Humor in a Language Learning Process

How do you say a “mother-in-law” in French? Do you know? I bet when I tell you, you’d never forget. A mother-in-law in French is called “belle-mère” meaning “beautiful mother”. Who had thought about it? Interesting, isn’t it?

I still remember the French Beginner class I was taking online to learn French because if you’re in Quebec, Canada, you must be able to speak some level of French. In one of those classes, we were learning the names of people in French and when we came across this, we did have a little laugh. I remember our professor saying, I’m not sure why that’s called a beautiful mother but that’s how it is.

I remembered this word. It was different and unique. I don’t remember most words but I sure remember mother-in-law, father-in-law, and all the French words surrounding this subtopic, including mother, beautiful, father. I retained these words without trouble.

Why am I sharing that experience? I’m sharing that to tell you why humor is important and how humor works in real life. As a learner myself, I retained words which involved humor (of any sort). I retained the words surrounding those topics. I have good memories of learning French due to the elements of humor and I’m able to relate it to my native language Urdu in many ways. When I retained those as a person who was not good at remembering new words, imagine the effect it potentially has on young brains when the learning includes elements of fun and humor.

While my experience from learning French reminds me the importance of humor during a learning experience, this topic has been heavily researched. Research shows multiple benefits of including humor in a classroom from an educator perspective, and how it helps in a language classroom. Here are 4 reasons why humor is important in a language class.

1. Conducive Learning Environment

Including humor in a language class reflects a conducive learning environment to learners of all ages. How? Humor creates a positive and relaxed environment in the classroom that supports and encourages class participation. It lightens the atmosphere for learning and reduces the anxiety of structured learning.

2. Reduce Anxiety and Stress

Learning a language may be overwhelming for kids. Within this process, factors such as new words, pronunciation, grammar, syntax, make it even more stressful. Research calls this type of anxiety a Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), which inhibits learning. However, humor helps to reduce this stress.

I often like to recall my recent experience of learning French as a Foreign Language. I felt tremendous stress from the classroom environment with a plethora of new words, my struggle with the pronunciation, the rapid pace and repetition of similar words. I felt conscious about the way I was pronouncing French words, especially during the class. However, each time the instructor brought jokes or laughs, my consciousness diminished. Although not completely, but it did. 

I reflected that these issues reduce the learner’s motivation, especially at the beginner level. With my reflection from a personal experience, I relate to how the kids may feel while learning a new language.

3. Retain Retention and Attention

During the language learning process, humor can be a powerful tool in improving retention in kids of all ages. Since humor brings emotional excitement, the retention of words, phrases, and new concepts tends to stick, and the brain functions more actively.

How well do you remember some of the funny shows that you have watched in your childhood? Let me know in the comments below.

An easy way to bring humor is to share jokes, riddles, tongue twisters, and much more in that language. 

4. Boosts Confidence

When kids can comprehend the joke, which is meant to be either culturally or linguistically alien, their confidence in learning that specific language automatically boosts. They feel more comfortable with the new language. With comprehension and confidence, kids also develop sociolinguistic competence. It’s important to remember,

“There is nothing so unfunny as explaining humor in detail.”

– (Kristiansen, 2001)

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Teacher Tip: Humor also improves the approachability of teachers. Kids are more likely to perceive a teacher with humor as more approachable than one who is serious.

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While humor does wonders in a language learning process, remember to include it in the right way. If done incorrectly, humor could also lead to social isolation, marginalization, and embarrassment. Here are three do’s and don’ts while including humor and laughter during a language learning process.

DO’s:

• Age-appropriate and culturally relevant
• Content-related, which may as well be sandwiched between instruction and repetition.
• Encourages inclusivity and laughter to provide a sense of community.

DON’T’s

• Sarcasm or demeaning an individual or group of people
• Disrespectful to any individual or a group of people
• Forced, off-topic, or excessive humor for the sake of including humor

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References

Reddington, E. (2015). Humor and play in language classroom interaction: A review of the literature. Studies in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, 15(2).

Horwitz, E. K. (2010). Foreign and second language anxiety. Language teaching, 43(2), 154.

Bell, N. D. (2006). Interactional adjustments in humorous intercultural communication. Intercultural Pragmatics, 3(1), 1-28.

Wulf, D. (2010). A humor competence curriculum. TESOL Quarterly, 44(1), 155-169.

Lems, K. (2013). Laughing All the Way: Teaching English Using Puns. In English Teaching Forum (Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 26-33). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037.