Inside Out e-lesson
Week starting: 31st March 2008
1. Laughter This week’s lesson takes an appropriately light-hearted look at the subject of laughter. Level Intermediate and above (equivalent to CEF level B1 and above) How to use the lesson 1. Brainstorm on the subject of humour. Ask your students what makes them laugh. For example, what TV comedies do they like, and why? Do they know any funny jokes that they can tell in English? 2. Give your students five to ten minutes to read through Worksheet A, encouraging them to look up new vocabulary. Tell them they are going to answer a series of questions on the text, but that they shouldn’t write anything down at this stage. 3. When the time is up, give each student a copy of Worksheets B and C, then divide the class into pairs and ask students to work together. In Exercise 1 they have to find the words or expressions to match the definitions. In Exercise 2 they should answer the true/false/doesn’t say questions, and in Exercise 3 they have to decide whether or not the excerpts from the text have been written correctly. Whereas Exercises 1 and 2 require the students to refer back to the text, ask them not to do so while completing Exercise 3. 4. Check answers in open class. Answers Exercise 1 1. inhibition(s) 2. amusing 3. collapse 4. calm down 5. superior 6. online 7. guy 8. shy 9. benefit 10. claim 11. provoke 12. stupidity 13. have (something) in common 14. border Exercise 2 1. F
2. D
3. D
4. T
5. F
Exercise 3 1. Correct. 2. Correct. 3. Incorrect. … a shared joke can have a bonding effect on groups of people … 4. Incorrect. ... a British psychologist, Richard Wiseman, conducted an online study ... 5. Incorrect. ... not everyone laughs at the same things. 6. Incorrect. ‘There is a silence, then a shot is heard.’ 7. Incorrect. A love of laughter is probably one of the things all people have in common. 8. Correct This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net. It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.
Inside Out 2. Related Websites Send your students to these websites, or just take a look yourself. http://laughlab.co.uk/ The website of the Richard Wiseman’s LaughLab experiment, containing some interesting analyses of jokes and the way they work. Challenging for intermediate level. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/oct/03/3 An article (2002) on Wiseman’s project from the British newspaper The Guardian. Challenging for intermediate level. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6274119.stm A BBC article (2007) on the physical health benefits that apparently derive from laughter. Challenging for intermediate level.
This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net. It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.