Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 5; August 1999

These short jokes are ones that are current in Norway and focus on the large neighbour to the East, Sweden

"Do you know what you will find if you dive down in the deep end of a Swedish swimming pool?"

"No idea."

"You'll see a huge notice on the bottom SMOKING STRICTLY FORBIDDEN !"

Democratic Swedish designers built a plane for poor people who can't afford normal airfares. The technical secret of this plane was that it had no floor - the passengers simply had to hang from straps attached to the ceiling.

One day this plane was flying over the Alps and began losing height. The Captain came over the tannoy:

"One of you will have to let go and since there are 50 Swedes on board and 51 Norwegians, one of the Norwegians must let go."

All the Swedes clapped !

"Do you know what it says on the road sign just before you come to a roundabout in Sweden?"

"It says: YOU MAY ONLY GO ROUND 7 TIMES !"

"Why do Swedes sit by the window smiling when there is a thunder storm ?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Simple: they think they are having their picture taken! "

A Swede, a Dane and a Norwegian were walking in the forest one day when they met a fearsome Troll who naturally wanted to eat them.

"I'll spare your lives if you manage to tell me to do one thing I can't do "

The Swede said : "Look at that mountain. Eat it!" The Troll did and then he ate the Swede.

The Dane said: "Look at that lake over there. Drink it! " The Troll did and then he ate the Dane.

The Norwegian farted and said: "Catch my fart and paint it green!"

The Norwegian was allowed to go on his way.

"Any idea why Swedes drive in the middle of the road?

"To avoid the wild flowers in the ditches either side!"

Teaching note: you may feel you can't deal with words like "fart" when teaching English but all over the world boys of 10-14 will have long mother tongue conversations about this area of bio-chemistry. If you teach middle-school then why not take your courage in both hands and tell them stories that they will repeat in L1 to their friends? You can easily substitute local stereotypes for the three nationalities above, stereotypes the kids will relate to.

Working with adult classes on language and culture courses I have used the above jokes to ask the students to hypothesise about Norwegian values and the sort of stereotype Norwegians have of Swedes. With European and Latin American groups I have asked them to compare their own stereotypes of Sweden with those of the Norwegians, some of Sweden's closest neighbours.