Yaşadıkça Eğitim (Dec 2015)
Using Humor in the EFL Context to Enhance Language Teaching Effectiveness
Abstract
As soon as benefits of humor are known, lecturers’ tendency and thoughts about humor in foreign language education is object of interest. At this master thesis, it was investigated that thoughts of lecturers who work in Pamukkale University School of Foreign Languages about benefits and drawbacks of humor in English teaching, if they use humor in their classes, they feel they are sufficient regarding use of humor or not and how they improve themselves, which types of humor they prefer and their reasons. In addition, course materials’ adequacy of humor was questioned. Basic qualitative research design was used in this study. Data was collected from 10 lecturers’ interviews. Descriptive data analysis method was applied to obtained results. In this study, it was understood that all lecturers have a positive opinion about the role of humor in English language teaching. Lecturers mentioned that humor has psychological, social and cognitive benefits. Most of the lecturers said that they use humor in the courses, but they do not see this sufficient and they want to improve themselves about effective humor use. It was also revealed that they prefer humorous comment and visual humor most.
