HOW IS HUMOUR USED IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS? A CASE STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOL VIETNAMESE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES

Abstract

This study investigated language teachers’ perceptions of the role of humour in English language
classrooms, teachers’ practices of using humour, and their preferences for certain types of humour in
teaching. The study employed a qualitative approach, including observations and follow-up interviews.
The findings showed that the incorporation of humour in multicultural language classrooms was viewed
positively by the participants in this study. The mean frequency of humour incidences by the teachers was
7.17 per hour per class session. The content analysis of the observed humour incidences resulted in a new
classification of humour types including 4 main categories and 24 subcategories respectively.