Abstract

Humor as a teaching strategy has received recent attention (Englert, 2010; Garner, 2005; Garner, 2006; Glenn, 2002; Jonas, 2004). In English language teaching in China there is a perceived conflict between teaching methodology and student involvement. In the recent past traditional teaching methodology has been utilized for the teaching of English with a low level of interaction in the classroom. However, with Communicative Language Teaching being increasing prevalent, the reluctance to interact from longstanding practice as well as socio-cultural factors can limit learning effectiveness. Recent research into humor in the classroom has suggested benefits to improving the classroom learning environment and in particular, to improving levels of communication (Chapman, & Foot, 2007; Garner, 2006; Schmitz, 2002; Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk, & Smith, 2006). This paper critically examines the learning benefits of humor in the classroom and suggests that humor would provide considerable advantages to improving communicative interactions in English teaching classrooms in China. By means of experiencing humor, students acquire and internalize language knowledge more quickly and efficiently, and thus are facilitated in attaining a certain language competence.