I believe it’s time to talk about oral comprehension. Many students arrive at a workable level of communication, that is, they are capable of asking questions and forming more complex sentence structures, but unfortunately their comprehension skills are at a lower level.

To stimulate this form of comprehension I like to use Jokes.

I begin with short ones that are rather easy to understand, although even these can bring on a laugh!!!

Here are a few examples.

• A little girl had just finished her first week of school.
  “I’m wasting my time”, she said to her mother, “I can’t read, I can’t write and they won’t let me talk!”
   
• Sign in front of a Karate school parking lot:
  “For students only… all other cars will be broken in half!”
   
• My 12-year-old daughter was filling out an application for a foreign language course. Suddenly she stopped. A moment later she wrote something down. I looked over her shoulder and read the question. It said “Mother Tongue”. Next to it she had written, “Pink”.
   
• After dinner at one of New York’s most expensive restaurant, my teenage brother remarked sadly, “Just think of all the hamburgers we could have bought for $85!”
   
• When asked how he spent his day at school, my nephew answered , “We sang”.
  “What did the class sing?”
  “I don’t know what the class sang, I sang Jingle Bells!”
   
• The librarian received a call from a person asking when the Cenozoic Era began. He consulted a number of sources and reported back that the Cenozoic Era started about 65 million years ago.
  “Couldn’t you be more specific?” the caller demanded.
  “Sure,” said the librarian, “March 1st, 65 million years ago!”
   
• My husband took our daughter out for her very first driving lesson. He began by asking her, “What is the first thing you do when you get into the car?”
  She replied, “Turn on the radio!”
   

Here a few that are a little longer.

• A salesman entered a client’s office. No one was in the office except a big dog that was sweeping the floor. The salesman stared at the dog. The dog looked up and said, “Don’t be surprised, this is part of my job”.
  “Incredible”, said the salesman, “I can’t believe it… a talking dog!!! I’m going to tell your boss!”
  “Oh no,” pleaded the dog, “Please don’t! if he finds out I can talk, he’ll make me answer the phones!”
   
• On the street a man stopped another man and said, “Hello, George, how are you? I almost didn’t recognize you. You gained at least 10 pounds, you grew a moustache and you even changed the colour of your hair!”
  “Excuse me, but my name isn’t George.”
  “What? You even changed your name!!!”
   

It never hurts to add a little humour to the lesson. It’s good for you and your students. Actually it’s a good way to gain their attention and what better way is there to make them concentrate on what’s being said!

If you like you can go over a few vocabulary words and verbs that are used in the jokes so they already have a help with the context of the joke. Then read the joke twice so they get accustomed to the pronunciation.

It’s also advisable to use these jokes as Dictation practice. Finally you can prepare photocopies of the jokes so they can correct their errors by themselves after the dictation.
These jokes can be kept all together under one Division, so they can add others when given.

Here’s our Nice Thought:
“Humour is spontaneous. It’s unplanned and full of surprises!”