Learning to Laugh
Daniel Martín del Otero
Daniel Martín del Otero is an English teacher at Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Astorga (Spain). He tries to integrate humor with meaningful activities in the English classroom. E-mail: danielmartin67@yahoo.com
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Physical and mental benefits of laughter
Practical teaching ideas using humor
1. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
2. The golf lesson
Stand-up comedy and grammar
Comic props
Further teaching considerations
"Many a truth be told in jest". Geoffrey Chaucer.
"Humor is also a way of saying something serious". T.S.Eliot.
According to physicians, the therapeutic and overall well-being manifestations of laughter are almost endless. Extensive research on this area shows the following biochemical and physiological benefits of laughter:
- A sudden burst of laughter may trigger up to four hundred muscle movements. It works out abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg and back muscles. It induces muscles to relax and massages internal organs like the heart and lungs.
- Laughter will increase T cell count and boost your immune system so that infections can be fought more effectively. It is a proven fact that AIDS or cancer patients actively involved in laughter therapy programs are in a better position to overcome their medical conditions or at least to increase their quality of life. Laughter has an immediate symptom-relieving effect for these patients.
- Laughter can only definitely help in instances of anxiety, depression, insomnia, distress, low self-esteem or bad relationships. It calms the nervous system, lifts our mood and makes us more resistant to stress.
- Laughing improves respiration and circulation as our lungs will start pumping twelve liters of blood through the system as opposed to the average of six, which will affect the quality of breathing and will increase blood oxygenation. It also lowers heart rate and blood pressure.
- Laughing lowers levels of the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenalin and cortisol.
- Laughing has extensive beneficial effects on the neurochemical balance.
- When we laugh the brain releases natural pain killing biochemical compounds called endorphins. The word "endorphin" is an abbreviation of "endogenous morphine", that is, "morphine produced naturally in the body". Endorphins work as natural pain killers released from the pituitary gland into the blood and the spinal cord. They also send signals to lymphocytes and other cells to fight viruses and bacteria. Laughing also helps the body increase release of the pleasure chemical dopamine.
Bring a student or group of students to the front of the class and ask them to close their eyes and picture themselves in the middle of the Antarctic. It is extremely cold there. They are freezing. They need to rub their arms as their whole bodies are shaking. You may expand this story you are creating to suit the needs of you curriculum by providing adjectives related to moods and feelings, weather terms, use of imperative, verbs of movement and so on. Next tell them that in order to endure the hardships of the extreme weather at that location you have turned them into reindeers. Now they feel pretty comfortable. It is actually quite warm. At this point I take out a set of reindeer antlers that I keep in the classroom closet -theatrical apparel is an essential tool in my teaching practice- and place it on my head. The students may open their eyes now. Ask them to nod their heads and laugh with the different vowel sounds of the English language. Ask them now to move their head sideways. Lead the laughing session as you introduce the different sounds. Laugh extremely loud. Pull faces. Wiggle your body. Make a fool of yourself. Beware: the rest of the students will follow suit and the laughter this time will be of a contagious kind. On a more rigorous level you may decide to invest more time later on in practicing certain sounds in particular with a more serious and structured lesson.
You need a student to come to the front of the classroom. You may have introduced the topic of sports already and the students will have discussed in groups relevant questions to the topic as well as having covered relevant vocabulary and being exposed to audiovisual material. If that is the case, this is a great activity to round off your series of lessons on the topic. Alternatively, you may decide to do this activity in order to spark off interest on the topic prior to your series of lessons on it by raising laughter in the classroom and, as a result, warming up their minds and bodies. The topic of sports is covered to a greater or lesser extent by all course books at various linguistic competences so you will be able to do this activity with different groups and you will need to adapt the vocabulary and expressions to meet your students' needs and level of English. The more you try it, the more experience you gain as far as anticipating your audience reactions and, therefore, the better you get at it and the more comfortable and excited you feel. Here it goes: ask your student if they have ever played golf before. If yes, you are going to improve their game. If not, you are going to teach them the very basics. You may use an umbrella or some other improvised object as a golf club or nothing at all. Create some space in the classroom for your lesson. Ask your student to place the tee in the ground, rest the ball on the tee -several times for it just keeps falling off the tee-, hold the club firmly… Other useful verbs could be: wiggle, swing, twirl, strike, raise, etc. Devise a long series of unsuccessful attempts including but not limited to your student hitting your hand with the club, the grass getting vandalized, your student not being able to hit the ball at all repeatedly, finally hitting the ball but sending someone in the class to hospital with a black eye, etc. Fuel some humorous and sarcastic comments as disaster strikes. When the lesson is over make sure that you ask the whole class to give a big round to the student for the participation and effort. Next divide the class into groups. Each group is going to choose a different sport and create a short lesson. The students will be teaching the teacher this time. Circulate to help out with vocabulary queries, pronunciation and provide suggestions. Finally let the students teach you. Enjoy. This activity combines humor and interpersonal interaction as well as kinesthetic and audiovisual elements, which makes learning effective and meaningful.
Once again, before you teach a particular grammar point or to round it off you may decide to bring some stand-up comedy into your classroom. Sometimes you may be able to find interesting material while delving into your own personal or teaching experience. You may try to find some peculiar stories online or use somebody else's comedy material and adapt it to your students' needs. If nothing of the above can help, you might as well make a story up. Needless to say, you will need to make exaggerated use of the focal grammatical point to be exercised and you may also boost the learning potential by interspersing the latest vocabulary or phrases you have been teaching. Your students will pay you undivided attention if you offer them something worth listening to as opposed to tedious grammar drills void of content and emotional impact. Accompany this with body language, proper voice projection, intrigue and possibly theatrical props et voila! Observe the use of future tenses in this extract from comedian Jerry Seinfeld (will say/won't even exist/we'll all wear/they're all wearing/this is going to be/we're going to start). We need not memorize the story in order to tell it verbatim. We may expand it, shorten it or simplify it.
I am so tired of having to come up with another little outfit for myself everyday. In fact, I will say this---and I think many people agree with me---I think eventually fashion won't even exist. I think someday we'll all wear the same thing. Because anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there are people from the future or another planet, they're all wearing the same outfit. Somehow they all decided, "All right, that's enough. From now on, this is going to be our outfit. One-piece silver jump suit, with a V-stripe on the chest, and boots. That's it. We're going to start visiting other planets and we want to look like a team."
Source: www.innocentenglish.com/Jerry-seinfeld-routine.html
Flea markets and discount stores are, among others, handy places to stock up on comic props that can be used at some time or another in the classroom. Here is a list of different items that I keep in my classroom closet which help me instill laughter in my teaching practice: a microphone, a mobile phone, a fart machine, a collection of wigs, football and basketball replica shirts, bracelets, a Dracula cape, a Santa Claus beard, a set of reindeer antlers. They draw the students' attention on top of bringing excitement to the activity you have devised and, of course, they create an atmosphere conducive to learning.
Door signs
Intrigue your students as they come into the classroom by posting a large notice on the door. I am always looking for old calendars, old posters, or A-3 paper sitting in the recycle bin for this purpose. Let us say you have planned to do the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer activity. Think of something that you could write and post on your door to spark off curiosity. "Today you will have the last laugh", "Reindeers are a good laugh", "Watch out for the rain, dear". Let us say you are doing the golf lesson: "Meet Tiger Woods today", "Anyone fancy a game of golf?", "Welcome to St. Andrews" could be possible lines. Your students may have a question or two regarding the notices. Give vague answers and keep them even more intrigued to build up momentum.
I will not discuss the use of jokes in the classroom in this paper. Jokes are a magnificent way of bringing laughter into your teaching practice on top of being excellent methodological materials. We are all aware of this fact as extensive research has been carried out on this issue.
A good sense of humor and a positive attitude is definitely recommended to handle lack of interest or lack of discipline in your classes. Sometimes it is very difficult or perhaps even impossible to change the way people are. However, we can most certainly change the way we process our thoughts and our reactions so that undesired behaviors will not harm us and other people surrounding us. In other cases, by making the decision of staying in good spirits and not taking things personally we may actually be able to reverse negativity or misbehavior instilled by certain individuals in the classroom. In other words, send the message: "I know what you are doing and I do not want to take offense. This is what I am giving you in return because I want to embrace every single one of you so that I can get my work done and we all can have a good time as well".
Laughter provides an emotional context to the content we are trying to convey. Content and context go hand by hand. Context without content is air, a mere pastime, superficiality. Content without context deprives our brains of a tag that is needed for future retrieval of words or phrases. Long-term memory requires context for active language competence.
One final consideration: think outside the box. Do not let the teacher's notes of your current textbook limit you. Take a quick glance at what you want to cover for the day and imagine possible scenarios that can capture your students' attention. Be determined to bring laughter with you. Then see what the teacher's notes have to offer and be the judge of what is needed and how is going to be applied.
Please check the Fun, Laughter and Learning course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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