Integrating Humor and Comedy in the Language Classroom

December 2025

This issue was published in collaboration with JALT’s PIE SIG. Can laughter really lead to learning? Let’s examine the science of humor and explore the ways we can productively bring comedy into the classroom. Just maybe, there will be some laughs along the way!

笑う門には福来たる Laughter brings good fortune to one’s door. – Japanese proverb

APA Reference for this issue

(author). (2025). (article title, sentence case). MindBrainEd Think Tanks: Integrating Humor and Comedy in the Language Classroom, 11(12), (pages).

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Watch before you read...

In this issue, we’re partnering with JALT Performance in Education (PIE) SIG to explore humor and comedy in the language classroom. In our main podcast episode neuroscientist and amateur stand-up comedian Ori Amir discusses his research on how humor is perceived and created in the brain. In our more podcast episode, neuroscientist Sophie Scott explains what the function of laughter is and why it’s so important in human interactions. Then, Curtis Kelly introduces the issue.

In the Think Tank, Jamie Emerson explores two purposes of classroom humor through neuroscience and psychology, with practical applications for language teaching. Next, Christine Winskowski investigates humor through multiple lenses: discourse, neuroscience, culture, and language teaching. Then, David Kluge recounts his experience teaching a comedy course he taught to a large class.

Looking back to our September 2025 issue on predictive processing, Caroline Handley argues that all living beings have the capacity for prediction, but teaching others allows humans to transcend prediction and create new possibilities.

Finally in our Plus, Mirela C. C. Ramacciotti examines psychologist Jerome Seymour Bruner’s theory that learning involves the active transformation and internalization of new information.

Ori Amir

What happens in our brains when we're trying to be funny

Our Thoughts on Humor & Comedy

A photo of three older women laughing together. It is captioned "The life-threatening side effect of dopamine release."

The Funny Thing About Humor Curtis Kelly

Catchy title, I think. But actually, there really is something funny about humor: its utter lack of transportability across cultures. Well, not utter lack, but spotty at best. Some of what my British peers think is funny seems silly or crass to Americans, and I am sure it works the other way too. My own jokes often left my Japanese students in a daze. And once, a famous speaker told a joke to start his presentation in Japan, and no one even smiled. The Japanese translator added one bit and suddenly the whole room broke out in laughter. The presenter later asked what the translator said, and she replied: “That was a joke.”

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Think Tank Articles

An illustration of a poodle holding a balloon string in its mouth and wearing a triangle party hat.

A Serious Business: Teaching and Using Jokes in the Classroom Jamie Emerson

Years ago, I was teaching in the room next to a novice teacher, who was working with a small group of young learners of about A2 level aged 7-14. I overheard the teacher telling, and then trying to explain, a joke that I was familiar with. Some years ago, this joke was suggested as being scientifically proven to be the ‘world’s funniest joke’. I suspect this was intended as a public engagement exercise rather than genuine science, but that’s beside the point. The point is that the novice teacher, with the best of intentions, was wasting his and his students’ time by telling this particular joke to those particular students. Why? And, more to the point, what role does humour have in the language classroom anyway? Here’s the joke:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed over. The other guy takes out his phone and calls emergency services. He says: ‘I think my friend is dead! What should I do?’ The operator says: ‘Calm down, I can help. First, make sure he’s dead.’ There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: ‘OK, now what?’

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A photo of a group of Japanese students standing and laughing.
photograph by Praetorianphoto from Getty Images Signature via Canva

Teaching the Discourse of Humor Across Cultures Christine Winskowski

A few years ago, when I was teaching in Japan, I was talking to a younger Japanese colleague. I misstated something and had to correct myself. I blamed my mixup on my age, so I jokingly advised her, “Don’t get old. Just say no.” (That is, refuse to get old and make mistakes like me.)

She chuckled obligingly, and still smiling said, “Why is that funny? Nobody can help getting old.”

Well… that is true. And that is what is funny, but it was not funny to her. To find it funny, a person might have to know the “roots” of this joke. It came from a well-known political figure in the U.S. who used a slogan, “Just say no,” to discourage children and teenagers from taking drugs. It was a worthwhile campaign, but critics found it unrealistic and mocked the slogan. Then, “just say no” jokes began to be heard. Now, in the U.S., people say “just say no” on occasions where the joke is a ridiculous pretension of denial or rejection.

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An illustration of a fast food worker preparing a hotdog.

A Comedy Class That was Truly Funny David Kluge

It is a puzzle why “explanations” of humor are absolutely NOT funny. I guess it proves the axiom that “if you have to explain a joke, there is no joke” or “when you explain a joke, you ruin the joke.” However, when writing for an academically-inclined organization, you have to explain the phenomenon. Therefore, excuse the following unfunny explanation of humor.

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Think Tank Plus

An illustration of a human eye.

An Evolutionary Perspective on Predictive Processing Caroline Handley

The opening observation of the lead-in video for the September 2025 Think Tank issue on predictive processing might initially seem alarming: “Your brain constructs your reality as you’re experiencing it”. Does this imply the denial of a real world ‘out there’? Does it mean ‘you’ are not in control? In short, no. And partly this is because despite all its impressive capabilities, your brain, just like the rest of you, is made of living cells. For me, perhaps the most important aspect of predictive processing theories is that they can be applied to all living creatures, not just humans, and in this way explain a universality of life across evolutionary history.

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A diagram of many different icons.

Great Ideas from the Brain Sciences: Meaning-making Mirela C. C. Ramacciotti

What makes you want to learn something? Answers may vary from necessity to curiosity, and all the many nuanced notions in between. But what makes one take action to learn something? Is it a provocation, as in a connection of stimulus and response, or an inner drive that gets constructed within one’s mind? What if it is something else, i.e., not only related to the self and the input, but rather to the context? What if discovery of what lay hidden is the real impulse that drives learning?

 
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A photo of a woman sleeping and snoring. Another woman stands above her, covering her ears.
photograph by Satjawat Boontanataweepol from Canva

Silly Homespun Brain Jokes Curtis Kelly

Okay, I don’t claim to be much of a comedian, but I just can’t stop my brain from making silly brain jokes now and then. Some require knowledge about the brain to get them, and maybe cultural knowledge. Feel free to punish yourself…

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Call for Contributions: Ideas and Articles Think Tank Staff

Become a Think Tank star! Here are some of the future issue topics we are thinking about. Would you, or anyone you know, like to write about any of these? Or is there another topic you’d like to recommend? Do you have any suggestions for lead-in, or just plain interesting, videos? How about writing a book review? Or sending us a story about your experiences? Contact us.

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Going Deeper

The funniest one and only multilingual joke book

The European Day of Languages is celebrated every year on September 26 with a plethora of fun activities and resources for teachers and students. As part of the celebration in 2022, people submitted jokes in languages they were familiar with, and some of the jokes were published in a freely available joke book, organized in the following chapters: 

  • Jokes that only work in certain languages 
  • Jokes that work in all languages 
  • Jokes and puns in English involving other languages/countries 
  • Linguistic chat-up lines

As an example, here’s a nice Portuguese joke:

Por que o professor usava óculos escuros na sala de aula? – Porque os seus alunos eram brilhantes. 

Why did the teacher used to wear sunglasses in class? – Because his pupils were brilliant. 

Enjoy the rest of the jokes here: link.

A bit of brainy humor

This webpage has some fun(ny) brain and neuroscience jokes. Some are easy to understand while others require a bit of background knowledge in neuroscience. But you don’t need to be afraid of diving in as there’s an explanation for each joke. To whet your appetite:

  • Why did the brain refuse to take a bath? – It didn’t want to be brainwashed.

Check the others out here! 

 

Share a Laugh

Here’s a short awareness-raising activity involving laughter that you can do together with your colleagues to promote health and greater wellbeing. In the activity, invite your colleagues to listen to an audio file with laughter and then reflect on the experience. The resource gives tips on planning and carrying out the activity, a link to a YouTube audio with canned laughter, and information on the research behind the activity. Curious? Find out more here!

The MindBrained Think Tanks+

is produced by the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Mind, Brain, and Education Special Interest Group (BRAIN SIG). Kyoto, Japan. (ISSN 2434-1002)

Editorial Staff

      Stephen M. Ryan               Curtis H. Kelly              Julia Daley     

 Afon (Mohammad) Khari     Heather Kretschmer     Nicky De Proost

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