Using Humour in EFL Classroom Interaction: an Effective Way of Burning Students’ Interest in Learning English

Abstract

Teaching English at secondary school level is meant to enable students to grasp out communicative competences. To attain this purpose fruitfully, English teacher needs to consider strategy how to encourage students to take a part in classroom interaction. One of strategy that can be played by English teacher is “humour” because it is like a battery—creating good circumstances in doing communication. This study approaches teacher-students interaction in EFL classroom from pragmatic perspective. This study explores the types and functions of humours used by English teacher in classroom interaction at the tenth grade of Islamic Senior High School. The data were video recorded from three different classrooms in 90 minutes English lessons. The data were anlyzed based on the theory of Gay and Airasian (2000), Miles and Hubberman (1983) and Chelimsky (1989). The results of the study shows that (1) there are five types of humour used by English teacher in classroom interaction, namely (a) irony, (b) teasing, (c) banter, (d) language play and (e) jokes; and (2) the humours used by English teacher functions as (a) developing open and supportive communication climates, (b) enhancing positive interaction, (c) creating amusement, (d) lowering students’ anxiety, and (e) fostering students to be courageous to take part in classroom interaction.