Teaching Jokes

Yeah, I've been saving all this up. It's feast or famine huh?

The other day for a fun activity, at least for me, I taught some of my more advanced students some jokes. Since I don't tell jokes well and to keep things nice and simple, I chose one liners, knock knock jokes and doctor doctor jokes. Oh, and I also told them the classic "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

This is really a great way to teach a bit of culture. Of course, I had a lot of 'xplainin to do. I taught them the routine of the knock knock joke. Then gave them a few examples then quickly followed up with the word "groan" in case they hadn't heard of it. See what you just did? That's called a groan. Ha ha!

Then I handed out different "Doctor Doctor" jokes to each of them. I was kept busy for the next few minutes explaining WHY they were supposed to be funny. Get it? Get it? I kept repeating. Some of them were so cute because they were caught up on the literal meaning of the words. They asked me "But why?" a lot. "But why didn't the patient just explain why he was feeling bad?" "But why would he say he felt like a roll of film?" "What kind of doctor would say that?" Oh dear. Then I explained that understanding humour in another language is a very hard thing. THAT was the real lesson. Oh well, at least they know how to respond to "knock knock"! :)