In several enigmatic passages, Paulo Freire describes the pedagogy of the oppressed as a "pedagogy of laughter". The inclusion of laughter alongside problem-posing dialogue might strike some as ambiguous, considering that the global exploitation of the poor is no laughing matter. And yet, laughter seems to be an important aspect of the pedagogy of…

Scholarly communities are dependent on and often measured by their ability to attract and develop doctoral students. Recent literature suggests that most scholarly communities entail ecological niches in which the doctoral students learn the codes and practices of research. In this article, we explore the microclimate in an ecological niche of…

This paper draws on the KINSA project (The Communicative Situation of Immigrants at Swedish Workplaces), which aimed to identify communicative factors that have a positive impact on the integration of second language speakers in the workplace and in their immediate work team. The focus here is on humour and swearing as strategies for doing…

The present contribution focuses on Benigni's auteur film "La vita è bella" (Italy, 1997) as a tool for the development of language competence in L2 English, Spanish and German, as well as of translation skills from Italian into these languages. The project, developed at the CLASS Language Centre at the University for Foreigners of…

Many of the questions received by the magazine column "Ask Teaching Tolerance" are from educators seeking advice about how to respond when someone--a student, a colleague, even a parent--uses biased language or stereotypes in school. This booklet is a response to these questions. It's for educators who want to develop the skills to speak up…

The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger's syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting…

First published in anticipation of the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas, Gerald Vizenor's novel "The Heirs of Columbus" (1991) appropriates the European narrative of discovery to privilege a Native perspective that follows "trickster discourse," a mode that rejects the tragic narratives of the European…

This action research article shares the story of a student teacher and the arduous, but rewarding process of self-reflection. The authors integrate real life examples of the implementation of self-reflective strategies of a student teacher with self-efficacy, teacher life cycle, and effectiveness literature to analyze the student teacher's…

Many studies have reported on the perceptions of medical students toward dissection. It is important to understand the feelings and symptoms experienced during dissection so that they can be adequately handled. Prior to dissection, first year students are given lectures on aspects of dissection, death and dying, and death rituals in various…

This study proposes an engagement model that supports use of course-based online social networks for engaging student, and hence, improving their educational outcomes. This research demonstrates that instructors who create course-based online social networks to communicate with students can increase the student engagement in these online social…

This article intends to show how situation comedies may be used in the English language classroom to develop awareness-raising activities aimed at soliciting an understanding of essentially pragmatic and cultural aspects of everyday language. After a brief overview of studies on pragmatic teachability (Rose and Kasper 2001, 2002) and learnability…

Humor and language play have been recognized as important aspects of second language (L2) development. Qualitative studies that have documented the forms and functions of language play for adult and child L2 users have taken place largely in classroom settings. In order to gain a fuller understanding of such creative manipulations by L2 users, it…

One of the fastest-growing subpopulations of nontraditional college students is military veterans who enroll in institutions of higher education following their returns from deployment. Although much research has been conducted on veteran-students, much of that work has focused on issues such as veterans' finances or academic achievement, rather…

In "Rabelais and His World" Mikhail Bakhtin traces the history of laughter and the specific impact of Francois Rabelais upon that history, but more important it is the most definitive example of the carnivalesque available to Western scholars to date. By carnivalesque he refers to the traditional language and spectacle associated with folk culture…

According to the author, working collaboratively with every parent in her class has not always been all sunshine and kittens. Creating a successful relationship has always been her goal. There are times that she wants to snatch their cell phones away from their ears and smash them against a wall when they are in the middle of a conference. But for…