Lesson Plan : A Taste of English Humour

Lesson Level:       Senior                 Duration:  45

Lesson Title:     A Taste of British Humour

Grammar and Vocabulary

Words for discussion of humour .

Lesson Objectives

 Students will be able to read and understand jokes (words and pictures) and explain why they think (or don’t think) that they are funny.

Materials Required

Worksheet showing six humourous pictures. (Or pictures from unit 12 Practical Oral English, Senior 1, Spring Term)

Worksheet showing simple jokes with punchlines mixed up.

Preparation

Print enough copies of the worksheet to give one per group of four  

Procedure

1 Write “A Taste of English Humour on the board.

Elicit what we mean by “humour” and “joke”.

Ask class if they think English humour is the same as Chinese humour.

Elicit several answers.

2 Put class into groups of four.

Tell class that you will now tell them three jokes.

For each one they must decide

Is it funny?

Why is it (or isn’t it) funny?

Then they must choose the one they think is funniest.

(Optionally gve students written copies of the three jokes.)

Elicit from groups which they have chosen and what makes it funny. (See notes below.)

3 Tell these three (or three others) jokes.

a) Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson go camping. During the night Holmes wakes up Watson and asks. “Watson, look at the stars and tell me what you deduce.” Watson doesn’t like the way that his friend always seems so much cleverer than he is so he thinks carefully. After a time he says, “Well, Holmes, there are millions of stars in the sky and with so many stars some of them must have planets and some of those planets, With so many planets some of them must be like Earth and if that is true then some of those planets will have life like Earth. So I deduce that we are not alone in the Universe.” There is silence for a few minutes and then Watson asks, “What do you deduce, Holmes.” And Holmes says, “I deduce that someone has stolen our tent.”

(The humour here relies on the fact that Watson tries to be very clever but misunderstands Holmes very simple question. As always Watson has missed the most important thing.)

b) Two thirty-five year old men are sitting in the cafe together, They are good friends. One of them asks the other why he looks so sad. His friend says, “It’s because of my parents. I am thirty-five and never got married because every time I meet a girl I like, I take her to meet my parents. The trouble is that my mother never likes any of them so I break up with them, I don’t think I will ever find a girl my mother likes.”

His friend says, “You should find a girl who is just like your mother, then she will like her.”

A few weeks later they meet again.

The first friend asks if he found a girl like his mother. He says that he did, that he found a girl who was just like his mother. He took her home and and his mother thought she was wonderful. His friend says “Then why do you still look so sad,”

He says, “Now my father doesn’t like her.”

(The humour here is because the father doesn’t like someone who is just like the mother so maybe he doesn’t like the mother either,)

c)  A young man goes to work at a supermarket. On his first day the manager greets him and hands him a brush. He tells the young man to start by sweeping the floor clean. The young man looks at brush and says

“I don’t understand. You have given me a brush but I studied Business Management at University for three years.”

The manager says

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that you had studied business management. Here, give me the brush and I’ll show you how to do it.”

(The humour is because the young man thinks that his studies have made him too important to clean the floor but the manager thinks that study is no good without experience.) 

4 Elicit and discuss answers. 

5. Give out picture worksheets.

Tell groups that they should discuss the pictures and put them in order - funniest to least funny.

After five minutes elicit some answers for which they think is funniest and why.

6 Give out jokes worksheet.

   Tell students to match the set ups to the punch-lines.

    Elicit and explain the answers.

7 Extension task.

Get each group to write a new joke. Monitor the writing. Have the best groups stand up to tell their joke,

Notes

1. You will need six humourous pictures, These can be found on the internet.

2. Set ups

What did the balloon teacher say to the balloon  boy who brought a pin to the balloon school?

What do you sing at a snowman’s birthday party?

Why is a broken drum the greatest present?

What do you get if a sheep and a kangaroo have a baby?

What is orange and sounds like a parrot?

What do you call  bears with no ears?

What do you call a gorilla with no ears?

Punchlines:

Freeze a jolly good fellow.

You have let me down, let yourself down and let the whole school down.

You can’t beat it.

A little woolly jumper.

Anything you like, he can’t hear you.

A carrot.

B