Humour helps in understanding better, because humour makes you comfortable and opens your mind, making you more receptive to the concepts being taught, says international education consultant Gordon Michael Sutton.
Adding fun element to teaching English, Mr. Sutton tried to help students from Classes V to X grasp the need for getting the grammar and punctuation right.
Explaining the punctuation marks, he presented an excerpt from a popular book and explained how each punctuation mark made a difference to the meaning.
There are some students who have mastered the language going through the traditional learning by rote. One cannot wish it away, but then there are many who have not been able to master it.
“Teaching them with an element of humour in it is an easy way to help them master it,” Mr. Sutton said.
He has been an educational speaker and trainer working with teachers and students in China, India, the Middle East, and the U.K. on English, literacy, and communication.
“To master the language, you need to immerse yourself into it. There are some Chinese students who speak impeccable English and quite a few English-born who have poor English,” he said, talking from his experience. Sometimes, while taking a class, I found that Indian teachers were explaining exactly the same point and the student understood it immediately.
“There are nuances in the language that are not very apparent,” he said, recalling his interaction with students of Classes V to X of Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan in the city in the last few days.
‘Read works of fiction’
He suggests reading works of fiction to learn English.
“I once asked a class to count the number of sentences in a work of fiction and found it has close to 1,00,000. Imagine, if you have read even 10 books in a year, you would have been exposed to 1 million sentences of usage of English,” he said.
Humour makes you comfortable and opens your mind, making you more receptive to the concepts being taught
Gordon Michael Sutton
