Sunday, September 06, 2020

Using Jokes to Teach Inference

(TESOL Worksheets--Reading, Listening, Speaking)
Google: slides, pub
[Notes: I used this to supplement a textbook lesson I was doing on understanding inference as a listening subskill.  Other textbooks use understanding inference as a subskill in reading, so I suppose it could be classified as either.  And some textbooks teach making inferences as a speaking-subskill.  So I'll classify it as all 3.
Anyway, in my classroom, I was using this to supplement a textbook that was using understanding inference as a listening subskill.  As a way to introduce inferences, I went through all of my previous joke slideshows (here, here and here) and pulled out any of the jokes that relied on inference--i.e. the humor relied on something that was not explicitly stated, but only hinted at.  In class, I had the students explain to me what the unstated inference was in each case.
Joke 1: Inference is that the shopkeeper has a dog, but that his dog is not in the shop at the moment.  The dog who is present belongs to someone else.
Joke 2: Inference is that the bear will only eat one of them, and that the bear will eat whichever is the slowest
Joke 3: Inference is that his dad is not a Trump supporter
Joke 4: Inference is that he is drinking tea with a spoon in the cup, and the spoon is hitting his eye
Joke 5: Inference is that you've eaten the other half of the worm]

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