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Humorous Technique of
Teaching Essay Development
Susan Olajoke Akinkurolere
Levels High beginner (can be adjusted up and down) Aims Increase awareness of paragraph types in essay writing Develop paragraphs for essay writing Class Time 35–45 minutes Preparation Time 15–20 minutes Resources Paper, pens, and markers Chart of family members (see Appendix) Cardboard Pins
Mastering the composing process of an essay assists students in developing
a full-length essay. Every ideal essay must have the basic components of para- graph types: introductory paragraph, transitional paragraph(s), and concluding paragraph. The types of paragraph that make up an essay could be likened and compared to family roles to amuse students and arouse their interest in essay development and writing. This activity helps students develop their essay writ- ing through a cooperative writing process that is humorous.
PROCEDURE
- Explain the three basic types of paragraph in an essay to the students.
- Divide students into teams of five or six of mixed sex.
- Bring each team to a table with chairs.
- Write the topic to be developed on the board, and explain that each team will develop the essay topic as members of the same family.
- Allow students on each team to appoint two parents. Other members of the team will be the children. The teacher can also assist in assigning roles.
Humorous Technique of Teaching Essay Development | 3
- The sitting arrangement should be in the order of Parent 1, Child 1, Child 2, Child 3, and Parent 2, depending on the number of students in a team. The students that are regarded as children should sit between the two parents. Hence, the sitting arrangement should be employed in explaining paragraph types’ arrangement.
- Fix stickers made from cardboard that indicate family positions to clothes to avoid confusion in the course of writing.
- Draw students’ attention to the chart on the board with different types of paragraph assigned to the parents and children (see Appendix).
- The codes should be interpreted thus: Parent 1-I (introduction), Children- T1, T2, T3 (transitional paragraph 1, transitional paragraph 2, and transi- tional paragraph 3), and Parent 2-C (conclusion).
- Each team should commence writing the essay in this way: The first parent writes the first paragraph and gives it to the first child, each child writes a transitional paragraph, and the last paragraph is completed by the second parent.
- The essay is submitted to the teacher for assessment when each team fin- ishes writing.
CAVEATS AND OPTIONS
- The number of paragraphs you want students to develop will determine the number of students on a team.
- You can give the same topic to all the teams.
- The level of the students should determine topics that will be employed in the explanation and practice of essay development.
- You could make the students practice another topic with different paragraph types from the initially assigned types in another class.
- A family picture chart that demonstrates father and mother with children in between could be hung or drawn on the board.
4 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
Spin the Yarn
Beena Anil
Levels Any
Aims Develop narrative and creative skills through humorous pictures and stories Enhance inter/intra-personality skills Develop communicative skills and confidence in public speaking
Class Time 7–10 minutes
Preparation Time 10–15 minutes
Resources Self-drawn pictures or pictures from Facebook, WhatsApp, newspapers, or magazines
For ages, teachers have come up with unique ways to teach students, but
the current trend is slightly modified from the teaching of discrete grammatical structures to the fostering of communicative ability. Multimedia is a boon in the classroom, and colorful visual presentations always attract students to learn a new concept in an infotainment manner. Applications like WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook mesmerize youngsters and can help them learn English in an interesting and effective way. Visuals can be used to develop the correlative thinking skills of students. Students’ creative, analytical, and productive skills can be honed by using colorful pictures or self-made stories. As a result, stu- dents’ communicative skills can be improved as well.
PROCEDURE
- You can draw simple humorous pictures and upload them to a computer as snapshots (see samples in the Appendix). Or you can download humorous pictures from applications like WhatsApp, Hike, and others that are available on mobile phones and can make the process of learning English interactive and interesting
- Divide the class into small groups, and make students narrate the story or describe the given pictures.
- Instruct learners to unleash their imaginative skills by looking at the fun- filled series of pictures that you provided.
6 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
- Learners can narrate stories on their own by using their implicit knowledge I of grammar.
- Learners should not be restricted with one version of their interpretation but can be encouraged to give more versions, especially with a sting of humor.
- Each narration or interpretation becomes original and eventually develops students’ socio-psycho behavioral skills in the classroom.
CAVEATS AND OPTIONS
- Monotonous interpretation should be avoided.
- Students’ level of interest or mood in learning should be considered.
- Simple ideas should be used to minimize boredom among learners.
- Picture interpretation or narration helps learners develop their interest in considering English as a language rather than a subject.
APPENDIX: Sample Pictures and Stories
Picture Story 1: The Umbrella Nest
Mary is happy to be in the rain, as her beautiful new umbrella keeps her dry� However, the umbrella is unable to withstand the power of a sudden storm. The umbrella flies away, but then a father crow gets a brilliant idea and takes it to his family to convert into a nest� Now, the crow family lives happily together in their new umbrella nest�
Spin the Yarn | 7
Passive Pictures I
Walton Burns
Levels Low-intermediate (but can be adapted to any level depending on the target language)
Aims Understand and practice word order in the passive voice
Learn the meaning of the passive voice
Class Time 20 minutes
Preparation Time 10 minutes
Resources Paper
Pens or markers
S tudents often get confused when using the passive because the structure
puts the grammatical object in the subject position. This method of presenting passive demonstrates how mistakes can lead to saying something unintended. In this way, it draws attention to the role of grammar as a mediator of meaning, rather than a set of dry rules. The fact that switching the subject and object of a passive sentence often results in a humorous image helps students remember the correct word order better. Used as an error-correction method, humor soft- ens the blow of making a mistake.
PROCEDURE
- Draw two pictures and hang them up in front of the classroom. One pic- ture should illustrate the sentence “Sarah was eaten by the cake,” while the other should illustrate “The cake was eaten by Sarah.” Write the two sen- tences on the board.
- Ask students to decide which picture illustrates which sentence. Draw attention to the fact that the only difference between the sentences is the position of the words “the cake” and “Sarah,” the subject and object of the verb. Now ask which sentence is more likely to be a useful thing to say.
- If necessary, repeat the steps with other pictures (see Appendix).
- Put the students into groups and hand each group a set of sentences. Ask them to illustrate each sentence, and then have them share their sentences and pictures with another pair.
Passive Pictures | 9
CAVEATS AND OPTIONS
- After students illustrate the two sentences, they can hang their pictures up on the wall around the classroom. The other students can go around and guess which picture illustrates which sentence and which sentence is the more likely of the two.
- You can keep the cake pictures in front of the class to remind students of word order in the passive voice. Pointing to these pictures makes for a mild form of error correction when students get the word order wrong in passive sentences.
- For homework, students can write a story fitting one of the silly sentences into it, such as a horror story about a people-eating cake. This provides fun practice writing in the passive voice.
- This method can be adapted to fit almost any grammar point. I have used it to target the difference between the past perfect and past simple as well as subjects and objects. It can also be used to target commonly mistaken words or common pronunciation issues, such as the dangers of failing to articu- late p and b clearly, with pictures of “Barking at the peach” and “Parking at the beach.”
APPENDIX
Sample sentence pairs to give students The man was bitten by the dog� / The dog was bitten by the man� The criminal was arrested / The policeman was arrested by the policeman� by the criminal� The man was given a bicycle� / The bicycle was given a man� Sean was bitten by a snake� / A snake was bitten by Sean� The hamburger was cooked by my Mom� / My Mom was cooked by the hamburger� Anna was hit by the ball� / The ball was hit by Anna� My friend was brought by the book� / The book was brought by my friend�
10 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
- Model the activity by using one of the chosen images (perhaps one with the caption cut off ), and elicit captions from students as part of a group brainstorm.
- Teach and assist students in practicing the following discussion frames that are useful in negotiating meaning: . a. What if we use the title ______________________________________?
b. What if [character X] says____________________________________?
c. What if [character X] is thinking ______________________________?
d. Do you think it would be funny if [character X] says _______________?
- As a class, have students use the target formulaic phrases for negotiating meaning. Elicit captions, write them on the board, and have students vote for the best one. Show the caption, if available, from the original image. Discuss the reasons why certain captions are appropriately matched and humorous.
- Place visuals around the classroom, each accompanied by a blank piece of poster paper.
- Ask students, working in pairs or groups, to stand next to the image and, after discussing the visual, using the target formulaic phrases, write a funny caption or speech bubble for the image on the corresponding poster paper.
- After 90 seconds give students a warning, and after 2 minutes ask them to move to the center.
- After each pair has had a chance to produce a caption or speech bubble for every image, have them put a check next to the caption or speech bubble they like the most on each poster.
- Tally the votes for each image, and congratulate students on their creativity and language use.
CAVEATS AND OPTIONS
- Encourage students to find and bring in their own funny pictures.
- Remember that some pictures by themselves, without captions, may not be particularly laughable but paired with an ingenious title may become quite funny. Remind students to push their imaginations and verbal creativity.
- You can adjust the time spent on each image by allowing less time for more advanced learners and more time for less advanced learners.
12 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
- This exercise can be played online using a group Facebook, Instagram, or I Pinterest account. You could consider having students create fake hashtags for their uploaded image. Students could vote by using the “like” button to accumulate points for best picture-caption-hashtag combination.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Bell, N. D. (2009). Learning about and through humor in the second language classroom. Language Teaching Research , 13 , 241–258.
Negotiating Meaning and Humor: Funny Caption Contest | 13
- Collect the papers with the headlines, shuffle them, and ask each group to I pull out a piece of paper.
- Students in each group must work together to write a short funny newspaper article based on the headline they received.
- One person per group then comes up to read the news.
- The class votes on the funniest story.
CAVEATS AND OPTIONS
- This lesson can be adapted to include only making funny headlines.
- You can ask students to summarize their stories on an index card. One stu- dent becomes the news anchor and reads out the headlines and summaries while you videotape it.
- The groups can illustrate their articles if there is time.
- A class newspaper can be made with the compilation of all the stories.
- If there is extra time, give each group a deck of Man Bites Dog, a funny headline card game.
Example:
Science Book Used in Classroom
After many years of no books in the science classroom, teachers have brought back the ‘textbook.’ Both teachers and students felt a textbook was a good idea for learning. Parents welcomed the decision.
Mad Headlines | 15
Sentence Combination With Jokes
Scott Gardner
Levels Low+
Contexts Junior high school+
Aims Practice combining sentences utilizing interesting texts
Class Time 20–40 minutes
Preparation Time 5 minutes
Resources Jokes suitable for students in terms of grammar and content
S entence combination and other grammar exercises run the risk of becom-
ing boring. This activity utilizes joke texts—broken down into extremely simple sentences—to let students create “smooth,” more natural versions of the jokes. They have an opportunity to see how repetition and ellipsis work, not only in English syntax, but in good joke telling. Working in groups, students can learn from each other and compare their work with other groups.
PROCEDURE
- Prepare a minimum of three simple punch line jokes by reducing them to simple sentences (see Appendix for examples). These will sound awkward and repetitive, so the work of the students will be to return them to a more natural state. Three jokes are needed so that one joke can be used with the whole class and the two additional jokes can be used for small-group work, allowing groups to tell a new joke to others who have not heard or seen it yet. Jokes can be selected to emphasize certain grammar points, and simpli- fication of sentences can be adjusted to match student level.
Example of a simple-sentence joke
There was a mother rat. She had a son. They were together one day. They were searching for food. They were in the kitchen. In the kitchen they met the cat. Suddenly the mother rat barked like a dog. She barked at the cat. The cat got scared. The cat ran away. The mother rat said something to her son. She said, “See? Now you can understand the importance of knowing a second language!”
16 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
APPENDIX: Possibilities of Jokes for Sentence Combination
A man is sitting in an airplane� He is looking out the window� He turns to his wife� He says, “Look at those people down there� They look like ants!” She leans over� She looks out the window� She turns to him� She says, “They are ants� We haven’t taken off yet!”
A politician was in a rural town� He was in the town square� He was giving a speech� He saw an old woman� She was standing at the front of the crowd� She was watching him� He asked her, “Have you lived here all your life?” The old woman paused� She said nothing for a long time� Finally, she looked up at the politician� She said, “I don’t know yet!”
18 | NEW WAYS IN TEACHING WITH HUMOR
