Using Humour, not Jokes

Students want their lessons to be 'fun'.

So why not tell a few jokes?
Jokes get old, and can easily backfire with the 'wrong' class, in the 'wrong' mood on the 'wrong' day.

So let's use humour
What's humour? Amongst other things:

• it is created in the moment
• it is an essential ingredient in keeping the students minds' awake
• it can be designed into a lesson

Here are some ways of creating humerous moments, based on 'making mistakes'

• Pause (appear to have lost your place in what you were saying). Wink at the students to let them know that you are doing this deliberately.
• Say "Left" and point "right", Say "Up" and point "Down". Remember to wink.
• Write something wholly incorrect on the whiteboard, and continue as if it were correct. Pretend to be taken aback when the students catch the mistake, then tell them it was not the first or the last one today. Encourage them to keep an eye / ear out for more 'mistakes'.
  
• Include 5 mistakes in the first half of the lesson, and when you get to halfway through the lesson, mention that you are doing it deliberately, and ask how many mistakes students have noticed.
• Write a sentence that is too long for the whiteboard and mime writing on the wall. Then mime wiping the wall clean. Wink!
• 'Accidentally' switch all the lights off.
• Drop your whiteboard pens, or why not chuck them all up in the air as if you were going to juggle them; and fail to catch them.
• Look for your glasses, whilst wearing them on your head. (OK, you may have done that for real, but I mean that you choose to do it, at a time that suits the mood of the class.)