I found a site that has an index of jokes in English written specifically for comprehension by ESL learners. Some of them even provide alternate versions depending on which tense is used. I can’t promise that you’ll do any gut-busting here, but I’m pretty impressed at what an effective tool this could be. As the majority of jokes, at least in English, are based on semantics, any of these could provide an effective tool for analysis by students—and what better watermark of fluency than to be able to understand jokes in one’s L2? Enjoy and have fun impressing your friends with your new arsenal of knee-slappers.
http://www.angelfire.com/on/topfen/jokes01.html
Notes for Tuesday, April 13, 2010
14 years ago
What a great way to practice English. It is really difficult for a non-native speaker to understand jokes because of the language barrier but also because one must have the cultural knowledge or at least some understanding of the culture as well as understanding of the language. Sounds like fun!
ReplyDeleteThis was a good find. One of the jokes (the one about taking penguin to the zoo)actually made me laugh....so it's a cut above the average ESL joke site which is usually filled with groaners (or jokes that leave even NES's scratching their heads). An excellent way to build on this tool is to have students tell jokes of their own or to go out and interview NES's and ask them for jokes (especially simple ones like knock-knock jokes), with they then share with the class.
ReplyDeletePlease tweet this link with a short description and #ESL #MATESOL tacked on at the end of the tweet.
Thanks.
I think this is a cute website. I don't think I understood the balloon one, but the penguin one was good. I didn't read past that. Doing jokes in class is such a good idea because it's fun for the students even when the jokes are bad. Plus, like you said, it adds an element of culture into the classroom.
ReplyDelete