It is widely believed that humorous environments help students' learning by relaxing them and easing their stress. However, I would like to know whether laughter really , physically affects brain functions during learning/focusing/ memorizing etc.
this is very interesting,
I normally make my students laugh in every class, the students like my lectures, and they bring some other students to enjoy the lecture, but I never measure that on their achievement.
I will try to do the same course with another lecturer, and do same exams to see the results, I will tell you then , this needs at least 5 months from now.
Ahmad, you seem to be an entertaining person. I guess it is impossible for you to perform a very boring lesson. But there might be a bias then, if you have another teacher with another personality performing the same lecture.
Gentlemen, that exactly happens to me, I am a professional former comedian with a degree in Acting. Now I am a teacher and my classes are like cabaret shows, even if I teach boring Business English and or IELTS/acadmic English. Therefore, I will write my grad paper about the effects of humour in SLA. And yes, students compare me with other teachers of the same subjects and that creates problems :( Not every teacher is a comedian for sure, does not even have to be. I do not believe that being able to appreciate and/or produce humour you have to be a comedian. You might still allow students seeing the fun in learning using already produced humour. The only thing I need now is scientific research of any related discipline, which would support my belief /personal experience and grad. paper. Many thanks.
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I wish. I am working full time as coordinator and teacher, Could barely find time to do my assignments. There is one grad paper left. That's the reason why I am looking for research papers, I do not have the possibility to conduct any research myself.I only need some articles to refer to and write my paper (literature review)
The therapeutic value of laughter is revealed in these papers:
Psychol Bull. 2001 Jul;127(4):504-19.
Humor, laughter, and physical health: methodological issues and research findings.
Martin RA.
Adv Mind Body Med. 2009 Summer;24(2):8-12.
Humor theories and the physiological benefits of laughter.
Wilkins J, Eisenbraun AJ.
Altern Ther Health Med. 2010 Nov-Dec;16(6):56-64.
The therapeutic value of laughter in medicine.
Mora-Ripoll R.
Complement Ther Med. 2011 Jun;19(3):170-7. Potential health benefits of simulated laughter: a narrative review of the literature and recommendations for future research.
Mora-Ripoll R.
The effect of humor on short-term memory in older adults: a new component for whole-person wellness. Bains GS, Berk LS, Daher N, Lohman E, Schwab E, Petrofsky J, Deshpande P. Adv Mind Body Med. 2014 Spring;28(2):16-24.
Different types of laughter modulate connectivity within distinct parts of the laughter perception network. Wildgruber D, Szameitat DP, Ethofer T, Brück C, Alter K, Grodd W, Kreifelts B. PLoS One. 2013 May 8;8(5):e63441.
Dear Beatrice:
Not only valuable information you provided, but also your incredibly cute profile picture made my day. I can talk about how that affected me for sure :) Many thanks!
@Leyla, you may consider this discussion as interview, we are teachers from different locations, and you asked a question, you got our feed back, this will enrich your assignment.
HI Ahmed,
Thank you again for your suggestion about including our conversation to my paper. However, my professor explained that ethically I would be not able to refer to any of my colleagues' ideas here, since Researchgate is not considered a public domain. I might definitely use the suggested or posted publications. Thanks a lot !
I seem to remember seeing some research that the act of learning stimulated the part of the brain that was associated with happiness.
Tony Chapman did a study in which he observed children in a play environment. When the children were alone, they smiled more often, but when they were with other people, they laughed more often. One Candid Camera show was shot in a coffee house. The Candid Camera crew had designed the handles on the coffee spoons to melt in hot coffee, so the customers found themselves stirring their coffee with only the handles of the spoons. The Candid Camera crew then interviewed all of the other customers and asked them if they had laughed during this event, and they all said that they had laughed, but then they were shown a film of themselves only smiling, but not laughing. Check out this PowerPoint about the relationships between smiling and laughing:
The children in this PowerPoint about "Humor and Education" are laughing while they are learning. Also check out the second PowerPoint about laughter as it relates to creativity:
International Society for Humor Studies: http://www.humorstudies.org/ .
Alleen and Don Nilsen’s The Language of Humor (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is now available. We have developed a PowerPoint to accompany each of the twenty-five chapters of the book as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction & Humor Theories Chapter 2: Humor in Anthropology & Ethnic Studies Chapter 3: Humor in Art Chapter 4: Humor in Business Chapter 5: Humor in Computer Science Chapter 6: Humor in Education Chapter 7: Humor in Gender Studies Chapter 8a: Humor in Geography I (International Humor: Books, Conferences and Organizations) Chapter 8b: Humor in Geography II (International Humor: Examples and Discussion) Chapter 9: Humor in Gerontology Chapter 10: Humor in History Chapter 11: Humor in Journalism Chapter 12: Humor in Law Chapter 13: Humor in Linguistics Chapter 14: Humor in Literature Chapter 15: Humor in Medicine and Health Chapter 16: Humor in Music Chapter 17: Humor in Names and Naming Chapter 18: Humor in the Performing Arts Chapter 19: Humor in Philosophy Chapter 20: Humor in Physical Education Chapter 21: Humor in Politics Chapter 22: Humor in Psychology Chapter 23: Humor in Religion Chapter 24: Humor in Rhetoric and Composition Chapter 25: Humor in Sociology We’re sending you a PowerPoint indicating how humor is important to your particular discipline. Please let us know if you would like to receive any of our other humor-related PowerPoints (see above). Thanks. Don and Alleen Nilsen [email protected] [email protected] .
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