Use and Non-use of Humor in Academic ESL Classrooms

A substantial body of research emphasizes the importance of humor in teaching/learning processes; however, research on the reasons for non-use of humor in academic contexts has enjoyed scant attention. Addressing this gap, this study examines the reasons for instructors’ humor avoidance taking into account student perceived benefits of using humor in academic ESL classrooms. Data were collected through an open-response questionnaire. Participants in a university in Malaysia were asked to provide their views on: (a) the reasons some instructors avoid using humor, and (b) the benefits of using humor in L2 classes. Responses were grouped into relating categories and content analyzed. “Humor is not in their personality,” “they lack competence to create humor in L2,” and “they are more syllabus-oriented” were the most frequently cited reasons for the non-use of instructor humor. Perceived benefits of instructor humor were placed into three major categories: psychological, social and instructional. Implications of these findings are explored within the content of second language education.


Introduction
This study aims to examine the reasons for instructors' avoiding the use of humor and the benefits of using humor in academic ESL classrooms.Humor is a (socio)linguistic and sociocultural phenomenon which has a wide range of instructional values.Despite the skepticism among some practitioners in academia that humor may undermine the instructors' attempts to develop instructional understanding, there is now a substantial body of research indicating the facilitative role of humor in general education as well as second language teaching/learning processes.The use of humor in the classroom has been suggested to increase instructional effectiveness (Wanzer, 2002;Deiter, 2000;Kher et al., 1999), increase message persuasiveness (Booth-Butterfield & Wanzer, 2010), create an enjoyable and more relaxed classroom environment (Kher et al., 1999;Neuliep, 1991), increase student motivation (McCroskey, et al., 2006;Gorham & Christophel, 1992), student learning (Baringer & McCroskey, 2000;Gorham & Christophel, 1990), and can be used as a means of clarifying course material (Downs, Javidi, & Nussbaum, 1988).
In second language education, research indicates that competent use of humor by teachers makes contributions to both teaching and learning processes.Even though humor can be used as an aid in teaching almost any academic discipline, it can be particularly useful in teaching a second language since it is communicated through language and can be incorporated in instruction of all four main language skills.Particularly, verbal humor such as wordplays, funny stories, puns, and content related jokes play an important role in L2 learners' development of (socio) linguistic and sociocultural competence.It has been suggested that humor can serve as a formidable tool that can be used for sensitizing students to phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic differences within a single language or between a student's L1 and the target language (Deneire, 1995).In the same vein, Medgyes (2002) explains that funny games, stories, jokes, puzzles, pictures, sketches, and dialogues can be fruitfully used for all levels of L2 learners.He also suggests activities for this purpose like recording different types of laughs and providing students with a list of adjectives (bitter, nervous, polite, hearty, hysterical) to match with each laugh (2002, p. 5).Such activities suggest to the learners that humor is not always an indicator of a feeling of mirth, rather it can be a useful tool for instruction.Using, discussing, and analyzing humorous interaction in a variety of ways and through different types of activities can also contribute a great deal to L2 learners' linguistic and sociolinguistic development (Bell, 2009: 245).
There has been a growing body of research on the role of verbal types of humor solely Language Play (LP) in recent years (early 2000s) (see Belz & Reinhardt 2004;Davies 2003;Bell, 2002Bell, , 2005;;Tarone, 2000;Cook 1997Cook , 2000)).LP includes playing both with language form like sounds, rhyme, rhythm, song, alliteration, pun, spoonerisms, and grammatical parallelism as well as the units of meaning to create imaginary worlds (see Cook, 2000).The use of LP in L2 education has been suggested to have the potential to create opportunities for the appropriation of L2 resources and also contexts in which access to L2 resources may be facilitated (Tarone, 2000).LP can also indicate a marker of proficiency and may result in deeper processing of lexical items; thus, especially helpful in the acquisition of vocabulary and semantic fields in particular, by allowing lexical items to be processed more deeply, making them more memorable (Bell, 2005).
What seems to be apparent is that using humor in the classroom can positively influence the instruction of a second language.Thus, avoiding humor may deprive the learners' from gaining access to L2 linguistic and cultural resources and the nuances specific to humorous exchanges, those can hardly be found in non-humorous contents.It is worth mentioning that gaining humor competence, as a component of communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), is necessary for language learners in order participate effectively in L2 communication.Thus, humor avoidance can limit language learners' access to some aspects of L2 linguistic and cultural knowledge which is necessary to understand and communicate humor.Moreover, instructors' humor avoidance may risk leading classes perceived as boring and less conducive to learning.

Theoretical background
Humor has long attracted research attention from multiple disciplines particularly from psychology and sociology dating back to Plato's time; however, its linguistic aspects have received scant attention from SLA researchers until the early 1980's.The extensive body of humor research has resulted in over 100 identified humor theories (Foot &McCreaddie, 2006), which provide explanations for why and how we find something funny.Typically, social-psychological theories have been discussed under three major perspectives: (1) arousal relief or relief theory (Berlyne, 1969), (2) incongruity theory (Berlyne, 1960), and (3) disparagement or superiority theory (Wolff et al., 1934).The first theory, relief or repression-based, accounts for psychological aspects of humor and provides explanations for why something is found funny at mental level, that is, the emotions and feelings caused by humorous events.In second language classrooms, relief theory, for example, explains how the frustration and anxiety produced due to unfamiliarity of the learners with L2 rules can be released through the use of instructor humor.
A second theory of humor, incongruity (Berlyne, 1960), stipulates that humorous reactions result from exposure to stimuli that are unexpected, shocking, or surprising (Berger, 1976;Berlyne, 1960).This theory provides explanations on the occurrence of humor at intellectual level and emphasizes the stimulus for humor rather than the participants.In light of incongruity theory, in the following joke, for example, humor is found in incongruity of the pupil's understanding with the teacher's intention: Teacher: Billy, if you had two dollars in one pocket and five dollars in another, what would you have?
Billy: Someone else's pants, ma'am.(Cited in Deneire, 1995: 292) The incongruity theory has also a second direction, incongruity-resolution theory, which is the reaction when discovering that two incongruous terms are actually related (Suls, 1983).Based on the premises of this theory, a hearer of the joke might not understand the humor in a joke if he or she cannot make the connection between the two elements.An example would be someone not finding humor in the name "Tiny" until they find out that he is a six feet tall basketball player.Understanding the premises of incongruity-resolution theory may help language instructors attune their humor to their students' level of the proficiency and competence in a second language.
A third theory that sheds lights on instructor humor is disparagement or superiority theory.This theory studies humor at social and behavioral level and is based on the premise that people laugh at others' shortcomings, failings, or inadequacies (Wolff et al.,1934).According to superiority theory, we may laugh at incongruities only when they are not thereatening to us, when we are not in a dark alley, for example (Lyttle, 2007).However, it can be argued that in classroom context, unlike out-of-class interactions, laughing at the failure of otehrs, may not be the main source of humor.This is one of the key points that makes classroom humor different from out-of-class, real world humor.This assumption might ground on the fact that there are certain institutionalized norms and ethical issues expected from classroom interactants (instructors and students) which "sanction" (Deneire's term, 1995:293) laughing at the failure of others.Hence, instructors are not normally expected to redicule students for their inabilities or failure, rather they are to provide the room for students to err and learn.Perhaps, humor and its explicit display, laghter, creared in the case of inadiquecies in the classrrom can again be attributed to the incongruity and unexpectedness theory rather than the notion of superiority.
Besides the three social-psychological theories of humor discussed above, linguists have also made attempts to find out what is it that makes something funny at language level.The first linguistics-based theory of humor is Raskin's (1979Raskin's ( , 1985) ) semantic-script theory of humor (SSTH), which was subsequently revised and revisited as the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) by Attardo and Raskin (1991) and Raskin and Attardo (1994).GTVH employs semantic scripts (also called frames or schemas) to model the recipient's use of linguistic and real-world knowledge to interpret joke [or humorous] texts.Similar to incongruity-resolution theory, GTVH explains why students find instructor humor as funny at lexical level.Based on this theory, students find instructors' use of verbal humor such as wordplays, puns, and irony as funny because they are compatible with two scripts opposed to each other such as actual vs. non-actual, normal vs. abnormal, possible vs. impossible.In example (1) below, the lecturer's (L) use of the abbreviation "PHD" in line 1, evokes a normal script, which is a person holding a doctor of philosophy degree and is normally associated with being knowledgeable.L stands for lecturer and Ss for students.4 Laughter However, finding out about a second interpretation of "PHD" that it stands for permanent head damage (line 3) evokes the abnormal script, depicting a person with mental disability, which is normally opposed to being knowledgeable.Thus, based on GTVH the text is found to have two different scripts (PHD /PERMINANT HEAD DAMAGE), which are opposed on the basis of normal/abnormal, and is thereby evaluated as humorous.
Recently, the latest category of humor theories that explains the humorous message/learning link has been advanced by Wanzer et al. (2009) in their integrative Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT), which draws from incongruity resolution theory and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion.IHPT predicts that instructors' use of humorous messages should result in increasing students' motivation to process course content to the extent that the humorous message gained their attention, created positive affect, made content relevant, and increased the clarity of the content (Booth-Butterfield, 2010: 224).
In sum, what seems to be apparent is that past studies have provided strong theoretical and practical evidence for the important role of humor in second language education; however, what seems to be lacking is providing insights into classroom humor in order to gain better understanding of why humor is avoided in academic contexts.Thus, it is important to identify the factors that account for non-use of humor by instructors and the possible benefits of verbal humor in L2 classrooms, an area that has enjoyed scant research attention.Addressing this gap, the following research questions will lead this study.
RQ1: Why do some instructors avoid using humor in ESL classrooms?
RQ2: What are the benefits of using humor in ESL classrooms?
It should be noted that the current study is a part of a larger project in progress which looks into the uses and functions of instructor humor in academic language learning environment.

Participants
Participants for the present study were 195 undergraduate and graduate ESL students who had been enrolled in courses such as sociolinguistics, genre studies, teaching principles, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and research methodology in a university in Malaysia.Participants were of different language and cultural backgrounds comprising local Malays, Chinese and Indians, and the international students included Iranian, Indonesian, African, and Arab ethnicities.For both local and international students, English was considered as a second language and was the medium of instruction in the classrooms.The lecturers were all Malaysian and English was the second language.All the lecturers completed their postgraduate studies in English speaking countries.

Procedure
Prior to conducting the study, ethical consent was sought from the faculty dean as well as the participants.Data sources for this study were two-fold: an open-response questionnaire distributed in the classrooms and the main researcher's fieldnotes during classroom observations, which were carried out for the whole project.Preceding the research questions addressed in this study (RQ1 and RQ2), was the following simplified definition of "humor" to clarify what was meant by the term in this study: "Humor in this study refers to anything which is said to create a feeling of fun and amusement in the classroom.
Examples of verbal humor are: funny stories, funny comments, jokes, wordplays, sarcasm, etc." The questionnaires were distributed among the students and collected by the main researcher and his assistant.The return rate was 100%.
The analysis began by coding and classifying students' answers into conceptually similar categories by the main author (coder one).Student responses that included multiple answers were separated into units.For instance, students who indicated that "humor is not their (instructors') nature" and "they have different cultural background" offered multiple reasons for humor avoidance and, thus, were separated into two distinct and different units.
Participants provided 263 distinct responses for RQ1 (reasons for instructors' humor avoidance) and 424 responses for RQ2 (benefits of using humor in ESL classes) totaling 687 response units.As a reliability check, 25% of the responses were read by a trained postgraduate student (coder two) and placed into one of the developed categories.
Interrater reliability, as determined by Cohen's kappa was .83indicating excellent agreement beyond chance.

Findings and discussion
In this section, we provide an overview of the distribution of the response categories provided for each research question, followed by a discussion of the developed categories.Table 1 presents the cited reasons in rank order.
Table 2 provides the frequency distributions of the main categories and their relative subcategories indicating the cited benefits of instructor humor.

Reasons for humor avoidance
The first research question asked why some instructors avoid using humor in ESL classrooms.Students generated 263 responses for this question, which were placed into nine categories in rank order of their frequency (see Table 1).The three most cited reasons were: "humor is not in their personality" (35%), "they lack competence in L2 to create humor" (16%), and "they are more content oriented" (10%).These three categories comprised more than 60% of the given reasons for paucity of instructor humor in ESL classes.
Insert Table 1 here These results indicate that non-use of humor in the ESL classes in this study is primarily related to the personality of the instructors as some instructors are perceived to be naturally "humorless".Irrespective of whether humor is an in-built faculty or not, we think that humor can be used effectively almost by every instructor.(The following sections will provide some tips or strategies on the use of humor in L2 classes).Although being endowed with a good sense of humor might help us maximize the effects of employed humor, instilling humor in the classrooms does not necessarily force us as instructors to be comedians.Research indicates that humor can be used effectively even by less humorous people.For instance, Kelly (2005) reports the story of a teacher who had serious problems with connecting to students and involving then in the lesson."The teacher was asked to participate in the study because the use of humor seemed to contrast with his usual style of teaching," Kelly says.After four weeks of implementing "laugh stops" strategy in the class, when students were asked if they thought the teacher should continue to implement laugh stops in the classroom, every student said yes although half of them explained it as "not funny".
Moreover, in second language classes, particularly in advanced levels, use of verbal humor is not a matter of getting students involved and humored only, rather it provides opportunities for L2 learners to gain access to a wide range of rich linguistic and cultural resources of target language hidden in humorous exchanges.If they are not exposed to L2 humor in the classroom, then the question arises how and where they should gain "humor competence" while they might have limited exposure to L2 out of classroom.Humor competence refers to the ability of the interactants to understand and use humor in a second language.Humor competence as part of L2 learners' "communicative competence" (Hymes, 1972) finds agreement among humor researchers (e.g., Bell, 2009, Belz and Reinhardt, 2004, Tarone 2000, Deneire, 1995).Thus, having realized the importance of humor in learners' language development, instructors might reflect on different possibilities to incorporate verbal humor in their classes such as inclusion of sitcoms, talk shows, comic movies, etc. via audio or video delivery.Such materials take the burden of being personally humorous off the teacher's shoulders and students will learn so many specialized terminologies necessary for humorous exchanges from these materials.It should be noted that the use of such materials should fit into the course syllabus and structured teaching plan in order to curtail the risk of "entertainment" rather than "learning" activities.
The second most frequently cited reason for non-use of humor in L2 classes (see Table 1) seems reasonably consistent with the notion of humor competence discussed in the above paragraph.For example, "Instructors do not tell jokes because they don't know how to crack jokes in English", wrote one student.This shows that students are aware of the need for specific type of knowledge for implementing humor in the classroom and this gap in L2 pedagogy cannot be filled unless our practitioners and educators become aware of and legitimize the use of verbal humor as a necessary component to gain knowledge of the nuances of second language and culture in L2 classrooms.
Among other frequently cited reasons (Table 1) avoiding humor "to gain respect and maintain professionalism" draws our attention.The idea of opposing humor to respect and viewing humor as a threat to professionalism offers at least two important interpretations: First, it might reflect the general perception and depiction of the term "humor" among people, which is primarily associated with "playfulness" and lack of seriousness, whereas as mentioned earlier, humor is a multifaceted phenomenon with a wide range of "serious" functions.In a broader sense, it is a goal-oriented strategy employed in speech.Humor by businesspersons and politicians in important meetings is a prime example of humor that is used to achieve serious goals.Consistent with this assumption, is Gorham and Christopher's (1990) assertion that "when teachers use humor in the classroom, they are likely to do so for some reason: to reduce tension, to facilitate self-disclosure, to relieve embarrassment, to save face, to disarm others, to alleviate boredom, to gain favor through self-enhancement, to entertain, to convey goodwill, or to accomplish similar goals" (Gorham & Christopher, 1990: 58).Thus, cultivating proper attitudes about humor in L2 instructors' minds might help to encourage them show less self-importance and attempt using humor in their teaching.
Second, the issue of humor avoidance to maintain professionalism highlights the importance of "appropriate" use of humor.Humor is a double-edged sword.The judicious use of humor can help teachers gain respect and classroom rapport (Haigh, 1999).However, inappropriate and insensitive humor can clearly be destructive to instructor-student relationships and thereby a threat to professionalism and instructor credibility.Wagner and Goldsmith (1981) give an example of humor used by a professor which shows how inappropriate humor leads to an aggressive humor from a student: Professor: "Why don't you answer me?" Student: "I did, professor -I shook my head." Professor: "You don't expect me to hear the rattle way up here, do you?"Not much later in the semester as the professor conducts class... Professor: "If I saw a man beating a donkey and stopped him from doing so, what virtue would I be showing?"Student (from rear of classroom): "Brotherly love!" Correspondingly, Deneire (1995) warns about the use of inappropriate humor such as interethnic jokes in foreign language classroom as they may lead to the formation of stereotypes and seriously undermine teachers' attempts to develop intercultural understanding.To recap, the data from this study as well as the past research indicate that there is no contradiction between appropriate humor and academic professionalism.It should also be noted that the notion of "professionalism" represents a complex construct whose relationship with humor warrants distinct research attention.

Benefits of instructor humor
Having asked about the reasons for non-use of humor in RQ1, we were interested to find out what students thought of the benefits of using humor in ESL classes, addressed by RQ2.Students provided 424 responses which were placed into three broad categories labeled: "psychological," "social," and "instructional" benefits of instructor humor.This categorization was done on the basis of the perceived benefits of using humor in three interactional levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and content or message levels respectively.Each of the main categories had 2-3 subcategories.Table 2 provides frequency distributions of the main and subcategories.

Psychological benefits
The use of humor can vent anger and frustration that might otherwise be destructive (Baron, 1978).Psychological benefits account for intrapersonal benefits such as students' increased motivation and preparedness to take active part in instruction processes as a result of exposure to humor.This category included the most frequently cited benefits of instructor humor, which comprised more than half (58.7%) of student generated responses.Examples of provided responses were: Humor makes me not to feel sleepy in the classroom.It keeps me awake during a hot afternoon class.It makes the class less boring.I feel not stressed in course work and exams.We feel comfortable.It makes me like the course.I love to come to class even though I am in a lazy mood that day.It motivates me to attend the next class.Responses in this category were classified under three subcategories: humor "motivates" (33.7%), "relaxes" (12.5), and "cheers up" (12.5%) students in the classroom.
Insert Table 2 here Examining these response categories indicates that instructors' use of humor is a major resource of motivation for students to participate in classroom activities.Besides keeping students alert during the lectures, humor creates a cheerful, relaxed and comfortable atmosphere in which students feel motivated to take part and learn.Research has underscored the role of motivation in learning.For instance, the motivation-learning relationship theory advanced by both Christophel (1990) and Richmond (1990) is based on the notion that students will learn when they want to learn.Wanzer et al.'s (2009) recent Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT) (see section 1) also provides explanations for humorous message/learning link although this theory is still living its inception stage.What is apparent is that in language classes, learners may expand their linguistic and cultural knowledge as a result of motivation originated from instructor humor.

Social benefits
Besides psychological benefits, a second set of benefits from instructor humor can be cataloged as social.Social benefits in this study represent the role of humor in creating opportunities for enhanced interpersonal interaction (i.e., between the language instructor and the students).Examples of responses in our data were: It attracts me to attend the lecture.We don't feel afraid to ask questions.Humor makes me listen to the teacher.It increases student talking time.It brings students and teachers together.We can touch problems.It makes the instructor approachable.Social benefits category made up 30.1% of the responses, which were classified under three subcategories: "draws attention" (16.9%), "creates affiliation" (10.6%), and "enhances participation" (2.5%) in the classroom.
Analyzing the responses under social category suggests that humor can also play a significant role in the development of teacher-student interaction in the classroom, which can ultimately benefit the whole teaching/learning processes.Teacher-student interaction can be deemed as a channel for transmission of knowledge, within which humor acts as a lubricant.McGhee (1979) points out that humor serves as a lubricant for social interaction, and concludes: "It is difficult to imagine a substitute device that would be equally successful at promoting smooth and comfortable social interaction" (pp.245-246).As such, as a result of comfortable interaction and lowered affective filter (Krashen, 1982), students' desire to take part in ongoing activities is enhanced and this can in turn benefit their language learning.

Instructional benefits
Apart from psychological and social benefits, students also recorded several instructional benefits of instructor humor.Examples of the generated responses were: It makes the lesson easy to understand.I understand the course content better.Message is conveyed and received easily.It fosters learning language.It is easy to remember points with humor and, it makes the lesson memorable.This category comprised 11.0% of the responses, which were placed into two subcategories: "fosters understanding and learning" (6.8%) and "enhances retention" (4.2%).
The effective use of humor related to course content has been consistently noted in the literature to be most likely to enhance acquisition/learning and retention of content (e.g., Wanzer et al., 2009;Garner, 2006;Gorham & Christophel, 1990;Bryant et al., 1979).Increased understanding and learning of a second language can be attributed to the enhanced attention and thereby noticing created by humor.To further illustrate, humor draws attention to the input which leads to "noticing" (Ellis, 1997;119), that is, the learner's paying attention to specific linguistic features in input.In other words, humor provides the opportunities to bring the linguistic and cultural knowledge to the foreground of attention and be "noticed".The noticed input then becomes easily susceptible to intake and become a part of the learner's linguistic knowledge.In the same token, humor is likely to increase retention of the input as well.As such, the role of humor in "increased noticing" might provide insights into how humor process can contribute to language learning.

Conclusion
We chose to look at humor avoidance and the perceived benefits of instructor humor because as language instructors we have experienced the impact of humor in our classrooms.This study has validated our assumptions that avoiding humor in the classroom may limit the learners' access to L2 linguistic and cultural resources inherent in humorous exchanges.These resources account for the learners' "humor competence" as a component of their communicative competence.Therefore, the use of appropriate verbal humor in the classroom can create opportunities to enhance the learning of a second language.Our analysis indicates that the reasons for non-use of humor in some language classrooms predominantly revolve around the instructors' personality and their attitudes towards the humor process in teaching.Students also recorded the instructors' L2 competence as a determinant factor in creation and communication of humor in a second language.We also noticed that the use of humor is sometimes perceived as a threat to instructors' credibility, respect and professionalism.We argued that such perceptions can only be true if: a) we think of humor as means of entertainment, and b) use it inappropriately.Moreover, our analysis indicates that the use of humor has several benefits in language learning environment.Psychologically, it motivates, relaxes and cheers up the learners.Socially, it attracts attention, affiliates and enhances students' participation in classroom activities.Instructionally, it is likely to promote understanding and learning of a second language and enhance retention of the material.
Overall, this study gives rise to two important insights.First, irrespective of the fact that some instructors might be uncomfortable with the use of humor in teaching, implementing humor in L2 instruction seems to be the task of any L2 instructor as far as they want to impart linguistic and cultural knowledge embedded in humorous texts (oral and written) to their students.Thus, there might be a need for consciousness-raising particularly among language instructors of the opportunities that can be created by verbal humor for language instruction although it can be useful instructional component in any classroom and any academic discipline.
Second, the way instructors view the task of humor process is vitally important.Perhaps, cultivating proper attitudes about the use of humor in instructors' minds might be useful.We hope that reading this paper will encourage all instructors to incorporate appropriate humor in their teaching and show less self-importance and concern about their professional image and will inform particularly L2 instructors of the value of verbal humor in language education.Tarone, E. (2000).Getting serious about language play: language play, interlanguage variation and second language acquisition.Paper presented at the Social and cognitive factors in second language acquisition.Selected proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum.Wagner, F. R., & Goldsmith, H. M. (1981).The Value of Humor in Teaching Ob.Journal of Management Education,12(6).Wanzer, M. (2002).Use of humor in the classroom: The good, the bad, and the not-sofunny things that teachers say and do.In J. L. Chesebro & J. C. McCroskey (Eds.),Communication for Teachers (pp. 116-126).Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., & Irwin, B. (2009).An explanation of the relationship between teacher humor and student learning: Instructional humor processing theory.Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association.Wolff, H. A., Smith, C. E., & Murray, H. A. (1934).The psychology of humor.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,28,.1037/h0075400,http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0075400 stands for Permanent Head Damage[laughs]

Table 1 .
Rank order of student cited reasons for instructors' humor avoidance in ESL classes

Table 2 .
Frequency distributions of benefits of instructor humor in ESL classes