Using humour is one of the best ways to create a positive dynamic in the classroom. It shows the students that learning doesn’t have to be work and that the class will be as much fun as they allow it to be. Using humour is also a technique used to lower the affective filter (Krashen) so that the students feel less anxiety. This is an important consideration in language classrooms where many students feel a great deal of stress when using the target language orally.
A great opportunity to use humour in a language classroom is when incorporating culture into the lesson; when teaching students about certain day to day aspects of a foreign culture, don’t be afraid to point out some of the more amusing tendencies. A fine line must be drawn here between pointing out amusing aspects and laughing at the cultures, but simply observing different practices that would seem foreign to the students can be fun. Humour and culture can also be integrated into the class through the use of AV materials. This can keep the students engaged and give them more to look at or listen to rather than merely presenting more information either orally or from the textbook