DRAMA – 6

This week, firstly, we talked about “humor”. Humor is an important and

effective element in teaching and learning process. It contributes to a positive
environment for learning; it reduces tension, increases comfort and enjoyment,
increases student-teacher rapport, increases the student’s ability to absorb
knowledge and facilitates learning. "Classrooms in which laughter is welcome
help bring learning to life." So as teachers, we should create a welcoming
classroom for language learning. If there is a positive classroom atmosphere in
which students feel motivated, comfortable and safe and in which there is no fear
of criticism or being ridiculed, they feel that they are a part of the class and in
this way, they take risks and participate in the class. When they take risks, even
if they make mistakes or give incorrect answers, with the help of fun, learning
and participating in class can be fun and exciting.

Fun is nature’s reward for learning. If there is no fun in the class, we

cannot mention about real learning. So we should use humor in the class. We
shouldn’t see humor as an uncontrolled trait. It shouldn’t be interpreted as a loss
of control. We shouldn’t be afraid of using humor, but we should know its
limitations. We should let humor arise naturally. We should be careful not to
overuse it. We should avoid sarcasm, humiliation and jokes related to cultural,
religion, customs, or racial issues and we shouldn’t forget that using humor, like
teaching, has to be well prepared.

The best thing about the use of humor in the classroom is that even if our
joke bombs, it still accomplishes the goal of appearing light-hearted, but of
course, as long as we can laugh at ourselves! So we should know to ridicule from
ourselves.  We shouldn’t forget that if there is not fun in the class, there is a
problem in our classroom management.

"The job of the teacher is to get students laughing, and when their mouths
are open, to give them something on which to chew." Then who can argue with
the fact that learning is the most effective when it’s fun?

Secondly, we talked about categories of humor and chose which ones we

can use in our class. These are jokes, riddles, puns, funny stories, humorous
comment, oxymorons, Murphy’s law, parodies, limericks, deadpan, knock-knock,
ironies and slapstick.

Munise ÖZTÜRK