Humor as a Technique in English Language Teaching (ELT)

There is no doubt that teachers of English as a foreign language are faced with enormous challenges in their classrooms. They are expected to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse number of learners every year; and there is more content to teach each year as well. Providing teachers with different strategies and teaching methods is the area of Applied Linguistics. This paper aims at highlighting the value of adding some sort of fun-class activities to the miscellaneous teaching methods that are at the discretion of foreign language teachers. It explores the role of such activities in motivating students, the effect they have on reducing the boredom of teaching and learning processes, as well as their significance in rendering the whole process as interesting as possible. To tackle the topic, the paper is organized into five sections: section one is introductory. It sheds light on the topic in general and the type of fun-class activities involved. Section two, dwells on the discipline of applied linguistics and its contribution to the process of foreign language teaching. Section three, exhibits the various methods and approaches put forward by applied linguists to assist foreign language teachers in the teaching process. Section four is the core of the study in which different fun-class activities are presented along with the linguistic aspect they support in language classes. Section five, eventually presents the conclusions the study has arrived at. The paper ends with a list of the references consulted.