Laughter in the Grammar Classroom

Humor’s a funny thing. It’s an unconscious, unfakable, universal form of communication all humans share, no matter what culture they’re from or language they speak. Yet, perhaps counterintuitively, humor emerges less from the crack of one-liners than it does from the uncertainty that emerges from shared experiences and relationships with others. What if, as language teachers, we bring more laughter into the classroom. And if we did, could it actually help them remember grammar better?

Before delving into the language classroom, let’s start by exploring where laughter might have originated from in the first place. Evolutionary psychologists talk about laughter as a kind of “social glue” that bonds people and communities together. Back in the day, it likely evolved as a way to communicate to others that one was not a threat, before humans could express so through spoken language. Laughter helped build larger communities of people, who felt they…