Humor Application in Teaching English to Future Lawyers of Ukraine

In the twenty-first century, foreign languages have become exactly the means of “survival” in the conditions of world community formation and global thinking. The successful development of a person ready for “survival” is a process of entering into a foreign culture. The most objective solving of the problem of students’ acquaintance with a foreign culture, as the authors believe, is modeling real intercultural intercourse situations: that is, intentional confrontation of situations of native and foreign cultures. The creation of the model of foreign culture is one of the basic requirements of foreign language teaching as a means of “survival.” It requires working out new components of teaching-methodical complexes, both in content and form. Students’ preparation for acquisition of foreign culture is one of the unique objectives of contemporary higher education. Motivation is one of the main factors on which students' proficiency depends. Students’ interest in learning foreign languages can be arisen by some new methods of teaching. Humor application during English classes at universities is essential because studying peculiarities of English and American humor the learners of foreign languages are ready to enter the system of international and world cultures and behave naturally either in British or American societies. English humor is an integral part of British and American society, so its knowledge is necessary for learners of English as a second language. Humor usually requires a specific style and is based on surprise. It means that something relevant to the audience is present and goes something different from what the audience expected. Our pedagogical experiment with the application of humorous texts during English classes resulted in increasing students’ motivation, broadening their mental outlook, and knowledge of a foreign culture.