INCORPORATING HUMOR AS

PART OF PEDAGOGY IN

FOREIGN LANGUAGE MIDDLE

SCHOOL CLASSROOMS

Manuela Wagner, Mary Yakimowski and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi

University of Connecticut

AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION 2012

All cartoons by Alejandro Yegros (http://alejandroyegros.com)

Humor in the

World Language ClassroomCan create a more relaxed classroom

atmosphereHumor as content to be acquiredHumor as an “instrument for cultural

and social transmission” (Alexander 1997:7); socio-linguistic characteristics of the target culture (e.g., Gumperz and Hymes 1972, Davies 2003)

Multidisplinary approach

How do we understand humor?

• One common characteristic of humor in most theories: the presence of incongruity (discrepancy between what is said/written and what is implied)

• In an even wider sense, humor as “playfulness” or the contrary to seriousness (cf. Achakis and Tsakona, 2005)

Teachers’ use of humor has been linked to…

1. Teaching effectiveness (Bryant, Comiskey, Crane, and Zillman, 1980; Norton and Nussbaum, 1980)

2. Student learning (e.g., Gorham and Christophel, 1990)

3. Creating an enjoyable classroom environment (Neuliep, 1991)

4. Lower student anxiety (Long, 1983) and higher student motivation (Gorham and Christophel, 1992)

5. More positive evaluations of teachers by students (e.g., Bryant, Comisky, Crane, and Zillmann, 1980, Neuliep, 1991)

6. Enhanced teacher immediacy in the classroom (e.g. Gorham and Christophel, 1990; Mehrabian, 1981; Neuliep, 1991, Plax, Kearney, McCroskey, and Richmond, 1986)

A personal example of humor

• A personal example of humor… from my mother in her hospital bed just two weeks ago …humor used under a stressful situation

• By the way … this presentation is dedicated to my mom who just passed away.

Objectives

• Design / implement an instrument that measures “humor and student attitude” in a foreign language middle school classroom.

• Assess / study the effects of humor pedagogy. More specifically, study the link between the perception of humor and the level of willingness to participate in the foreign language classroom.

• Explore any differences between girls and boys and between German and Spanish classes observed.

• Interpret the findings and present their implications

Research Questions

1) Is there a relationship between use of humor in a foreign language class and comfort in the foreign language classroom?

2) Does the use of humor in the foreign language classroom increase students’ willingness to participate?

3) Are there any interactions in the students’ perceived humor between girls and boys and between German and Spanish classes observed?

Research Design

• Mixed-methods design• Quantitative (humor survey, Wagner

and Urios-Aparisi, 2008) • Qualitative component (coding of

videos, coding scheme, Wagner and Urios-Aparisi, 2011)

(Videos of three beginning Spanish and German class periods at three different times during the school year, one period could not be recorded, total of 17 videos)

Survey

Participants

Methods cont’d

• Files were transcribed using CHILDES (MacWhinney 2000).

• Each instance of humor was coded.

• Students completed a survey containing questions related to their attitude towards learning the target language and to their teacher’s use of humor at the beginning of the semester and the end of the semester.

Results: PCA of Humor Rating

Scale

Reliability Analyses of Humor

Rating Scale

Factor Scores by Overall and by

Gender and Language

MANOVA

Gender, Language, G*L for all three factors

Comfort level in the classroom and Teacher’s openness and enthusiasm are influenced by the combination effects of gender, language, and their interaction

Girls were more comfortable in the classroom in Spanish class, while boys felt more comfortable in German class.

German teachers were perceived as more dynamic and enthusiastic than Spanish ones.

Direct humor is not influenced by the combination effects; girls perceived more positively direct humor than boys

Sample of Frequency of Humor Instances: Sample of Frequency of Humor Instances: Comparison MS and HE Comparison MS and HE

FileFile minmin TeacherTeacher StudentStudent Stud. groupStud. group Unin-tendedUnin-tended

Spanish 1Spanish 1 44:3044:30 22 44 1313 00

Spanish 2Spanish 2 48:3048:30 00 33 55 22

Spanish 3Spanish 3 48:0348:03 22 00 44 00

German 1German 1 25:3625:36 00 00 22 55

German 2German 2 30:5230:52 22 55 1919 00

German 3German 3 23:2423:24 00 33 22 44

HE SpanHE Span 50:0050:00 11 00 00 00

HE SpanHE Span 50:0050:00 1111 33 22 11

HE GermHE Germ 50:0050:00 11 55 22 11

HE GermHE Germ 50:0050:00 1414 2020 33 11

Results: Description of

Humor• almost exclusively universal (Schmitz 2002)almost exclusively universal (Schmitz 2002)

• mostly fun activities but not necessarily mostly fun activities but not necessarily humorous in the stricter sense (play)humorous in the stricter sense (play)

• many instances of in-group humor among many instances of in-group humor among studentsstudents

• very few instances of teacher-initiated humorvery few instances of teacher-initiated humor

Comparison of MS and HE

• humor was not part of the content in MS data (and not much at the elementary level in HE)

• MS: certain level of playfulness, exercises in form of games, somewhat playful – humor not in the strict but in the wider sense

• HE: greater variety of humor types (irony, funny stories, funny comments, puns, teasing, hyperbole, linguistic, cultural and universal types of humor), and student- and teacher-initiated humor (Wagner and Urios-Aparisi, 2007).

Discussion

• Students’ perceptions of their teachers’ use of humor can be measured and related to their comfort level in the foreign language class .

• The study sheds light on variations in intercultural and gender aspects of the classroom setting but particularly on the users’ perceptions of humor.

• The current study is an important first step toward exploring the effects of humor in the foreign language classroom in middle school by including students’ perception of their teachers’ use of humor and their sense of comfort in class.

Topics of Future

Investigations• Identification of humor topics to be included in

the content of the class

• Teaching style: based on close connection between student’s perception of humor and their motivation and comfort in quantitative study

• Gender differences

• Importance of humor as a tool for class participation

• Comparative analysis of the use of in various settings