VDMIS Newsletter - August 2014 (Plain Text Version)
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USING VIDEO CLIPS TO TEACH HUMOR COMPETENCE ACROSS CULTURES
At the 2014 TESOL International Convention & English Language Expo in Portland, Oregon, this presentation shared the findings of a doctoral dissertation mixed-methods study (Petkova, 2013) in teaching American humor competence to international students in an intensive English program (IEP) in southern California. It was an amazing feeling to see a crowded room of fellow ESL/EFL teachers, researchers, and administrators, many of whom remained standing till the end and asked numerous questions about humor in different languages and cultures. The idea to use video clips as part of a humor competence curriculum is based on a study of bilingual cross-cultural couples by Chiaro (2009). The couples in this study reported enjoying humorous videos together, but when one partner did not understand a joke, they would pause the video and translate or explain the background information needed to get the joke. Having been together for more than 10 years, these couples eventually were able to understand, appreciate, and even produce their partner’s cultural types of humor in their partner’s native language. As Morain proposed in 1991, our humor competence curriculum was organized thematically by focusing on humor in the areas of social interaction, work, language, and the intellect. It also followed Wulf’s (2010) taxonomy of humor devices, based on Attardo’s, Hempelmann’s and Di Maio’s (2002), including observational humor, irony, sarcasm, ambiguity, exaggeration, allusions, teasing, self-deprecating humor, alternate realities, and metaphors. The videos selected to represent examples of these themes and types of humor were from clips of people (Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Bill Cosby, Russell Peters, Jimmy Fallon, Woody Allen, David Letterman, Jay Leno, and Gabriel Garcia “Fluffy”) and from shows and movies (Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Car Talk, The Office, Politically Incorrect, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Shrek, It’s Complicated). Thirty-five young adults, mostly (90%) from China and Saudi Arabia, 66% male, enrolled in two sections of a low advanced listening/note-taking IEP class, watched and discussed the videos over a period of 8 weeks, twice a week for about 20 minutes. They also studied humor-related vocabulary, kept humor journals, and engaged in humorous role-play activities, but the video clips described above were always everyone’s favorites, especially those from Friends and The Big Bang Theory. Every clip was also accompanied by a handout (see the Appendix) explaining various types of conversational humor, and the students were asked to find examples of each type in the video, as well as describe the verbal and nonverbal markers of humor they noticed in that particular scene. At the end of the 8 weeks’ study, a paired-samples t-test (95% level of confidence) found statistically significant improvement in students’ perceptions and comprehension of comedy videos in English. Students’ journals also showed improved perceptions of English humor, in addition to very positive humor competence curriculum evaluations. Students believed humor competence instruction was needed and could be helpful in the classroom. REFERENCES Attardo, S., Hempelmann, C. F., & Di Maio, S. (2002). Script oppositions and logical mechanisms: Modeling incongruities and their resolutions. Humor, 15, 3–46. Chiaro, D. (2009). Cultural divide or unifying factor? Humorous talk in the interaction of bilingual, cross-cultural couples. In N. Norrick & D. Chiaro (Eds.), Humor in interaction (pp. 211–231). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Morain, G. G. (1991). X-raying the international funny bone: A study exploring differences in the perception of humor across culture. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics,397–408. Petkova, M. H. (2013). Effects and perceptions of a humor competence curriculum in an intensive English program in southern California. (Doctoral dissertation <Copyeditor note: Is this a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis? Please verify.>). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (1294848550). Wulf, D. (2010). A humor competence curriculum. TESOL Quarterly, 44, 155–169.
Dr. Maria Petkova has been learning and teaching ESL/EFL for more than 35 years in Bulgaria, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America. Her research interests focus primarily on vocabulary and pragmatic competence. |
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