Humor strategies in the foreign language class

Humor can provide a multitude of benefits for language learners, including improvement of classroom atmosphere (Dewaele et al. 2018 Dewaele, J.-M., J. Witney, K. Saito, and L. Dewaele. 2018. “Foreign Language Enjoyment and Anxiety: The Effect of Teacher and Learner Variables.” Language Teaching Research 22 (6): 676–697.Crossref, Web of Science ® , Google Scholar) and a reduction of anxiety (Tarone 2000 Tarone, E. 2000. “Getting Serious about Language Play: Language Play, Interlanguage Variation and Second Language Acquisition.” In Social and Cognitive Factors in Second Language Acquisition: Selected Proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum, edited by B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M. E. Anderson, C. A. Klee, and E. Tarone, 31–54. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Google Scholar). Moreover, the integration of humor into language lessons has been strongly endorsed by both students and instructors (Askildson 2005 Askildson, L. 2005. “Effects of Humor in the Language Classroom: Humor as a Pedagogical Tool in Theory and Practice.” Journal of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching 12: 45–61. Google Scholar; Azizinezhad and Hashemi 2011 Azizinezhad, M., and M. Hashemi. 2011. “Humour: A Pedagogical Tool for Language Learners.” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 30: 2093–2098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.407.Crossref , Google Scholar). What is less clear is which types of humor strategies are seen to be most effective, as well as the degree to which learner characteristics affect their responses to humor. This study examines the influence of L2 proficiency, foreign language enjoyment (FLE), and attitudes about humor language learning on L2 learners’ (N = 243) reactions to a variety of humor strategies used in the language classroom. Regression analysis revealed that proficiency had little bearing on learner preferences, whereas FLE, and especially attitude towards in-class humor, had a much greater influence on preferred strategies. Overall, spontaneous humor, memes and cartoons were the most strongly endorsed strategies.