A bit of a laugh ;-)?

[Torsten]

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Hello everyone. How important an ingredient do you think is laughter and humor to learning a language? For example, do you think that an English teacher should use humor in the classroom or would that make it harder for you to concentrate? Since humor can come in all forms and variations, it often might lead to confusion too. That's why it's vital to try and use a kind of humor that is understood by people with different cultural backgrounds and ways of thinking.

So how humorous a person are you?
Thanks,
Torsten

PS: You might want to have a bit of a laugh ...
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Alan]

Hi Torsten,

On the humour topic I'd just like to chip in with a comment. I get really annoyed when people say: Oh old *** hasn't got a sense of humour. That's rubbish. Everyone has a sense of humour but as you suggest, it's difficult to strike the right note especially when you're teaching. From my personal experience when I used to teach in front of a class, if I didn't get at least one chuckle/laugh/chortle or one element of mirth during a class, I felt I had failed.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story A day in the life of a student teacher

[Edgarcosco]

Hello Torsten;
I think when the teacher teachs English the student does not need to speak very hard, special when they are younger.
Sometimes in clasroom they are old man then they need to speak without a sense of humor.
Thank you
Edgar

[Prezbucky]

May we tell jokes here? Ah, well, you know what they say: shoot first and ask questions later (l8r to some of today's teens).

This guy walks into a bar. What does he say?

--"Ouch!"

A man is sitting at a bar. He motions the bartender over and says, "Hey, man, see that jar in the corner of the room? I'll bet you ten bucks I can piss, from here (twenty feet away), and get all of the urine into that jar. Not one drop will fall outside of the jar."

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, the bartender readily takes the bet. "He couldn't get it all into that jar from five feet, much less 20. This'll be an easy ten bucks!"

So the customer lets flicker all over the place. He pees on the bar, the walls, the jukebox, everywhere. The place quickly begins to reek of piss.

The bartender says, "Thanks for the ten bucks, man!"

The pisser claps, cheers himself, and happily hands over the $10.

The bartender is nonplussed at this guy's triumphant attitude.

"Yo dude, why are you so happy? You just lost a ten-dollar bet!"

The customer turns to a back corner of the bar, gestures toward it and says:

"Ya see that old man back there in the corner? Well I bet him twenty bucks that I could piss all over the room and you wouldn't be angry."
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Torsten]

Hi everyone,

If you have a good sense of humor or want to develop one, you should have A bit of a laugh ...
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[NinaZara]

It's hard to say how important humor is but I think it's nice if teachers can put it to a good use, like giving advice.

My Japanese language teacher taught me to use the dictionary by pulling my leg in front of the class. There was this one day when we were going through a list of words during a comprehension class. Then in the middle of his explanation he used a word that I didn't know so I blurted "What does that mean?". I guess I had a bad habit of interrupting back then.

With a very straight face he said, "Oh, it's a type of cake served only to the royals". I said "Oh..." while nodding my head, even though I thought it was weird. Then I heard the class giggling. When I still hadn't the idea of what was going on, my friend who was sitting in front of me told me, "Nina, Jafar-sensei is just pulling your leg."

With this disbelief face I looked up at him and so he smiled and said, "Why don't you look it up in the dictionary. The one that I wrote."

And so he went on lecturing on how hard he had worked on putting the dictionary together and on how students are just too lazy to use it.

My friends thought he was funny, I didn't. In retrospect, yes. At least he made me use the dictionary.

[Yankee]

.
Native and non-native speakers alike are capable of making verbal bloopers that can be quite humorous. We had an example of that just the other day when someone attempted to offer an explanation of what "ZZZZ" means. The explanatory sentence was never finished -- as though the person had started snoring away before he was able to type in the final critical word (or words). Whether intentional or unintentional, the effect of that unfinished sentence was especially funny in the context.
.
.
EDIT:
I see the humorous version of that sentence has now become a non-humorous version (i.e. the original sentence has been changed). So much for humor.
.

[Nader Zare Sadeghi]

Hi Mr. Alan Townend.
Thank you very much. You are very interesting man and I like this kind of people.

I am Nader zare sadeghi from IRAN and i am ready to understand the world.
I have 61 years old and I am retired from ministry of justice I have educated for 30 years and I have worked for 30 years in morning in court and 30 years in afternoon have worked in other place and now I must work for 30 years again and I must live in 30 years total of that is 150 years you see I am the oldest man in the world.

You know why I say to you but you must not say this to anyone else ok could you promise this matter ok I will say to you I have two sosn and one wife just one hear the man can marriage with 4 wife in contemporary one time but I have one you see I must fall in unfortunately like that.

This is why I am in work and work and work like a donkey I think if I am being there I work one shift and live good but hear I must work 25 hours a day.

Anyway now I do not know I have 61 years old or 91 years. Last week I have dialogue with my friend he was joke with me so I say to him if I dead the people must interment me and when this happened from my body will grow up the plant and it take flowers and one girl who were 14 years old come and get that flower and take it to between her breast or installation in her hair this flower is me but if you dead from your body will grow up plant too but one sheep or cow eat that and it will relieve nature and this must be you my friend was angry of me. Anyway i think I have palaver.

thanks again
nader zare sadeghi

[Jamie (K)]

I once had to give private lessons in another language (not English) to two students who were learning together.

The woman was a very serious student and tried very hard. She was losing patience with the man, because he was constantly asking me to tell him how to say completely ridiculous things in the language. He had me helping him construct sentences about disgusting foods, crazy ways to introduce himself, weird descriptions of people, strange comments of various sorts, and the woman was getting very annoyed by it all.

At the end of two semesters, the man not only knew all the funny stuff he'd learned, but he also had a much better command of the regular material than the woman did. This is because for all that time, his brain had been amusing him by cycling all the humor through his head all the time, and it had been teaching itself to construct lots of variations on the funny things he'd learned. This practice transferred to the everyday language, as well.

A lot of the success of humor in the classroom depends on the type of humor. I don't like to teach with "funny stories", but I have a habit picked up from my father of playing all kinds of tricks with words, just to amuse myself. Plus, I really like colloquial English a lot. Most of my students enjoy this, because they seem to think they learn from it. In fact, most of my students think one guy in their class has lost his mind, because every time I use some slangy idiom, he writes it down in his notes. Another semester a lawyer and a blue-collar worker got into an argument in my class, because I was teaching English baby talk, and the lawyer told me to stop. The laborer told her to shut up and learn it, saying, "You NEED that!" A few years later, I saw the worker in a restaurant, and his English is now almost perfect, but the lawyer's English is still horrible.

[Prezbucky]

I would think it'd be tough to chase ambulances without the ability to translate street signs. hehe
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Nurdan]

I tottaly agree with you on the point that we should use humourin lessons. Moreover, I insist on using it in every stage of our lives.I think it's so alike music; you cannot keep it aloof.In my opinion laughing or making people laugh makes you closer to people in the society and enables you make friends easily.I love laughing at myself too, especially when I am in an awkward situation such as slipping on an icy weather with a lot of shopping bags in my hand,cabbages and tomato paste on my head ... hahahahhahahahah,

Thanks Torsten for your unique speeches which make me feel rather self confidant.

Nurdan, love from TÜRKİYE

[Farah]

hi alen ..,.

thanks for your always email its really very helpful to me your material really its excellent your way of teaching really very good thank u so much

farah

[Jeneizsuzsa]

Humor and laugher have been very important in my life.I cannot imagine to live without it. So I think it can be used in language learning, as I found the latest english-test.net lesson very useful, because it made me happier and cleverer (though I knew where Azores were - my hobby is sailing, but I still could not reach the Sea, our best place for it the Lake Balaton...)

[Indah Tusmiati]

i don't know from where I would like to start my opinion. basically i need the humor so much cause it can entertain my days.
but I'm so calm and always keep in heart what I think , what I feel , everything...
my hobby just playing piano , it can express anything what have been happened these days. It's very surprise that I only can laugh and smile with my music

[Joao Fonseca]

Hi good morning, today it is a beutiful sunny morning, even though it is rainy time. cool wind. ok, about my humor I am the kind of easy going. Abou the book I´ve already made the purchase, now I am anxious waiting for. Again I jot down, this is the best site of English learning that I have ever visited.
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Joao Mª H. Fonseca
Your last mistake is your best teacher.