A creative approach to teaching can factor into a long-lasting professional career and has the potential to attract passionate newcomers to the field of education. When creativity is valued, teachers can use these abilities to meaningfully design instruction, to create a vibrant learning environment, and to support student self-confidence. For…

The interactional roles of smile and laughter have been widely explored in both institutional settings and mundane talk (e.g. Holt 2016; Potter and Hepburn 2010). However, the role of one specific kind of smile, what we call a 'squeezed-mouth smile' (SMS), remains unexamined. Using CA, this study explores one teacher's use of SMS in response to…

Using multimodal conversation analysis, this study closely examines moments when an instructor's embodied explanations elicit laughter from his students -- which we refer to as laughing moments -- in an English as a second language classroom. Such laughing moments can exhibit students' attention to the teacher's explanation and also illuminate…

Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs), which are voice-activated agents enabling human--computer interaction, have recently been reported to be pedagogically useful agents in language learning. IPAs use various forms of humor to better communicate with users and to compensate for any performance limitations. In order to understand the IPAs' sense…

Research on humour in second language classrooms has widely focused on the roles, social functions and markers of humour in interaction; however, little attention has been paid to the sequential mechanisms of humour and the relationship between repair and humour. Therefore, drawing on a conversation analytic approach, this study investigates…

Based on interaction recorded in EFL classrooms, this study uses Conversation Analysis to document the post-first deployment of an absurd candidate formulation (ACF) to pursue recipient response at points of interactional delay. ACFs are a form of correction-invitation device in which the question initiator proffers a candidate response that is…

Recently, there is a surge of interest in a wide range of learner emotions in the SLA field, underlining a holistic perspective of language learning emotions. The present study examines the relationships between the three prevalent emotions among language learners -- foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language anxiety (FLA), and foreign…

This study investigates the use of humor in teaching English in an English course in Indonesia. It aimed to find out the kinds of humor employed by the teacher and to explore the students' perspectives toward it. This study employed a qualitative research design and focused on one English course in Makassar, Indonesia. One teacher and one class…

This paper aimed at investigating humor in text-based computer mediated communication (CMC). To this end, 200 turns exchanged by a number of 50 English language teachers on Viber, a messaging application, were randomly selected and analyzed based on Adam's (2012) classification of humor to examine emoticons, punctuations (question mark,…

Given the loss of heritage languages due to assimilation of the dominant English language in U.S. society within three generations of migration to the U.S. (Wiley & Valdes, 2000), it is of paramount importance to examine how we can maintain and enhance heritage languages. Humor is a pragmatic tool which one can utilize to increase…

With the recent shift from negative psychology to positive psychology in the field of second language acquisition deeper understanding regarding the transfer and construction of positive emotions within classroom interactions is needed. Inspired by the concept of emotion contagion in the field of psychology, the purpose of this study was to…

Humor has often been seen as an important element in the learning process, facilitating both teaching and learning. Nevertheless, the utilization of humor in the educational setting has had its opponents. In recent years, many attempts have been made to conceptualize the various forms of humor implemented in the practice of education. Despite a…

Previous studies have implemented a quantitative method to explore the relationship between teacher self-disclosure and student participation in the educational context, particularly in communication courses. In this study, a qualitative method in data collection and analysis is used to fill this methodological gap to observe whether teachers' use…

Although research on second language (L2) humor and language play is burgeoning, most previous studies have addressed language learners. Thus, L2 teachers in general and EFL teachers in particular have comparatively received much less attention in the literature. The present research, to my knowledge, is the first study in the Iranian context and…

The role of the teacher's personality can be placed amongst many factors that play a role in learning English as a second/foreign language. A teacher with a humorous character inevitably aids in reducing any potential fear that may be experienced by students in relation to the learning of a second language in the classroom (Bell, 2009; Chee,…