HUMOR AND FOREIGN-LANGUAGE TEACHING

The benefits of humor in education have been widely assessed in recent research. Theorists and teachers from different fields have made suggestions about possible uses of humor in the classroom. Among them, language methodologists have tried to demonstrate how jokes and puns could be used in language teaching. However, a harmonious integration of humor into existing language teaching approaches is still lacking. The present paper shows how classroom humor can enhance language learners' linguistic and cultural competence if introduced at the right time in the teaching sequence. © 1995, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.