Humor in classes of English Language: motivation, attitude and cultural matters. / O humor em aulas de língua inglesa: motivação, atitude e questões culturais.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The objective of this thesis is to show the use of jokes in classes of English as a foreign language in a Language Center and verify whether students learn more and are more motivated when this new strategy is introduced in their classes. Our research was guided by three twenty-century theoreticians that wrote about humor, explaining its social role - the pleasure caused by the released of energy, essential to our research which deals with laughter (or even smiles) in class. These philosophers also deal with the factor that causes humor - incongruence. We study jokes from three different aspects: their interpretation, their structure and as learning tool, which offer a methodology rather complete to analyze jokes, since these humor texts cannot be observed from only one point of view. Cultural issues were also present, because jokes can be considered a cultural manifestation of a people and, as we deal with two cultures, it is more than natural that to understand humoristic texts, cultural barriers will have to be faced. In order to tell/understand jokes it is also necessary to individual differences, because they will inform the teacher of the need of possible changes in strategies so that his/her goal will be reached, i.e., to make students learn a foreign language having fun. The methodology applied is interaction analysis, and we used, as research instruments, observation, tests, interviews, and questionnaires. We observed seven groups, during three semesters. First we applied a questionnaire to all the students and their respective teachers. We computed the results. The observations were carried out in control classes, where no jokes were used, and in experimental classes, with jokes. The teacher was the same in both classes. We also observed a different teacher to exemplify more precisely the methodologies employed in the classes at the Language Center.

ASSUNTO(S)

incongruence and cultural matters joke piada humor incongruência e questões culturais estratégia humor strategy

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados