How to use humor in English teaching

The specific embodiment of humorous English teaching method:

Language humor focuses on mobilizing various language means to give full play to the expressive power of language and text (rather than relying on storyline) to produce unique effects. Therefore, it has a specific language and cultural color. Linguistic humor can be reflected in a certain context, or in individual sentences, or even in individual words. Mr. Liu Runqing pointed out: "The three major elements of language are pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Vocabulary is like the most basic building material and is indispensable." In teaching, teachers should be good at observing these language phenomena and make clever use of humor.

1. Vocabulary humor

Vocabulary plays a decisive role in English learning. The amount of vocabulary directly affects students’ use of the knowledge they have learned and their understanding of the article, which in turn affects overall level of students. However, many students have always regarded vocabulary learning as a daunting task. They work very hard to memorize, believing that "a good memory is not as good as a bad writing". They copy and memorize over and over again in an effort to increase their vocabulary, but with little success. Because as far as vocabulary is concerned, they are dry, lonely, boring, and difficult for students to grasp. When teaching vocabulary, teachers can appropriately add some English riddles, interesting stories, humorous jokes, etc. to attract students' attention and make them It becomes an exciting point for students to learn.

2. Voice humor

“The first sign of successful classroom teaching is that students are highly focused and interested in learning.”

3. Grammatical Humor

The grammatical structure of English is quite complex. Students often gradually lose their enthusiasm and interest in learning English because of the teacher’s boring grammar explanation. English teachers should make grammar The explanations are vivid and lively, and the language knowledge learned by students is consolidated in a humorous and interesting way. , giving a humorous example after explaining a knowledge point can help students accept and digest the knowledge they have learned, and remember it longer.

Implementation principles of humorous English teaching method:

1. As an auxiliary means of language teaching, humor must also be subject to the needs of teaching activities, that is to say, the "dose" of teaching humor Be appropriate. Teachers' humor cannot be allowed to become "nonsense and joking" as Mr. Lao She said. "There will always be a time when humor is lost when you chew on humor. When humor is sold by the pound, disgust is inevitable." There is no humor, but the purpose is not just to make students laugh happily, but to arouse students' interest in learning, give students new stimulation, and cultivate their understanding and memory abilities. Therefore, the humor used by teachers should not be sensationalizing and interfere with teaching. At the same time, the humor used in teaching should avoid low-level and vulgar jokes, and choose appropriate humor according to the target. Some teachers also try to use humor in their lectures, but their applications of humor are all about the relationship between men and women. Sometimes they even make fun of students, which arouses the disgust of students and completely deviates from the original intention of using humor. Likewise, special attention should be paid to the amount of humor used. Humor is the seasoning in teaching, and it is the key to success. Only when the amount is too much can the beauty be revealed. Too much will easily make the teaching task impossible to complete, and too little will not be sufficient. Mobilizing students' enthusiasm will not achieve the expected results. Only the perfect unity of "quality" and "quantity" can achieve extraordinary classroom effects.

2. Extensive use of English humor teaching methods

(1) Use ambiguity to create English humor

1. With the help of homophones, homonyms and Polysemy creates ambiguity. Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language learning. Traditionally speaking, the method for students to memorize words is not only tedious, but also extremely inefficient, because many words are spent a lot of effort to memorize, and they are still confused when using them. Memorizing vocabulary makes most students feel headache and boring, but with the help of humor, vocabulary memory becomes much more interesting and lively.

2. Use the special grammatical phenomena of English grammar to create ambiguity and thus produce humor. English grammar is a boring and boring course, but when explaining a certain grammar point, we can use the special grammatical phenomena to create ambiguity and humor, so that students can actively become interested in learning grammar.

3. Use punctuation marks at different positions in the sentence to create ambiguity. When explaining the difference between restrictive clauses and non-restrictive clauses in grammar class, one of the important differences is that restrictive clauses cannot be separated from the antecedent by a comma, while non-restrictive clauses must be separated from the antecedent by a comma.

(2) Use stylistic techniques to create humor

Communicative competency theory emphasizes the context in which discourse occurs. In its application, teachers may teach how to execute the same sentence in different situations. The function of a statement, command, or request. In some explanations of English usage, when teachers emphasize the importance of context, teachers can give some vivid and humorous examples:

1. The use of spoken language and slang in written language or formal situations. humor.

2. Borrow some professional terms. In some explanations of English usage, when teachers emphasize the importance of context, teachers can give some vivid and humorous examples.

3. Imitate another language style to produce humor

(3) Use rhetorical techniques to create English humor

When teaching "Rhetoric", teachers also A variety of rhetorical techniques can be used to create English humor, thereby providing lively, humorous language teaching materials and achieving the purpose of applying communicative teaching theory.

1. Pun. The definition of pun is: a word or phrase that unexpectedly combines two unrelated meanings in the form of word play. When teaching this definition, teachers can use puns to create humor and give examples to deepen students' understanding of the rhetoric of puns.

2. Hyperbole. Exaggeration means exaggeration. In order to inspire the imagination of listeners, readers, and viewers and enhance the power of expression, exaggerated words, actions, situations, etc. are used to describe things. Its characteristics are witty, humorous, intuitive, easy to understand, and fascinating.

3. Irony expresses the author's humorous style through satire. At the same time, through this humor, we also understand Western culture.

4. Antilimax max. The first sentence of the first chapter of "Pride and Prejudice" is: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife. The first half of the sentence is very serious and solemn, as if the author We are about to discuss a very important issue, but the second half of the sentence is very vulgar and indecent.

5. Parody. The imitation method is to intentionally imitate some famous poems, proverbs, aphorisms, etc., and only change a certain part of them to express new ideas, thereby making the expression more vivid and impressive, and achieving humorous effects.

(4) Use tongue twisters to create English humor. In pronunciation teaching, some humorous tongue twisters can be used to practice the pronunciation of phonemes, which not only achieves the purpose of allowing students to speak and practice, but also stimulates students' interest in learning.