The use of humor in the ESL classroom

The aim of this study was to find out the teachers’ and students’ views on the use of humour in the ESL classroom. The study was conducted in 14 Secondary schools (7 urban, 7 rural) in the Larut, Matang and Selama District. 130 English teachers and 420 Form 4 students participated in this study. Two sets of survey questionnaires were used to collect data. The first set was given to the teachers and the other to the students. Nonetheless, items used for both the questionnaire were similar. Then the collected data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Windows 11.5 Version. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and crosstabs were used to describe the data. The findings showed 95% of the English teachers and 97.6% of responded positively to the use of humour in the ESL classroom. Teachers and students agreed to15 out of 16 reasons for using humour whereby the percentage of agreement was above 80%. The reasons include the use of humour to provoke thinking, relieve stress, motivate, gain attention, reduce anxiety, increase confidence, create excitement, create healthy environment, enhance communication, reinforce knowledge, help understand other cultures, increase interest, encourage participation, retention and explain complicated topics. On the other hand, teachers and students disagreed to the use of humour to embarrass students. From the findings, it is evident that teachers had used humour in their English classrooms and students viewed it to the same extent. The responses to the questionnaires showed that humour helps students in learning the English Language. Therefore, humour should be included in the teaching and learning process