---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Think and Grow T. G. books <tsilaglidai.gmail.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 at 09:02
Subject: !Now it's official! Laughter is a must in language teaching
and retention 🙂
Today I had the amazing opportunity to deliver a presentation about
the importance of humor and laughter in the ETAI summer conference. I
have used humor to my advantage ever since I became a teacher, but
until I took a closer look at what researchers have to say about it, I
had no idea what a found basis existed for my instinctive assumptions!
I knew, for example, that a chemical substance called dopamine is
released by our brains when we experience pleasure. At the same time,
I had no idea that dopamine is important for both goal-oriented
motivation and long-term memory!
For me that discovery was an enormous "Wow!!!" So that explained why
the amusing stories I created with the vocabulary words we were
learning intertwined within were such an effective aid in helping my
students remember their vocabulary! In my search to make the subject
matter more enjoyable, it seems that I accidentally stumbled on this
scientific reality!
One factor I disagreed with wholeheartedly since the onset of my
teaching career, was the piece of advice I received in my teaching
college, which I know so many other teachers have been told as well.
"Don't smile until Chanuka." That's the only way to manage your class.
If you smile, your students will perceive you as a softy. A wishy -
washy person that can easily be overridden.
I won't say that this is entirely untrue. When you're a smiling
outgoing teacher, the students tend to feel more comfortable around
you than in the presence of a severe looking teacher. So what? If I
look back on my years as a student, I never enjoyed the lessons of my
strict and severe teachers. Moreover, I don't remember anything they
taught me. All I remember is the fear they instilled in us, and it
wasn't fun.
Of course, like in all things there has to be a desirable medium.
Being a smiling and humor loving teacher doesn't mean letting your
students do whatever occurs to them. Discipline is a very important
element in a successful lesson. That still doesn't mean that a teacher
shouldn't smile until Chanuka!
Here is yet another fact that researchers have discovered about the
benefit of humor in teaching:
"Humor activates our sense of wonder, which is where learning begins,
so it seems logical that humor could enhance retention." When you ask
your students to solve a funny riddle with a vocabulary word, it's
much more likely that they will remember that word, than if it's just
another fill-in sentence that they need to complete.
If that's not enough, a study was conducted between students that
learned something through a funny episode of the popular show Sesame
Street, and others who learned the same topic from a regular
non-humorous source. The findings were clear:
"The children who watched the humorous segment scored higher and
showed better engagement than the children who watched the non
humorous one. Better yet, the children who watched the humorous
segment showed better retention even in the non-humorous portions of
the lesson!"
My journey along the path of harnessing humor as a teaching aid was
initiated because it broke my heart to see my students studying
endless lists of words which they didn't even remember once the test
was over. Today I realize that science and methodological research
have been behind me all the time. Humor is the most effective way to
teach your students. Now it's official!!!
To find out more, kindly visit my website:
https://laughandlearn.co.il
Tsila Glidai
T.G. books
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