How to Teach with Jokes). I have a unit in Spanish 4 on comedy in which I tell jokes to the students, but for some reason I didn't even think of using jokes with my level 1 students. That opened up a whole new arena of possibilities.

Two weeks ago while searching for material to use for my Spanish 4 class, I came across a TV commercial that was perfect for my Spanish 1 students. Since yesterday was a Friday, I thought it was the great time to change things up with a joke. First, I listed 3 new structures on the board. They were:
- habla en voz baja (o alta)
- biblioteca
- es maleducado (which I ended up not even using in the joke because no one is rude in the joke)

After we had practice the new structures, I straight up told the students that I was going to tell them a joke. The actual joke doesn't take much time. I could have added things to the story to include more vocabulary (i.e. she was blond, wearing a blue dress, etc), but I wanted to keep it short because we had other materials to review from the previous day.

The joke: (Click on the image above to link to the video of the commercial.)

Una mujer va a la biblioteca.

Entra la biblioteca y camina a la bibliotecaria (o a la persona que trabaja en la biblioteca).

La mujer habla en voz alta y le dice a la bibliotecaria, “Yo quiero una hamburguesa, papas fritas, y Coca Cola.”

La bibliotecaria mira a la mujer. ¡Qué extraño! La mujer está a la biblioteca y ella quiere comida.

La bibliotecaria le responde, “Esta es una biblioteca.”

La mujer mira a la bibliotecaria, y luego mira a las otras personas en la biblioteca y los libros en los estantes.

Luego, la mujer repite, pero esta vez le habla en voz baja a la bibliotecaria, ““Yo quiero una hamburguesa, papas fritas, y Coca Cola.”