The Use Of Humour In The English Class

=== 104a87fc87e22482fba2963f9dcf803a6aa1def2_139063_1 ===

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 The aims of the paper

In learning second languages, one of the biggest enemies is the anxiety caused in part by the shame of the students not feeling competent. It is the teacher's job to provide an adequate climate in which the student is relaxed and can fully exploit their qualities. The level of anxiety of students is lower when the teacher uses teaching methods with a sense of humour. For this reason we consider justified the activities proposed below as well as the introduction of grammatical structures and vocabulary, as well as help for immersion of the student in another culture.

This thesis aims to investigate whether the use of humour by the teacher favours the teaching-learning process. We used an intentional sample of articles about empirical research on the inclusion of humour in the classroom. A qualitative content analysis methodology was applied to this material from the elaboration of several categories. The results indicate that these investigations are based, in their majority, on an empiricist perspective and – from there – propose a pragmatic didactics. Such investigations generically attribute a positive influence to the adequate use of humour in teaching-learning processes, as they modify interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects such as affective, social and cognitive. However, the thesis concludes that the inclusion of humour in the classroom requires new research that uses more current theoretical perspectives. This would allow another type of more precise analysis about what the contextual aspects of the classroom scene really are that would be affected by using humour in the teaching-learning process as a useful tool to favour, for example, the conceptual change.

The general aim of this thesis is to analyze and theorize about the psycho-educational processes of teaching and learning that focus empirical research selected on the use of humour in the classroom, identifying theories of humour, theoretical assumptions and the didactic perspective that sustain them. Regarding the specific objectives, one would appreciate:

1. Analyze the purposes with which humour is introduced in the classroom as well as the educational levels that address the selected empirical studies.

2. Distinguish the theories of humour that guide its use in the classroom and the analyzed research.

3. Determine if such empirical studies contemplate any articulation between the students' level of understanding of humour and their introduction into the classroom.

4. To establish if these investigations consider favourable the introduction of humour in the classroom, in what conditions of teaching and learning, and what are the risks that they find in this practice.

5. Examine in the research the didactic conceptions from which the study of humour in the classroom is proposed.

 6. Identify if the research alludes to types of cognitive, psychological and / or group consequences attributed to the introduction of humour in the classroom and on what theoretical bases support them.

1.2 The structure of the paper

The present paper is divided into five chapters. In this respect, the theoretical framework represents chapter no. 2, highlighting aspects such as the Linguistic Approaches to Humour and Educational ones.

The third chapter emphasize the humour and its implications into the classroom discourse. The approached subjects are, in this regard, the following: Text types, Strategies, Impact and Assessment Issues.

Then, one would observe that the research methodology would be performed in chapter no. 4. In this respect, aspects such as Research aims and Questions, Research methods and instruments, Research stages and Data Collection will complete this part of study.

Chapter no. 5 is represented by a wide collection of data regarding humour in the curriculum, humour in the English textbooks, initial tests, humour style questionnaire, teaching with humour-a teaching approaches in the English class, exploiting the pluri-cultural repertoire through humour in the English class and final tests.

The sense of humour exists in all cultures and is reflected in different ways in the language. Similarly, languages reflect humour through word games, double meanings and inconsistencies. In order to arrive at a total understanding of the appropriate incongruities, that is to say, of humour, one must have a high degree of competence in the second language, and even then a cultural baggage is necessary that is lacking if one is not native and one is immersed in the culture. In this respect, our proposal is to affirm that at different levels of language learning, from elementary to very advanced levels; it is convenient and fruitful to use humorous material whenever a careful selection is made of it.

CHAPTER II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Linguistic Approaches to Humour

Humour is a primordial mechanism in the social life of every community where it manifests itself in diverse situations and for a variety of purposes (Driessen, 2004, 2015). For example, humour can promote alliances or mitigate conflicts in conversations (Boxer and Cortés-Conde, 1997, Norrick and Spitz, 2008, 2010). Similarly, in the labour domain, superiors can use humour to mitigate their criticisms of subordinates (Holmes, 2006). However, humour can also serve to divide people as well as ridicule (Billig, 2005, Ermida, 2009, Montemurro and Benfield, 2015). Precisely, the ethnic humour that represents minority groups as irrational, grotesque, dirty or foolish, reinforces negative stereotypes towards these groups while strengthening a segregationist status quo (Weaver, 2014a, 2014b, Billig, 2005). These stereotypes are consolidated, if, in addition, negative ethnic humour is projected through audiovisual media where cultural representations are reproduced and legitimized (Harwood and Giles, 1992, Mintz, 1985, Stamou, 2011). When we approach the construct humour we present it with a double vision, a multiform reality, variegated and full of overlaps.

On the one hand there is that daily life, that closeness, that pleasant and carefree touch, very familiar to each one of us and present in all human beings, despite the fact that we can find differences of a cultural nature in relation to those elements or situations that each one considers as fun. (Benavent, 1969). Thus, compared to three hundred times a day, on average, when a child laughs, the adult laughs approximately fifty. We can therefore, once given these brief brushstrokes, conclude affirming that: we all laugh (with the exception of those who have some pathologies in which we are not going to enter); that we all externalize with laughter the humour in spite of the fact that not always both aspects, as some studies on the subject have shown, are correlative (Larrauri, 2010). Although we have already seen that humour has an approximate component for us, we will also find in it a distancing, a side that we dare to describe as dark, impenetrable, mysterious. Studies on this aspect are not recent. Starting with the most remote classical antiquity we observe cases in which there is a search for its composition, its original genesis. That search remains in the objective of the most current works. As Groucho Marx considered: "Humour is possibly a word; I use it constantly and I'm crazy about it. Someday I will find out its meaning. " Defining what humour is, it seems, therefore, to not be an easy path due to its complexity and subjectivity.

Etymology of the word humour

An etymological analysis of the term humour can shed enough clarity about it, since through it we can find its deep meaning and subsequent understanding. When we speak of humour we are originally denominating in Latin a fluid or liquid. This concept would continue to be related in the medical language with the term humours that is equivalent to the fluids that are given in the body. In this manner, the predominance of some fluids over others predisposed for a positive or negative affectivity considering the basis of health or illness. There were four humours: melanic, bilious, phlegmatic and sanguine (Contreras, 1997), which were related to the four elements of nature (earth, water, air and fire) and which were also connected to the cold, the humid , dry and hot (Baquero, 2006). As we observe, the term humour was not equated in its origin with the funny or funny, as it is perceived today, but with modes of affectivity. As time passes, one might consider that in the seventeenth century humour was related to some types of behaviour that we can describe as out of place, respectively those who did not meet the standards that society had imposed. The individuals who are given to them are called men of humour or humorists. We must realize that it will be from this seventeenth century when humour begins to relate from a neutral and not hurtful point to laughter as well as its most comical element. This fact changes at the end of the century, where there is a distinction between good humour (adequate) and bad humour (inappropriate). This appropriate humour is associated with classes that have high social status. Nowadays, the term humour, besides being associated with affectivity, is also related to a funny or funny component without a priori differentiation between good and bad humour. This evolution that we have seen can explain -in part the fact that the term is so elusive at the moment of a convincing definition by the different disciplines that have approached its unravelling aspects.

Some definition proposals

We can begin this section by approaching in a very general and simplistic way the term humour with the affirmation that it is everything that makes us laugh. Laughter would be the concretization of humour. This fact, however obvious it may seem, is the only one that does not allow discussion among the theoreticians, since from here we can not find publications that we can call determinants and definitive for our subject. This is mainly due to the number of dimensions or points of view through which we can approach the construct humour, which produces a lack of agreement and unity. Therefore, we can only add to the statement made by de Prada (2010) when he considered that “Only the scientific ingenuity of some mature investigators, accustomed to paving the way to progress with methodical tenacity, explains to us that they try to find out the nature of humour for frigid rational roads”. Without realizing that by catching him with scientific rigor he escapes, it slips away like eels. (Silva and Sassenfeld, 2004, p.69-70). This is very much in accordance with what Jardiel Poncela already said when he expressed that defining humour was as much "as pretending to cross a butterfly, using a pin, a telegraph pole". It turns out, as it seems, that humour is indefinable.

Both for the Dictionary of English usage (2007) and for the ideological Dictionary of the English language (2007) we can read as the first entry of the term humour: "Any of the body's liquids animal". This brings us to the origin of the word, being also related to the second meaning of the Dictionary of English usage, which defines it as: "With" good, bad "or any adjective or specification, a person's mood, habitual or circumstantial one, which predisposes the individual to be happy and be kind, or on the contrary, to be dissatisfied and unkind."

Moliner defines the term humour in its fourth meaning as: "With reference to people and what they say, write, draw, etc., with consistent quality in discovering or showing what is funny or ridiculous in things or people, with or without malevolence". Also, humour is considered an "attitude or tendency that consists in seeing the laughing or ironic side of things". At this point we have to realize that for the Dictionary of the English Language (2001), different definitions that we have been associated with humour in the previous dictionaries are related in a much more direct way to the term "humourism". Also, the word humour is defined as follows: "Mode of presenting, judging or commenting on reality, highlighting the comic, smiling or ridiculous side of things". This definition is, therefore, very similar to that of humour given in the fourth meaning of Moliner. For Moliner, the fundamental difference between one and another concept would be the presence or absence of malevolence that alludes to the term humour and its exclusion in the definition of humour. We could add to what has already been said more than some words such as fun, wit, irony, comedy, paradox, ridicule, caricature, sarcasm, parody, grotesque, absurd, joke or satire fall within the laughable considering the Humour as a matrix concept where they start from. Humour encompasses all of them, thus possessing a pluri-significant character.

Humour from a linguistic perspective

The linguistic theories that have been formulated so far about humour are framed in the two models of linguistic analysis hitherto known: the model of the code and the inferential model. As it is already known, until well into the twentieth century, linguistic communication was regarded as a mere process of codification and decoding. According to this, the speaker, based on a code shared with his receiver – which matches sound sequences with concepts – converts his message into a phonic signal that propagates through the air until it reaches the listener, who, in turn, re-decodes said signal to retrieve the message transmitted by it. Thus, from this perspective, linguistic communication is reduced to a simple process of coding and decoding. However, from the second half of the twentieth century, begins to advocate another conception of the communicative process. This shift is based on the existence of a void that in many cases is observed between the literal meaning of the sentences and what they actually transmit. It is clear, therefore, that in communicative processes it is sometimes transmitted explicitly, and without being codified, information that could be explicitly codified, but that has not been.

For the inferential model, communication is considered as a process of recognition, through inference, of the meaning or meaning that the sender intends to transmit. In this process, the receiver is based not only on the decoding but also on the information he has about the elements that make up the speech situation and the general expectations about the behaviour of his interlocutor. However, the theories of the first group suffer, in our view, from a basic methodological flaw that makes us reject them altogether: they forget a factor as important for humour as is the situation of discourse. Hence, none of these theories is capable of answering a question as basic as the following: why does the same sentence sometimes provoke our laughter and sometimes not? On the other hand, the theories raised from the inferential model always try to take into account the role that the situation of discourse can play in the process of linguistic interaction. Within the group of these last theories, the ideas about the development of the conversation have been prominently mentioned by Weaver (2014a). In a study published in the mid-seventies, the American philosopher elaborates a series of maxims, all of them being included under a general principle which he calls the Principle of Cooperation as during the communication process the interlocutors must comply with in order to achieve their goal of linguistic interaction. This general principle unfolds in the following maxims:

1. The maximum amount- it is divided into two sections:

a) Make your contribution as informative as required.

b) Do not make your contribution more informative than required.

2. The maximum of quality It bifurcates in the following two sub-maximises:

a) Do not say what you think is false.

b) Do not say what you can not prove.

3. The maximum so- it is subdivided into four sub-maximises:

a) Avoid dark expressions.

b) Avoid ambiguity.

c) Be brief.

d) Be ordered.

4. The relationship maximum- it is stated in the following way:

– Be relevant

In a later study, Attardo (2012) takes advantage of these conversational maxims to develop a linguistic theory about humour. In this study, he analyzes the humoristic statements as violations of the different maxims established by Grice. For this, it provides us with a significant number of examples. However, despite how suggestive this line of research may be, we believe that it is a partial theory of humour, since it can not account for all types of humorous statements. This theory requires, in our understanding, certain qualifications, since comedy does not always emanate from the violation of conversational maxims, but can sometimes also derive from the infraction of any other norm of conduct imposed by society on individuals who in it they live together. In this sense, the distinction that Henri Bergson makes between laughter that language expresses and comedy created by language itself in his study of laughter, affirms that: "The first could, strictly speaking, be translated from one language to another, subject to losing most of its relief when moving to another society, different in its customs, its literature and especially its associations of ideas. But the comicity of the second species is generally untranslatable. It owes what it is to the structure of the phrase and to the choice of words. It does not record, with the help of language, certain particular distractions of men or events. Emphasize the distractions of the same language. It is the language itself that here is comical."

In spite of the differences derived from the different approaches from which the language is contemplated, while in his study Bergson consigns it to be perfectly compatible with Grice's theory of conversational maxims. Applying the words of the French philosopher to a possible theory of humour and in light of the provisions of Grice, we can affirm that the springs of comedy can not be restricted to the violation of conversational maxims, but must also be extended to the infringement of any other rule of conduct imposed by society on the individuals who live there. Seen this way, it is legitimate to even think that the same Principle of Cooperation mentioned by Grice, is framed in a broader one, which not only governs the verbal behaviour of the members of society but also any type of behaviour within the same We can formulate this principle in the following way: Be coherent in your behaviours with the logic of the society where you move. With the logical term, we refer here to any type of protocol or rule that imposes a certain society on its members when acting socially. At this point, we can establish a general rule that governs the use of language and whose infringement by the issuer will cause, in appropriate circumstances, the laughter of your interlocutor: Do not make your intervention contradict the expectations of your interlocutor. If the listener expects that he will speak in a certain way, and you proceed in another way, his reaction will be to laugh at what he says and interpret it as a non-serious message. Similarly, if your interlocutor, based on the logic in force in the society where you live, expects that what you tell will be resolved within a specific framework, and does not solve it within this same framework, your words will be taken as humorous and non-serious use of language.

 Thus, we can distinguish two categories of humorous statements:

1) Statements that violate any of the rules that govern the use of language.

2) Statements that, while not violating any rule of appropriate use of language, contradict the expectations of the recipient.

With "rules that govern the use of language", we refer here -for lack of another better structured theory in this sense so far- to Grice's conversational maxims. In this respect, it seems important at this point to ask the following question: what makes a statement of these characteristics in some cases humorous and others offensive to the listener? In other words, what is it that makes the interlocutor interpret a statement as a joke in certain occasions and as insolence in others? The answer to this dilemma is also given to us by Bergson. According to the famous French philosopher, for a statement to be comical, the listener must feel a certain indifference towards what he expresses; laughter must always be accompanied by insensibility, since "there is no greater enemy than emotion". Therefore, the key to success in this type of statement lies in the ability of the issuer to put an insurmountable barrier between what their words express and the emotion of the receiver.

One may conclude that, from the point of view of positive psychology, the sense of humour is not a mere remedy to prevent or help overcome the disease, but a virtue that promotes greater well-being and enjoyment of life, and even, as It has been seen, the growth towards greater humanity and fulfilment. In this sense it is relevant that diverse cultures (for example the Buddhist and Hindu traditions) consider that a positive sense of humour is both the result and the cause of a high level of wisdom or emotional maturity.

The word humour comes from the Latin word umor and from the medieval humor, being both medical terms that mean biological disposition or temperament. Humour is commonly defined, and not only in psychology, as mood, disposition of spirit or character, it is an emotional or affective state of relatively long duration that determines in an individual to make certain mental associations with pleasant or unpleasant things, according to the mood that possesses a given moment (Nash, 2014). It is then humour as any stimulus that can cause the psycho-physiological reaction of laughter (games, jokes, jokes, cartoons, embarrassing situations, incongruities, innocence, tickle) and the sense of humour as the ability to experience and / or stimulate this reaction (Vandaele, 2016). It is complicated to try to define humour , refers to a certain character in front of the reality in which one lives, and that attends more to an inner state, which differs from external behaviours that although they are associated, are of a different nature, as it is laugh easily by tickling or teasing. Sense of humour is the different way of seeing reality, which determines a way of feeling and acting (Carroll, 2014), or as Mingote said "Humour realizes that everything is relative". Sense of humour is conceived as an attitude derived from self-knowledge and self-acceptance. It involves an attitude towards life, a way of seeing it or receiving it, a way of being in the world. It is basically a realistic vision or perception of the world that surrounds us; it means to perceive both poles of a situation as they are, from a panoramic view. The sense of humour can be acquired if we play with our own ego and its pretensions, if we take in joke our affectations, poses or personalities assumed, if we do not consider our hyper-nature and if we develop a sense of self-ridicule (Yus, 2016). Having a sense of humour highlights the reality, the feelings of the people, their state of mind, and conscious of it, creating an apparent reality, always finding joy in every situation without losing the point of view of the essential. Whoever has a sense of humour is a seeker of smiles, but only those who come out to get the good out of the bad, for this reason it is not in accordance with irony, nor with mockery, that even if they cause smiles, they do not start from the goodness, but the dark side of things; the person who starts from humour , fosters affection towards others and that is why he usually directs humour towards himself, enjoying what he does, when applying to his life an attitude of joy that also differs from those who work as clowns, because they use entertaining people as a form of sustenance, although their feelings are alien to the happiness they purport to reflect (Yepes, 1996). Humour is a manifestation of intelligence and human freedom, because the intelligent man is the one who he is capable of being happy and because whoever manages to maintain an optimistic attitude, taking the good out of any situation, is never caught in anything, so he has been subjected to captivity. Good humour is also the result of understanding, assimilating reality without pretending to fight contrary to it, letting it flow in an act that returns the hope that things will be better, remembering that an opportunity is always hidden behind of each situation that seems like a huge problem. The sense of humour as human capacity, responds to the voluntary use of some provisions or possibilities of action, is susceptible to intentional development, which is rewarding, its development is easier than it might seem. A sense of humour can be promoted through education, and it is one of the best services provided by the teacher (Yepes, 1996). Below is the relationship between humour and its relationship with education. It is like a human capacity, susceptible of intentional development constituted by the elements out of context, the a priori: playful, game, enjoyment, satisfaction, joy. Humour manifests itself through written, graphic, representative and verbal forms. If we want to speak in written humour, we must take into account the comic literary genre, the stories, the epigram, and the fable. The graphic humour is manifested through cartoons, compilations of jokes, sayings and sayings, comics and graffiti. The representative humour is shown through comedy, hors d'oeume, operetta, mimicry and theatre. Verbal humour is heard through the joke, the anecdote, the irony, the paradox, the parody and the satire.

2.2 Educational Approaches to Humour

Humour as a pedagogical strategy.

Educate through humour is to take into account that we all have the ability to laugh, and that is excellent for mental health, emotional, physical, social and work. See everything that happens from a tragic or comic point of view; the sense of humour is to choose to see life from a different point of view, that is, with humour (Carroll, 2014). Ziv (2001) considers that humour is not a prerequisite for teaching and is not the most important quality of a good teacher, it should be used only by those who are comfortable with it. However, it is important to bear in mind that education to use humour as a pedagogical strategy must take into account the sense of order so that the class does not turn into disorder, that is, order is the limit of disorder, and such is also the own perception of the sense of humour: to see the disorder, fruit of human freedom, in the heart of order, controlled by it, but present, happy and free of disorder. The educational applications of humour are so varied with tools in such a way as to facilitate the learning process in the student. Humour is a vehicle for the goals of teachers and students, or as a means of opposition and resistance (Yus, 2016).

If the teacher develops a sense of humour and the ability to laugh, he will be able to deal better with the tensions inherent in his work and will educate more effectively. Because humour creates a relaxed atmosphere, a better relationship, ideas linked to humour last longer in the mind, learning is better. When the students laugh, they open the mind; is the most appropriate time to admit ideas, who have had a funny teacher knows (Carroll, 2014). Also the sense of humour is the sense of the end, and this is, likewise, essential in education. The teachers needs, first of all, to know what the purpose of his action is, because only then can he effectively use the means at his disposal, and he knows how to find new ones. It is essential for the teacher to have a deep sense of purpose so as not to fall into a death trap that Buchier called "method worship". To educate is not to know the educational methods well, but to have a sense of purpose and to be able to convert the media into effective educational methods (Ziv, 2001). The pedagogical strategy may advise an action, but if reality advises another, the teacher prudently neglects the methodology and does so with humour, with joy; and when this is achieved, the essential dimensions of the sense of humour will have been acquired: "Understanding in the heart, joy in the will, wit in the understanding and, above all, hope in the soul" (Ziv, 2001), fundamental aspects in education. As Yus (2016) considered,“a child is a very serious thing, but who can take it seriously only once?” For this author, the sense of humour is one of the three main features that make up the being of the teacher. It is not difficult to conjecture that understanding, joy, ingenuity and hope are essential to the teacher. Some students project tension and conflict in the classroom, the teacher must achieve an order that makes coexistence possible, and this situation may discourage the use of humour. If the teacher enters funny in a classroom, maybe not in class but when he controls the group and understands that he can laugh at the top and shut up, work and laugh again, and go back to work and laugh again, it is perfectly possible to achieve a class where teacher and students develop the class in a pleasant way free of tensions (Carroll, 2014).

In all groups of students, humour is a circumstance that occurs naturally and can change the group process in the development of a class. Humour can turn a course into a more interesting and even exciting process. That humour is recognized and used as a constructive part in the pedagogical process is one of the secrets of the experts in the successful management of group dynamics. By developing and using positively the existing sense of humour in any group, the teacher can exert an important influence on the attitudes and execution of the class (Friedman, 2014). A positive sense of humour increases the enjoyment of learning, reduces defences, increases availability, opens communication and increases the personal sense of belonging. Obviously, a sense of humour is not a primordial condition for the success of a class; however, recognizing and managing it will influence the way in which the group works, the attitude of its members and the general mode of operation (Friedman, 2014). Students who present themselves defensive, non-creative and even hostile patterns, the use of humour can be an important ingredient to change the non-constructive pattern or to reduce the development of it. The members of a group that were not born funny or not being particularly funny, have the ability to develop a positive mood, from internal smiles to external laughter. The key lies in the ability to plan certain events that allow humour to take shape and emerge from the progressive life of the group, its activity and purpose. If the group has developed a certain degree of confidence, it is easier to exploit the humour, because the students will be less shy, less competitive, and they will be able to express their feelings, therefore, able to participate more positively in a group shared experience. (Friedman, 2014).

It is known that a sense of humour can be used effectively to disorient students, to move them away from potentially hostile and aggressive situations, and to minimize a negative event. Likewise, it can be used as a means of avoiding conflict or confrontation within the classroom. In contrast, members of a group can use humour to hurt or harm others or to reduce the value of others' contributions. The teacher is responsible for identifying and guiding the humour of a group to use it as a tool to help them achieve their learning objectives (Friedman, 2014). Humour also appears as a corrective means of students’ undesirable behaviour in Woods (1983, pp. 144-152), but it is also used as an instrument in the process of socialization in the educational institution, as a strategy to improve relationships between adults and students (Bryant et al., 1982, p.25). Likewise, it is conceived as a factor of social competence, with functions of facilitator to achieve a good level of coexistence through the management of conflicts and the communication of emotions (Friedman, 2014).

The pedagogical strategies appear as a response to the concerns and concerns that the teacher has regarding the student's learning. The emphasis is to put learning more in terms of who learns than who teaches. Here they were developed from two axes: learning and everyday life, because it takes into account that the learning process consists both in the reproduction of the contents, and in the elaboration of the same, what the student is capable of. Besides this, the process has five possible instances: with the teacher, the group, with himself, with the context, with the materials and the media (Abraham et al., 2014). The pedagogical strategy of humour in this research is developed taking into account the following elements for meaningful learning, in the application phase of the program to the experimental group: previous concepts, objectives, summary, previous organizer, humorous graphic illustrations, humorous analogies, questions intercalated, typographical and discursive clues, conceptual maps and semantic networks and textual humorous structures (Abraham et al., 2014).

Previous concepts: a written questionnaire is made to know the previous concepts that the students have on the topic "typology of texts: descriptive argumentative". In this respect, the pedagogical strategy for the development of classes is designed in a more enjoyable way and aim to achieve significant learning. In the objectives establish the conditions, type of activity and form of evaluation of student learning, generating appropriate expectations, for the subject (Abraham et al., 2014). The summary is a synthesis and abstraction of the relevant information of the subject (Abraham et al., 2014) "type of texts: descriptive argumentative" that is used in oral and written speech, which is emphasized with key concepts, principles, terms and the central argument. He chooses anecdotes, jokes, satires, ironies and paradoxes that allow him to illustrate it in such a way that they do not get out of the context of the subject. The previous organizer is constituted by the information of introductory and contextual type, allows to make a connection between the learning that the student has and the new information, in such a way that allows a higher level of abstraction, generality and inclusiveness of the new learning (Berger, 2014). It is chosen the illustrations or visual representations (Berger, 2014) humorous about the concepts, objects or situations of the specific topic that can be cartoons, comics and graffiti. Humorous analogies are used to illustrate similarity between particular aspects of a topic and an event, in such a way as to allow the student to consolidate the new knowledge in a pleasant way. The teacher asks questions interspersed, in such a way that allows feedback if the student is attentive and has retained relevant information on the subject. The teacher prepares humorous discursive and typographical cues so that the student finds answers both in the written content and in the discourse itself. Both the teacher and the student make conceptual maps, through graphic and semantic representations, of knowledge schemes in which they include concepts, propositions and explanations (Berger, 2014) accompanied by humorous notes within the context itself. Textual structures are used, through the rhetorical organization of an oral or written speech, which influence their understanding and memory. It becomes necessary, therefore, to find out, to where it is intended to arrive and how the strategy influences it. Here the control of the quality of teaching is imposed with double slope: on the one hand appreciates the work of students; on the other, it verifies the teacher's efficiency. The elements that can integrate this control can be: objective tests; problem solving; oral tests; written exams; direct questions in class, conceptual maps.

The choice of the means to present a class is the key to a correct strategy, whose elements must integrate the necessary mechanisms to represent reality in a symbolic way, such as: schemes and graphics, photographs, fixed projections, models, cinematographic films, sound media, and, above all, relational elements (understood as the type of relationship that is convenient to establish students among themselves and with the teacher) and operational elements (understanding as such the different types of activity that students can do to assimilate the concepts: direct experiences, demonstrations, practical work, dramatized experiences). As mentioned above, the correct choice of means to present a class sets the tone for a strategy to achieve its objective. According to Berger (2014), a pedagogical strategy must be formed from a matristic culture, which is based on the recognition of the other as equal, therefore there is no domination or hierarchy, so the strategy must go aimed at encouraging behaviours such as: Motivate towards non-competitive "sports" and work based on collaboration, games in which everyone wins (Berger, 2014). From the perspective of the matristic culture, humour would be a correct pedagogical strategy, because this culture focuses on the aesthetics of the natural world and humour is based on the search for the positive in the midst of difficult situations. This is where it is even clearer that humour, rescues human potential and is completely removed from what is mockery or irony. The acquired learning with pedagogical strategies of humour , they last, by the degree of satisfaction in which it was acquired. Dundes (2017) identifies the variables that facilitate students' responses to fun literature, infers strategies for evaluation and more effective use of humour in school textbooks. In this respect, one affirms that students prefer this type of literature while that humour influences the social context, in the cognitive challenge a greater degree of correspondence is observed in the level of cognitive development reached, the novelty, the anticipation period is followed by the sudden solution, and also, the degree of detachment, that is, the distance between what is read as funny and the real life of the student who reads it.

Amelia Klein (1985) re-evaluates the role of humour in offering careful and fructiferous analyzes of the relationships between humorous literature and cognitive development, learning, motivation and teaching, although in a privileged way in the relationship between education and humour. In this context, one would methodologically identify positive aspects of humorous stimuli that influence the social, emotional and mental life of students.

Functions of humour

Dundes (2014, pp.369-370) highlights the following functions as the most basic and decisive ones.

Motivating function – We managed to awaken interest in the theme that is being worked on at that time. The activation of the sensors that cause the continuous attention of the task is sought. This function is not limited only to the students but also includes the teacher who will teach with pleasure.

Function of camaraderie and friendship- It provokes the approach between the members of the group reducing the physical distance that there may be at first in the class. Avoid the cold environment caused by individualism causing a cohesion and group interaction. It fosters a positive affectivity.

Relaxation function- Through humour and laughter we can relativize the moments of tension that can occur. We seek to reduce the conflict situations by means of a flight through the fire stairs of the comic. This will act as an escape valve that helps us to decompress the negative elements with which we can find ourselves.

Fun function – We have to look for fun, a pleasant and pleasant atmosphere with a healthy intention to have a good time. For France and Fernandez: "The pleasure of laughter is the pleasure of pleasures" (2009, p.61). Joy must be present throughout the process. It must be a rising value that is quoted on the stock market.

Aggressive function – The humour that we apply can act in two ways: trying to get a positive laugh, shared by all or on the contrary, be harmful and hurtful to the person in front of us. France and Fernandez recommend that we not use aggressive humour because: "It degrades the environment, who uses it and who supports it" (2009, p.67). Some ways to use this type of weapon can be through irony or sarcasm.

Defensive function- Against the previous function, it tries to defend against possible attacks or attacks. We are looking for a laugh that starts from our main faults, so that we get ahead of the criticisms of others by dismantling their possible arguments. I am a good connoisseur of what happens to me, of how I am, so I must be the first to laugh at myself. Let's enjoy that first laugh, then.

Intellectual function- We find ourselves with a cognitive function that helps to question reality by eliminating what may be superfluous or distorting it. It helps us to observe the social fabric from different points of view as well as to enhance memory and creativity.

Creative function – Humour is one of the traits that can be attributed to creative people. It facilitates the meeting of new connections improving the imagination and originality. It provokes the advance in the deep knowledge of the reality through the continuous inspection of the same one.

Pedagogical function- There is a new teaching model in which the good relationship between teacher and teacher is prioritized through a positive and enriching environment for both. This function develops teaching and learning processes based on the maxim that: "Communication can not be based on the domination of some over others" (Flores, 1997, p.2).

Transformer function- The change is sought in such a way that those behaviours that can not be continued and those others that society is claiming are banished. It is a search for transformation, a step forward in common history.

CHAPTER 3. HUMOUR AND CLASSROOM DISCOURSE

3.1 Text types

Descriptive Text

Since the mother tongue is acquired, since the beginning of schooling and since always you are in contact with texts. Oral and written, literary and advertising texts, texts that are made of images, musical texts and body gestures, texts highlighted by with colours, cinematographic, television and radio texts, including textual texts. They can be recognized simply because we are users of multiple languages ​​and because communication is thought of in texts (Dundes, 2014). To define it, it can be done based on experience. So it can be said, for example, that a written text develops a theme, which is something more than a sentence, which is a set of related sentences, in turn organized into paragraphs; only that here you can go beyond the rich experience as a user and take advantage of the contributions of linguists and semiologists who have investigated this definition. A definition of text that has consensus of most currents is that: text in a communicative linguistic unit that specifies a verbal activity with social character in which the intention of the speaker produces a semantic-communicative closure, so that the text is autonomous. It is also clarified that there are subtle differences between the concepts of text, discourse and enunciation. According to van Dijk (1980), text is "a theoretical construct", an abstract concept that is concretized through different discourses and its study must be interdisciplinary approached from linguistics, socio-linguistics and communication theory. Depending on the circumstances in which it is used, the text can be oral or written. The descriptive text, according to the references on the description, focuses mainly on the literary description, and very particularly on the naturalist accounts. However, the description is not primarily literary. Dictionaries, encyclopaedias, advertising or technological brochures manage, to a greater or lesser degree and for different purposes, descriptive systems (Dundes, 2014).

Describing means writing about a model. The DRAE (21st ed., 1992) defines the description in these terms: "Represent people or things by means of language, referring or explaining their different parts, qualities or circumstances". Describing, from a discursive – textual perspective, is to move from the simultaneity of the object observed or observed to the linearity of the discourse, says J-M. Adam (1985); and on the other hand, the descriptive system is an explanation, it shows off the encyclopaedic knowledge of the reader, recalls Hamon (1981), besides, the description challenges the reader regarding his lexical and encyclopaedic knowledge, and in this sense it is a "text of know "and has more or less didactic purposes. It follows that every description assumes in a text an equivalence relation of a predicative expansion and a deictic condensation, as, for example: the riddle, the dictionary, the paraphrase, the summary, the periphrasis, the translation, the note from foot to page and tautology. On the part of the reader, the description places special emphasis on certain fundamental operations of the language (the derivation, equivalence, hierarchy, classification) and focuses its attention on a particular level of the utterance (the lexicon and its figures).

Types of Description: Depending on the characteristics of the described referent, the following types of description can be distinguished (Adam, 1987):

• Chronography: description of time.

• Topography: description of places and landscapes.

• Prosopography: description of the external appearance of a character.

• Etopey: moral description of a character.

• Prosopopeia: description of an allegorical imaginary being.

• Portrait: physical and moral description of a character.

• Comparison: combination of two similar or opposite descriptions of objects or characters.

• Picture : plastic description of actions, passions, physical or moral events.

Descriptive functions: The studies of the description (Hamon, 1981, Adam, 1987, 1992) differentiate between descriptive and descriptive. By descriptive they understand the process that originates the propositions and descriptive sequences, that is, the element of composition of every text that consists in giving the reader the impression that he sees the described object. The description is the specific term that designates the textual modes of presence of the descriptive; in other terms: sequence (s) of propositions product of the activity of descriptive schematization. Describing is mainly "describe for": it is a textual practice with a purpose that leads to a series of specific activities, both in social and school life (storage inventories, archives, judicial investigation process). Therefore, as stated above, to describe is not necessarily to make literature. In Didactics of the language it is fundamental to ask what it is described for, and therefore we must distinguish the main effect from the descriptive (give the impression that the described object can be seen: make see) of the functions involved in its construction and that are articulated in relation to the co-text and the Context. The main functions are the following:

The construction and dissemination of knowledge. The description informs, he explains, in a figurative form. The informative mode tries to give shape to the objects of the discourse, tries to construct a realistic picture or not, to say how it is something or someone: for which the description plays a role of identification. From the perspective of the explanation, it is about making understand, of providing knowledge.

Evaluative function. The description always has, in a more or less marked and explicit way, an evaluative (or argumentative or axiological) function, insofar as it classifies and categorizes; It is not neutral, but adopts a certain point of view and conveys values. This function of the description is omnipresent: it is present in all the places of the description, from the selection of the object, of the parts and of the specifications, modes of designation, organization, etc.

Regulatory function The description participates in the management, control, regulation of the transformations of the objects and the contents of the discourses both retrospectively (Example: the autopsy, which accounts for what happened previously), and proactively, when it is forwarded to the future.

Textualization function. The description places the text, its author and its readers in a certain practice and at a certain level of competence. Through the choices made, the description is positioned with respect to a specific field (scientific, aesthetic). In the scientific field, the description obeys precise rules and is accompanied by a meta-descriptive comment.

Management of reading and writing. Whether it is to describe profusely, or to summarize by summaries, it is a function of the description to control comprehension and interest to facilitate memorization.

Demarcative Aspects of the Descriptive Text: The descriptions are easily distinguished from the textual set (Hamon, 1981):

• Tendency static, provide moments of temporary suspension, pauses in the linear progression of events.

• Causes a fitting effect: text within the text.

• Explicit and meta- textual announcements that indicate the type of fragment that follows

• Praeteritio consists in affirming that something that is actually mentioned will be omitted. Some of the verbal formulations are these: "There are no words (adjectives) to describe it", "there are no words to …", "what are we going to remember …". The preterition is the lexicalization of a lack or lack, of a defect of competence of the descriptor, of a defect of his willing / knowing / being able to describe, that benefits at the same time from the innocence of the incompetence of the saying and of the effectiveness of what has been said. It is also a sign of a distance, of a tension, or of a contradiction between a declared intention and an accomplished accomplishment, between a rejection or an impotence to name.

• Particular tone and rhythm.

• Particular morphological marks (the present of testimony or attestation, the imperfect in opposition to the indefinite of the story).

• Particular lexicon (technical terms).

• Rhetorical figures such as metaphors, metonymies, synecdoche

• Terms that indicate insignificant details and that cause a stop in reading.

• Accumulation of epithet adjectives on the same name or of adjectival propositions on the same antecedent. The adjective epithet or attribute or in opposition has always had privileged relationships with the descriptive.

• Parataxis or juxtaposition that confers a certain list effect, a fundamental feature in the descriptive.

• The verb "to be" can be an introducer of a description.

Grammatical and pragmatic aspects of the descriptive text. Regarding all the descriptive aspects, according to Bassols and Torrent (1997), in these texts are frequently given a series of linguistic and textual phenomena, which can be classified as follows: Morphological aspects: the most frequent verb tenses are the present (expresses an action, a state or a situation that is spoken of and coincides with the moment in which it is spoken) and the imperfect tense (expresses an action, state or past situation) that is not terminated). In the description is also frequent the use of the historical present that consists of using the present to bring something that belongs to the past. The most frequent verbs are "to be", "to have" and they usually appear in an affirmative form, although the negative construction is not infrequent – with attenuation.

Syntactic aspects: both attributive and predicative sentences are common in descriptions. The first are essential to explain how something is; and the second, to express qualities, contents, etc. Adjectives are also characteristic of these texts, since adjectives and their functional equivalents (adjective propositions, preposition + nominal construction, conjunction + nominal construction. `Be` + adjective / noun, verb / descriptive verbal phrase, verbal preaching, verb + descriptive adverb) act as expansions in the process of aspectualization.

Lexical aspects: in the descriptions, the denotative values ​​(outside the context) or connotative (with the added meanings, depending on the communication situation) are a function of the purpose and type of description.

Aspects of style: as explained above, the following figures intervene in a particular way: comparison, metaphor, synaesthesia, personification, periphrasis, enumeration, repetition and redundancy.

Textual and contextual aspects: the selection of the elements that make up the described object takes into account the purpose of the description and the recipient. According to this, the description can be: objective, when it seeks to faithfully reproduce the object; or impressionist, when it seeks to provoke emotions rather than reflect the object as it is.

 The objective description is characterized by the absence of the issuer: who makes the description does not think about the described object, does not personalize, does not imply, is outside the description. This is manifested textually in the predominance of the third person grammar and in the absence of personal pronouns of first and second person. In the subjective description, the issuer implies, transmits his opinion, and introduces himself in the description through the use of first and second person pronouns and discursive moralizers.

Instructions regarding Descriptive Texts

The flowchart: This semantic structure prevails in descriptive texts and is characterized by having, for the most part, statements of two types:

• Instruction-type statements or descriptions of the actual process: verbal sentences.

• Statements of type guidelines, suggestions on instructions and on the same procedure: adverbial sentences.

• The descriptive semantic structure is a semantic structure present in academic texts, whose ideas present an organization oriented to determine processes, while the argument semantic structure has as purpose to sustain an idea and the conceptual define and relate concepts.

There are three types of procedural semantic structures, according to the way the process is given: in the linear procedural semantic structure the sequence of the process is strict, without bifurcations or decisions; in the word several processes are given simultaneously; and in the decision there are moments in the process in which the alternative for its development must be chosen. The propositions related to the procedural semantic structure are modeled in flowcharts, logical schemes that represent the sequences of the operations or instructions necessary to carry out a process.

The argumentative text

To argue is to defend an idea by providing reasons that justify the position it takes; therefore, the ability to argue correctly is often paired with the ability to influence people (Kuipers, 2015). The argumentative text has the following elements:

The object: it is the subject on which it is argued.

The thesis: position that the arguer has on the subject.

The arguments: reasons on which the position is based. They must be directly related to the object of the argument and the thesis they defend.

The conclusion: summarizes, proposes, criticizes, launches theory, asks, among others.

Types of arguments: Argumentation is a set of ideas that contrast each other (coherence) with a foundation to explain, justify, demonstrate, convince, on a given topic. Here the grammatical, syntactic, semantic knowledge is integrated to initiate a process, not only of information but of approval or respect for what is proposed. The argument allows forming an opinion, taking a critical position, recognizing with exemplifications and affirmations the different points of view and the implications that these may have after reading informed opinions.

The argumentation presents many points in common with the logical and scientific demonstration, particularly that which is by definition; however, the first one takes into account the recipient, does not pursue the truth as much as the persuasive efficacy and the adhesion which is based on basic principles or implicit knowledge shared by the sender and receiver (the assumptions) while the scientific discourse starts from facts and of well-established, proven truths; it relies on safe deduction methods and reaches firm conclusions, and also accepts to expose itself to the rebuttal. The above is in accordance with the stipulations of Kuipers (2015) to differentiate argumentation and demonstration.

Types of arguments. According to Anthony Weston (1999) the arguments are; through examples, by analogy; of authority, about the causes and deductive. These types of arguments are presented below.

Arguments through examples: they consist of offering several specific examples in support of a generalization, since one only serves as a basis for the conclusion. Below is a sample of this type of argument: "In past ages women married very young. Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare, was not yet fourteen. In middle age, the normal age of marriage for Jewish girls was thirteen years old. And during the Roman Empire many Roman women also got married at thirteen, even younger. "This argument generalizes from three examples – Juliet, Jewish women in the Middle Ages and Roman women during the Roman Empire – to many or most of the women of the past. To see the form of this argument more clearly, the premises are listed separately. Juliet of Shakespeare's work was not yet fourteen years old. Jewish women during the Middle Ages were usually married at thirteen. Many Roman women during the Roman Empire were married at thirteen or even younger. " A requirement for some premises to support a generalization is that the examples are true. If Juliet was not around fourteen, or most Roman or Jewish women were not married at thirteen, then the argument is much weaker, and if none of the premises can be sustained, there is no argument. A simple example can sometimes be used for illustration but more than one example is needed to support a generalization. The examples are representative, a large number of cases exclusively of Roman women are not necessarily representative, you can say very little about women in general, the argument also needs to take into account women from other parts of the world. "In my neighbourhood, everyone supports this man for President. Therefore, it is certain that this man will win ". This argument is weak because an isolated neighbourhood rarely represents the vote of the whole population. Background information is crucial; background information is often needed in advance in order to evaluate a set of examples. In addition you can check the generalizations by asking if there are counterexamples.

Arguments by analogy: the arguments by analogies, instead of multiplying the examples to support a generalization, go from a case example specific to another example, arguing that, because the two examples are similar in many aspects, they are also similar in another specific aspect George Bush once said that the role of vice president is to support the president's policies, whether or not he agrees with them, because "you can not block your own quarterback. Bush is suggesting that being part of a government is like being part of a football team. When you are part of a football team, you are committed to the decisions of your quarterback, since the success of your team depends on being obeyed. This type of argument does not require that the example used as an analogy be absolutely equal to the example of the conclusion: Beautiful and well-built houses must have creators, designers and intelligent constructors. The world is similar to a beautiful and well built house. Therefore, the world must also have a creator, a designer and an intelligent builder, God.

Arguments of authority. Often you must trust others to obtain information or to realize what you can know for yourself. It is not possible to make everyone try new consumer products, for example, and it is not known first hand how the Socrates trial was developed; which means that most people can not judge only from their own experience. Another more concrete example would be the following: human rights organizations say that some prisoners are mistreated in Mexico. Therefore, some prisoners are mistreated in Mexico. However, you should trust others to determine if the information is true, which is sometimes a risky matter. Consumer products are not always tested properly; historical sources have their prejudices and can also be held by human rights organizations. The sources must be cited and have two purposes: one is to contribute to show the reliability of one premise and the other, is to allow precisely that the reader or listener can find the necessary information. These sources also need to be well informed and be qualified to make the affirmations they make and enjoy the recognition of experts. People who have a lot to lose in an argument are not usually the best sources of information about the issues in dispute. Even sometimes they can not tell the truth. A person accused in criminal proceedings is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but his plea of ​​innocence is rarely fully believed without having some confirmation from impartial witnesses. When checking sources, when there is agreement among the experts, one can not trust any of them. Before citing any organization as an authority, you should check that other equally qualified and impartial people or organizations agree. Personal attacks do not disqualify sources, alleged authorities can be disqualified if they are not well informed, are not impartial, or for the most part do not agree.

Arguments of causes. Formal tests similar to the immediately preceding example are usually introduced into authority arguments. Own arguments about causes contain, selected examples in a less careful way. The argument explains how the cause leads to the effect; when A is thought to cause B, it is usually assumed that not only A and B are correlated but also that it "makes sense" that it causes B. Good arguments then, do not appeal only to the correlation of A and B, also explain why it makes sense for A to cause B. Most events have many possible causes. Finding again some is not enough, we must go a step further and show that this is the most probable cause and that it is not just a coincidence. "Ten minutes after drinking the" Bitter against Dr. Hartshome's insomnia "I fell asleep, so the" Bitter against Dr. Hartshome's insomnia "made me sleep" Any two co- relational events could cause the other. Correlation or establishes in the direction of chance. If A correlates with B, it may be that A correlates with B, it may be that A causes B, but it can also be that A causes B but it can also be that B causes A. The causes can be complex, many causal histories are complex.

Deductive arguments. The arguments studied up to now are uncertain because they belong to the category of rhetoric or dialectics that only seek the adhesion of the audience. On the other hand the deductive arguments or also called analytical by Aristotle are those in which the truth of their premises guarantees the truth of their conclusions. In this section, several subcategories can be located: modus ponens, modus tollens, hypothetical syllogism, disjunctive syllogism. Then each of them is explained.

Modus ponens: literally means the mode of putting. Various letters are used to represent the statements: they can be the x and the y. It is the mode of deduction, where it starts from some general statements (premises) and a conclusion is reached. It is expressed: if X then y. Example: If the optimists have more chances of success than the pessimists. Then, you should be an optimist. Optimists do have a better chance of success than pessimists. Therefore, you should be optimistic. This would be the complete syllogism that lies behind Churchill's joke: Be optimistic. It is not very useful to be otherwise. Here he is expressing in the form of enthymeme which is the most common way of brief argumentation where one of the experiences is suppressed.

Modus Tollens: literally the way to remove. It is an argument in which the negation of one of the premises, leads to a negative conclusion, is expressed as: If x then and No and Therefore, not x. Let's analyze one of the conclusions of Sherlock Holmes in the work The Adventure Blaze Silver: "A dog locked in tin and yet although someone had taken a horse, he had not barked (…). It is obvious that the visitor was someone he knew well … 'Let's organize the argument of Holmes in the form of Modus Tollens. "If the dog had not met the visitor, then he would have barked, the dog did not bark, so he knew the visitor."

Hypothetical syllogism: traditionally expressed as: two things equal to a third are equal to each other. It is expressed as: If x then y, and then z. Therefore, if x then z. Let's see an example: If you study other cultures, you will understand that there is a diversity of human customs. If you understand that there is a diversity of human customs, then you question your own customs. Notice that the hypothetical syllogism offers a model for explaining the connections between cause and effect.

Disjunctive syllogism: when two alternatives are presented and the negation one follows information from the other. It is expressed thus: X or Y No X therefore Y. In English the conjunction "or" can have two different meanings: exclusive and the other inclusive. In the first it is indicated that one of the two x or y in true, but both. In the exclusive sense it may be that both are because they are equivalent. Only the meaning of "or" is valid in this syllogism, for example: Only the president or his government minister could take that measure, the president did not do it, then the minister took it. The best known form of the disjunctive syllogism is the dilemma. For example: You will work or study. In conclusion, both logic and rhetoric should be included as particular cases of a super – rhetoric, which has the breadth of argumentation theory and the rigor of logic. In this direction goes Apes when it affirms: "The argumentation occurs in all the sciences and outside them. Argumentation in mathematics and in physics is as essential as the right to history … far from being the study of a special thought ". Beside these arguments there are others, but due to the extension they are not explained. Rather, its strength is quickly referred to "The strength of an argument manifests itself both in the difficulty of refuting it and in its own qualities" (Perelman et al, 1983). The foregoing implies the ability to persuade and avoid to the maximum its refutation. Below are some aspects to be considered in the analysis of a speech.

Counter argumentation. It is a more demanding argumentative form than the previous ones, since it consists of exposing an idea to invalidate the contrary arguments taking into account possible weaknesses of the other or the concessions that the author himself has admitted. It should be characterized by the sharpness and wit to understand the position of the other, for this we have the following principles:

It requires a clear position: since it confronts two perspectives of the same subject demanding extreme precision, that is, having clarity of both positions and defining the own opinion.

It requires an orderly exposition of ideas: this principle is deduced from the previous one since the arguments are identified, choosing a logical and simple order to avoid entanglements or confusion; the order varies according to the speakers or writers.

Rigorous coherence: the arguments and counterarguments must have an orderly relationship, without forgetting that the main objective is to convince with "attacks" right or solid. A conclusion must be made: if it is clear that one or several other people's ideas are in conflict with their own, a synthesis should be organized with agility in which it evidences one's own opinion. Expose the purpose: sometimes it is made explicit, it could also be shown as implicit, where the listener or reader infers or deduces.

3.2 Strategies

The learning processes are a series of steps that do not necessarily occur in sequence, but can be presented simultaneously, with the purpose of acquiring new knowledge through understanding. The most relevant aspects in this process are: The assimilation of concepts; motivation; Attention; memory, analysis and reproduction. Concepts are symbols that represent a class of objects or events with common characteristics, facilitate the thought process, because instead of labelling and categorizing each new object or event separately, it incorporates them into existing concepts. Its structure according to Stephen Klein (1997), is composed of attributes4 and rules5. Attention is defined as the ability to focus on a given stimulus and motivation is the interest that one has in front of a certain situation or stimulus. The memory according to Richar Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1971) in their theory of storage in memory, there are three stages to this process: the first stage refers to the sensory memory or initial impression that is of the external environment and lasts few seconds. The second stage, referring to short-term memory or active memory that is the temporary storage capacity, where the information is transformed to produce an experience with more meaning, lasts about 15 seconds or more, if it is repeated the organization is organized. Information is increasing the probability of being remembered later. The third stage is long-term memory, that is, memories that are permanently codified. Physiological and psychological factors can influence the difficult recovery of your information. The reproduction of acquired learning is observed when the individual is able to remember, either through association, or when he uses knowledge for the solution of conflicts, or defining strategies. The use of the pedagogical strategy of humour to develop specific topics of the school curriculum, show that the use of different humour ous materials for example in literature, students not only have fun, but favours cognitive, social and emotional development, which in turn, it makes it an educational tool, powerful if it is considered seriously, since they develop intellectual competences as they grow; in addition, it is established as an extraordinary source of information and shows the early and efficient understanding on the part of the student (Kuipers, 2015). It is then the pedagogical strategy of humour is a possibility that allows students to acquire a positive attitude to understanding and learning, which well used solves teaching problems and the school will become a pleasant means for the coexistence of students and teachers who invite tolerance between heterogeneity culture, but also without losing the respect and roles of each.

The traditional-instructional pedagogical model.

In the traditional pedagogical model the teacher is the transmitter of knowledge and culturally constructed norms and aspires that, thanks to their function, such information and standards are available to the new generations. The teacher "dictates the lesson" to the students who will receive the information and the norms transmitted to learn them and incorporate them among their knowledge. The students obtain from outside the knowledge and norms that the culture built and thanks to it they become citizens (Kuipers, 2015). This is the model that is applied to the control groups of this research. Learning in the traditional pedagogical model is an act of authority and discipline, the main role of the teacher is to repeat and have it repeated, corrected and corrected, while the student must imitate and copy for a long time (Dowling, 2014, p.122) . In this model, imitation plays a fundamental role, since it is from it that the student will one day create; for that reason, he proposes that from the first years the approach of the student to the great models that have existed mainly to literature and the arts is allowed. Dowling affirms that listening to poetry and classical music, the student will learn to imitate them and these imitations, successive and repeated, will create the conditions for him, someday, to be able to create (Dowling, 2014, p.130) The traditional pedagogical model, considers that the best way to prepare students for life is to train their intelligence, their ability to solve problems, their possibilities of attention and effort. Great importance is attached to the transmission of culture and knowledge, as they are considered very useful to help the student in the progress of his personality (Dowling, 2014). This pedagogical model that has its beginnings in the industrial revolution, aims to train children and young people for the working life of factories, has been the model that has lasted the longest and that to this day is applied to maintain order, discipline and train the citizens that society requires.

Significant learning.

Learning is based on various theories: learning by conditioning, learning by observation, cumulative learning and meaningful learning, among others. In this research reference is made to the significant learning of the topic "typology of texts: descriptive argumentative" of eleventh grade students of secondary education. According to David Ausubel (1983), meaningful learning is a way of learning something with meaning, where the learner understands and can make sense of it in a real context. This is how the learner manages to relate the new information they receive with their previous knowledge and these relationships are pertinent and stable, responding to their needs and interests. Significant learning is not the "simple connection" of the new information with the existing one in the cognitive structure who learns, on the contrary, only the mechanical learning is the "simple connection", arbitrary and not substantive; meaningful learning involves the modification and evolution of new information, as well as the cognitive structure involved in learning. Ausubel (1983) distinguishes three types of meaningful learning: representations concepts and propositions. The learning of representations: It is the most elementary learning on which the other types of learning depend; it occurs when meaning is attributed to certain symbols and occurs when arbitrary symbols are equated with their referents (objects, events, concepts) and mean for the student any meaning to which their references allude (Ausubel, 1983), this learning is presents in children, when they know a new object and the word happens to use it when it is in his presence, or when he evokes it.

The learning of concepts: occurs when concepts are defined as "objects, events, situations or properties that have attributes of common criteria and are designated by some symbol or signs" (Ausubel, 1983, p. 61), based on it can affirm that in a certain way it is also a learning of representations. The concepts are acquired through two processes: training and assimilation. In the formation of concepts, the criteria attributes (characteristics) of the concept are acquired through direct experience, in successive stages of formulating and testing hypotheses. It can be said that the child acquires the generic meaning of a word when referring to an object. This symbol also serves as a signifier for the cultural concept of the object, in this case an equivalence is established between the symbol and its attributes of common criteria. Hence, children learn the concept of the object through various encounters with the object and the experiences of sharing with other children or adults.

The learning of concepts by assimilation occurs as the child expands its vocabulary, because the criteria attributes of the concepts can be defined using the combinations available in the cognitive structure so the child can distinguish different colours, sizes and affirm that it deals with that object when it sees other equals at any time (Ausubel, 1983, p. 61). In this respect, assimilation occurs when you have the structure of the object in consciousness in a way that does not require rethinking, but is part of your stored knowledge, and can use it in any situation that requires it, even if it does not have it in its presence.

The learning of propositions goes beyond the simple assimilation of what words represent, combined or isolated, since it requires grasping the meaning of ideas expressed in the form of propositions, this implies the combination and relationship of several words each of the which constitutes a unitary referent, that is to say, these are combined in such a way that the resulting idea is more than the simple sum of the meanings of the individual component words, producing a new meaning that is assimilated to the cognitive structure. In this respect, a potentially significant proposition, expressed verbally, as a statement that has denotative meaning (the characteristics evoked by hearing the concepts) and connotative (the emotive, attitudinal and idiosyncratic load caused by the concepts) of the concepts involved, interacts with the relevant ideas already established in the cognitive structure and, from that interaction, the meanings of the new proposition arise (Ausubel, 1983: 61). Then, meaningful learning is the process that is generated in the mind of the human being when new information is added in a non-arbitrary way, which requires that the student is willing to acquire learning and that the material is potentially significant, that is, that make logical sense in such a way that the presence of ideas is permanent and consistent in the cognitive structure. Therefore, in order for learning to be meaningful, interaction between the teacher, the student and the educational resources of the curriculum that define their participation in the process and educational training is necessary.

Meaningful learning involves the contextualization of the student taking it to practice to solve problems and use it in the approach of new situations, or to make new learning aspects. This approach is related to the quantity and quality of the student's previous learning and the connections established between them. That is, when you have more elements and relationships in your mental structure, there are more possibilities to give meaning to new information and situations. Following is a presentation of the descriptive – argumentative text that is the theme that is developed in the present investigation, with the students of the study sample.

3.3 Impact and Assessment Issues

Some advantages for the use of humour

Mireault and Reddy (2016) point out that the importance of the introduction of humour in education lies in a series of factors such as:

In relation to the teaching staff. We find three important levels that take humour into account in this section: self-concept, self-esteem and self-behaviour. Let's analyze them one by one:

– Self-concept- We are on a cognitive level. It causes a more approximate knowledge of oneself. To know what one is, to know oneself to the point of knowing where our strengths lie but also our weaknesses. Mireault and Reddy affirm that "As long as an teacher has not discovered his humoristic potential, he does not know half of his resources" (2016, p.8). I am the skin I live, no one better than me knows me. Let us therefore try to take that step forward, discovering our clear and shadows.

– The self-esteem. This level develops on an affective level and indicates the perception of oneself. It will influence the way of being and acting in the world as well as in the relationship we maintain with others. It will help me to be happy with what I am favouring states of pleasure and well-being, eradicating negative postures with it.

 – Self-behaviour. We are at an attitudinal level. We must know where we start from to reach our goals. A positive attitude will help us overcome unfounded fears by adjusting the real reality to the reality imagined.

For Mireault and Reddy, the sense of humour offers clues to the teacher about the professional model that should be; it helps you withstand setbacks; it opens and clears the mind before absolutist or defeatist thoughts; it helps you to be more awake, to be a lucid person. The sense of humour stimulates you towards permanent training and recycling. (Mireault and Reddy, 2016, p.7). In this same line is the opinion of Mireault and Reddy (2016) when they observe that more and more authors include in their works the sense of humour as a fundamental attitude of every good teacher.

In relation to the students. There are multiple occasions in which humour can be introduced in the group. Some advantages of what we have been affirming are: it favours the group union, which causes the communication to be more continuous, causing an approximation among the members of the group. This makes it possible for the humorous situations to favour a warm climate, reducing the effects of possible stressful situations that may occur. It also favours the opening of group members when it comes to helping others, producing an environment where solidarity is a flag that we have continually raised. In the same way, learning is considered more significant, helping to be remembered more effectively in the long term. In all this climate, we must point out the intrinsic motivation as an essential component that we must take into account since it causes the tasks to be resolved more consciously, thereby causing the results to improve (Burguess, 2003).

In relation to the teaching and learning process. Through humour, a greater number of teaching and learning processes are generated, causing a greater significance of them. This emphasizes humour as an essential component that causes the production and reception of knowledge is significant, lasting and propagating new ways of promoting creativity, spontaneity and productivity. Burguess reminds us that the introduction of humour in our classroom should not mean "create a daily routine or systematically include jokes in all the lessons" (2003, p.45). Humour has its moment so we do not have to be obsessed with the idea that everything must be dressed in it. Abusive use can divert us from our main objective, achieving an effect contrary to the desired one.

Freddy A. Ynfante in his essay Schools with Humour lists the limitations, weaknesses, strengths and threats of the use of humour in the classroom (Ynfante, 2009):

Humour must be relevant to the occasion and the area in which you are working. You have to have reserved and planned a time and a moment.

Humour will be effective if it is intended to put a point in relief. When humour is used in order to highlight a certain point, it aims to reinforce or introduce a concept and, secondly, to have fun.

The humour , even if it does not provoke laughter, if it hits the key, contributes to the flow of the discourse and favours to create a relaxed atmosphere, which, without a doubt, favours learning. The relationship between the teacher and his class must be very good, mainly in the affective and personal. If the students do not feel affection for their teacher, everything that comes from him, even the best of jokes, will be rejected.

The teacher should be interested in using humour, enjoy it and believe that this tool will promote learning. The goal of the teacher who uses humour as a didactic resource, is not to become a comedian, it is to mediate pedagogically through humour.

Humour is a powerful weapon in education. It can attract attention, create links and make a concept more memorable. In addition, it can relieve tensions, strengthen ties and motivate students, if it is the kind of humour appropriate to the circumstances.

The same author in his article Does the sense of humour make sense in the classroom? (Ynfante, 2011) exposes three premises regarding the use of humour in the classroom. The first, "that humour exerts a pedagogical and didactic function within the pedagogical practice, since it can be used in the different subjects that make up a certain curricular structure"; the second, "we must introduce humour in the verb, since humour, smiling and laughter are implicit in communication, which can be used by the teacher to make a class session more dynamic and break the barriers of pressure between the students. students"; the third "sometimes a good joke can be a powerful strategy to illustrate a certain content in the classroom, taking into account that it is not necessary to be a professional humorist to make educational praxis dynamic".

Evaluation phase: in this phase, the student will make an evaluation of the proposed activity, as well as its difficulties and the strategies employed at the time of carrying it out.

Chapter 4. Research Methodology

4.1 Research aims and Questions

I realized an educational research of a qualitative nature, seeking to understand what was happening in an educational setting when the humour is used and what it meant for the protagonists. Given that it was an interpretive approach, emphasis was placed not only on the observable behaviour of the teachers, but also on the expressions of their thoughts, intentions and attitudes. The outlined research perspective was discovery, not verification, so I did not formulate any hypothesis, only some questions that guided my search and attention, both in the literature review and in the fieldwork, were enunciated.

Research objectives

Explore new teaching techniques based on humour giving priority to the student as the centre of the learning process

To exercise in the student the development of the basic skills of communication in the English language, through the interpretation of codes and ways of expressing information of daily life and the correlation with the fundamental areas, in order to unify criteria and globalize the educational processes.

To promote the need of the English language and humour for student’s personal and professional development.

Specific objectives

to stimulate through dynamic activities such as songs, games, lotteries, bingos and humour.

to allow a greater interest in the language.

to promote almost real situations of dialogue that allow the student to handle diverse contexts of communication.

to use everyday expressions in a foreign language.

to seek a better use of free time by using themes extracted from the English class.

to develop skills to analyze, synthesize and integrate information and ideas in a foreign language.

Operationalization of the object of study

The operationalization of the object of study is presented in the table below, according to the specific problems of the investigation.

4.2 Research methods and instruments

As instruments of data collection I used non-participant observation of classes and semi-structured interviews with teachers. I developed a guideline for observing classes and a guide for interviews. I planned to observe three classes of each teacher and at least conduct an interview with each of them. In the case of one of the teachers, two classes were observed in which the humour did not appear in any of the expected ways. However, the interview with the teacher was very interesting and the students put a lot of emphasis on pointing him out as "excellent humoristic teacher". With the purpose of not being left out of my sample I resolved to make a methodological turn incorporating the narrative as a tool, trying to capture those elements that seemed extremely valuable but that are not a constant in the classes but appear sporadically, which hinders their observation. According to Mc. Ewan and Egan (1998), the importance of narrative in research lies in that it allows to reach a more complex understanding of education, capturing, for example, the meaning of the teaching experience. Convinced of the opportunity offered by the narrative to immerse ourselves in the inner world of the teachers and in the dynamics of the classroom, I asked the teacher in whose classes I had not been able to observe humorous elements, who recounted some of the situations in which this one was I presented. This story was used as an instrument to obtain data for our research, in conjunction with the interviews and class observations made.

The research problem has origins of an empirical nature because it occurs in an Educational Institution, in a specific degree of schooling and in a specific sociocultural context that requires a theoretical treatment on authors who have worked on this research topic. In the same way, it requires precise characterization of the actors involved. According to the nature of the problem it is not only analytical empirical, it is necessary an integral and explanatory management of the problem through a qualitative treatment of the data. All of the above, state that the use of qualitative methods were used in the course of research and are within educational ethnography.

The methods of ethnographic research offer the teacher multiple possibilities for the exercise of reflective teaching; Among them, observing classroom behaviors, exploring the subjects 'beliefs, teaching context and interpreting the discourse by placing themselves in the participants' position (the emic principle) and relating the observed to the overall set of that culture (holistic principle ) (Van Lier, 1988).

To measure this variable, information was collected on the following instruments:

Questionnaire addressed to English teachers, the observation sheet in the classroom and a questionnaire addressed to students are instruments that made it possible to measure whether English teachers are truly able to help students to develop communicative skills, specifically the skills that are investigated in this work, namely Grammar expression, Oral Expression and Listening Comprehension, all in humoristic context.

Data Collection Techniques

The collection technique applied was the self-administered survey, in which:

Pre-coded questionnaires to be applied to the different information subjects, including the students;

the teachers of English

On the other hand, the observation technique defined as „Systematic, valid and reliable record of behaviours or behaviours that manifest" was accomplished by the researcher to the teachers as well as the students of the tenth and eleventh year. Here the researcher was classified as an open participant observer.

Questionnaire

In order to develop the survey technique, the questionnaires that were addressed to each of the different groups of information subjects were used, namely: Teachers and Students.

Observation sheet in the classroom

It was used as a guide for the visit to the classroom in order to observe the teachers teaching the English lessons related to humour, specifically developing the skills of oral expression and listening comprehension of the students. It was divided into four sections, one for each variable being worked, which is called observation units and these, in turn, in categories and subcategories; a fourth column was to note other observations that were made.

Characteristics of data collection instruments

Although the instruments in their structure are very similar by the type of information that needed to be obtained, all are structured in four parts, one for each variable to be investigated. Also by the same nature of the investigation all present questions of the three types: open, closed and mixed.

Questionnaires: Each questionnaire is introduced by an information guide that allowed the person interviewed to have a clear idea of what was being pursued and how to answer the questions that were being asked. At the end of each, a space for observations was left in case one wanted to add, clarify or suggest some aspect that was important to point out

Observation sheet in the classroom: It was made in order to guide observation in the classroom and was divided into four sections, corresponding to each of the variables to be investigated: Didactic activities, Didactic resources, Assessment techniques and Teacher training.

The heading allowed to write down the name of the Institution, a number to identify the teacher being observed, the level of the group and the date on which the observation was made. Each variable or unit of observation was treated with the categories corresponding to the indicators or specifications that were to be observed, both for the development of oral expression and for listening comprehension; one worked on a third column that was precisely where the subcategories were noted, which allowed the observer to quantify the observed data for each aspect indicated, as well as when questions or conversation were made with any of the subjects involved in the process. It was the axis during the 4 hours that was made observation in the classroom to each group of the sample, as well as when the researcher sat down to converse with them and them in the hour of the recess or at the end of the lesson. For this short period of observation, it can be said that it was a brief observation and with a general or holistic approach because, as already mentioned, all variables were considered. Basically this observation was intended to verify the answers given in the questionnaires by both teachers and students.

Validation process of questionnaires for teachers and students

The questionnaires in question were subject to the criteria of 10 experts who were asked to read the questions, make comments and suggestions and eliminate or add items. After incorporating the experts' suggestions, a pilot test of the questionnaires of 10 teachers and two sections, one tenth and one eleventh, of schools not belonging to the study population was applied.

Procedure for the collection of information

The information was collected by applying the instruments to the populations under study; once this was collected, coding and typing were done to design the databases for both teachers and students. The data obtained by the questionnaire for the Advisers were worked on separately since they were only two people and the data obtained through the observation guide in the classroom were quantified by variable to add them to the analysis that was done of the data obtained from the questionnaires.

4.3 Research stages

During the diagnostic phase on the conceptual framework, three types of comparisons were made; the first were the data, the second methodological and the third a triangulation of results. Three phases were developed:

– Phases of the investigation: Phase 1 was developed with the purpose of establishing the evolution and the current state of the problem. For the development of this phase, the following were taken into account: study of national and institutional documentation, Basic Standards of Language Competence: English and Educational Projects in terms of teaching grammar production in English. As an instrument, the evaluation grid was taken into account.

– Phase 2 was called Analysis and triangulation of information on the state of teaching practices of grammar production in English: This phase consisted in the analysis of information found in national and international documentation. When performing a critical analysis, it is coherent to highlight the general structure of the grids and how they relate to the main research topics, as well as to identify a theoretical reference that was not taken into account in the project and manifests in the documents, as an important reference, of the oral production in English.

– Phase 3: consisted in the design of the didactic proposal, which arises from retaking the factors that favour the development of oral competence and the gaps and difficulties that oppose its development from the referents used in the analysis.

Steps for analyzing and interpreting the data

In order to analyze and interpret the data obtained, a review was first made by the teacher of the group surveyed in order to verify that the questions had been answered. In relation to the questionnaire applied to teachers, it was the researcher who checked that everything was answered. When something was left blank or the answers were not accurate, the doubts were noted and were taken up at the time of observation or when talking to them and them. The data were then coded and processed using the statistical analysis, with the purpose of designing statistical tables and graphs for each study population. For the analysis of the data the descriptive statistic was used with sum of frequencies, percentages, average and standard deviation.

4.4 Data Collection

I used an intentional sampling (Maxwell, 1996), based on the criterion of selecting those teachers that the students of the different classes remembered as good and that were characterized by the use of humour in class. For that, I went around patios, libraries and canteens of several Faculties, Schools and University Institutes, trying to identify through the students, the most suitable teachers to constitute the sample. I think it is necessary to point out that the first answers of the majority of those consulted referred to the absence of humour in the classes and remarked that what was abundant in the classrooms were bitter, tired, rigid teachers whose classes became routine and boring. So the most spontaneous responses directly expressed that humour did not exist in their study centre and they had to make an important effort to identify the teachers that would constitute the sample. When concentrating on the slogan some names began to appear and in general they began to repeat themselves, so that the cases that should be used were clear. The teachers that I finally selected were mentioned by students of different generations and in no case were there "votes against". That is, when the groups of students consulted did not agree on a teacher, either in the aspect of "good teacher" or "use humour in class", said teacher was discarded. Since representativeness does not matter in this type of study, I also used two criteria proposed by Valles (1999): accessibility and heterogeneity.

Since it is the personal interests of the students who have interested me, it is the students themselves who have participated in my study, together with a group of 10 teachers.

Population

The examined group consisted of a total of 100 pupils, boys and girls, all studying at the ………. School in …… county. The other part of the examined group is represented by 10 teachers in our school.

Sample

100% boys and girls, students at the ………. School in …… county served as sample for the study. Subjects have normal intellectual development and different academic results. Questionnaire for students was attended by 100 students.

The sample is contained therein the school age 16-18 years old whereas in terms of psychosocial development, “the growing independence leads first thoughts on identity” (Cosmovici 1999: 46), and in terms of cognitive development view, at this age "increases children’s mental ability to analyze and to test deductive assumptions”. (Cosmovici, 1999: 46).

Besides these purely psychological reasons, there was taken into account the fact that students’ classes in discussion are studying English since the IInd grade, having, at the moment, a total of four hours a week.

Data Collection

The questionnaire was personally administered to A2 level students of …….School in ….. county. Data were collected back after respondents’ completion.

Data Analysis

Collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted and presented at the end of the present research.

Questionnaire with opened, closed and mixed questions represented the main instrument of the present research, being used for collecting the data. The questionnaires were validated by specialists and the first one was developed for A2 level students of ……..School in ….. county, while the second one, for teachers of the same educational unit.

The questionnaire is characterized by anonymity and it was applied to the whole group at once, not individually, to give subjects a setting where they feel protected at this age – own entourage.

Development of oral expression and listening comprehension as part of the competences

Considering as source all that provides information or data about the object of study, different theorists of the research classify them in primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources

Among the primary sources used in this research are the statistical tables provided by the Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Education, which were used in the definition of the population to be studied; The Regulations, Manuals and Procedures as well as different Programmes of teaching English and the Educational Policies towards the XXI Century. Already for the development of the following parts of this research report, are also as primary sources the teaching population, the student population who provided all their information through the questionnaires applied and throughout the period of observation in the classroom.

Secondary sources

Secondary sources include journals, online articles, books and other documents that provide information of interest for the development of research. Both types of source constituted the informative corpus that gave support to the elaboration of the present investigation.

Definition of variables

According to the theory, four variables were formulated with the problem and the objectives proposed for the present investigation:

Variable No. 1: Didactic activities regarding humour according to the English Grammar Approach

Conceptual definition

They refer to the "how to" practice humour in class what is taught in content related to grammar expression and comprehension, with previously designed and planned activities, since according to the content this must be the activity that is executed, always taking as a starting point the subject that will develop them and trying to promote creativity, criticality and reflection. Therefore, it is emphasized that at present it is not possible to adhere to traditional didactic activities, but must be appropriate to the social and cultural environment.

Canale and Swain (1996) support this conceptual definition when they say that if the adopted Communicative Approach to Language Pedagogy is essential for class activities to reflect as directly as possible the communication activities with which the learner to be found in life, as well as being impregnated with the characteristics of real communication such as social interaction and the unpredictable nature of statements.

Operational definition

The activities for Grammar Comprehension can be developed in the classroom in four different ways, based on humour:

a) individually,

b) in small groups,

c) with teacher's guidance,

d) in a masterly way.

Repetition and various practical activities are applied in concrete learning contexts, as well as the work with discourses of daily life in the different practices and communicative styles.

All expressive and understanding procedures will be the most active part of the lesson and will have activities for clear purposes and a continued exercise of strategies, techniques and skills that will lead to a know-how.

The activities, according to the communicative approach can be of four types:

to. Activities for knowledge setting

B. Activities for knowledge integration

C. Activities for research of knowledge

D. Activities for application of knowledge

The response will be considered significant when at least 70% of the respondents are in one of the indicators:

A. Fixation

B. Integration

C. Investigation

D. Application

When the response rate for each indicator is less than 70%, it will be considered regularly relevant and when percentages will be below 31, it will not be considered as low. The following table presents an interpretation summarizing the above.

Instrumental definition

To measure this variable information was collected in the following instruments: questionnaires to teachers of English and questionnaire for students, these two corresponding to the population under study and the observation in the classroom Guide. These instruments enabled display if they are performing in the classroom, educational activities directed towards the development of the skills of listening comprehension and oral expression from the communicative approach.

Variable No. 2: Educational resources used by the teachers of English regarding the humour detail

Conceptual definition

They are basic resources (material and human) that the teachers selects in response to the needs of the class, to help and facilitate the development of the grammar classroom skills and for this selection should be considered factors such as the discipline, the objectives being pursued, the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, the physical environment, materials, knowledge of the teaching techniques by the teacher as well as the experience that has led to the application of the technique and the tools selected in connection with the pedagogical model. Its use may vary according to the level of learning of each student.

Operational definition

There were taken into account:

a) material resources (recordings of audio, video, objects, instruments, television and radio programmes, printed material, among others) and

b) human resources (exhibitions improvised, planned, dramatizations, role-plays, speeches, techniques in small groups, individual techniques, among others) as well as the experience which has been generated in selected tools (initiatives) in connection with the teaching model and its application all focused on real and specific situations students may face that in their daily lives, both in the field of grammar.

The response shall be considered relevant when at least 70% of the surveyed people who respond to each questionnaire will score at least 70% of material resources and human resources, or combination of both. When that proportion answer contrary to the one described, it will be considered not relevant and when they are less than 31 percentages not will be taken into account.

Instrumental definition

To measure this variable, one collected information with the following instruments: questionnaire addressed to teachers of English and questionnaire to students, the latter two correspond to the population under study and the observation in the classroom Guide. These instruments allowed to measure whether actually employed teaching resources are those recommended by the communicative approach and allow the development of grammar study skills.

Variable No.3: Evaluative techniques used by the English teachers in the context of humour

Conceptual definition

They are all those that used the teachers to evaluate the apprehension of knowledge by students both inside and outside the classroom and strategies at the same time serving to improve the instructional materials, determine the domain of the content, establish criteria or development standards for courses, among others. The term "assessment" includes meanings such as rating, prosecute, compare, control, monitor, hence from technical conception it is also an essential instrument of aid; the information provided must respond to two fundamental edges: how is developing the process? and how you can improve? His real contribution is to the promote and facilitate decision-making with regard to the educational goals raised to the teacher and the student.

Operational definition

They are all those evaluative strategies used by the teacher in the classroom to evaluate the apprehension of knowledge both in the area of oral expression, as the listening comprehension and throughout the grammar process; one must contact towards the elements of the program and the methodology used, documents which are handled, the degree of motivation of the students, to the relationships between students and teacher and the dynamics of the group, so it is a continuous interaction.

Indicators of this variable are as following:

a. directed interview (between students, between teachers and students, the person outside the Group and the Group)

b. Observation (between students, between teachers and students, person unrelated to the Group and the Group)

c. discussion groups (between students, between teachers and students, person unrelated to the Group and the Group)

d. Auto Report (personal or group)

The response shall be considered relevant when at least 70% of respondents who responded to each questionnaire indicate that they use at least three of the four indicators, allowing you to visualize that actually the evaluative techniques employed will chords with the didactic activities and used in the classroom and with the grammar approach teaching resources; at the same time, teaching facilitates decision making in pursuit of a more comprehensive assessment.

When that proportion answer contrary to the one described, it will be considered not relevant and when they are less than 31 percentages not will be taken into account.

Instrumental definition

To measure this variable was collected information in the following instruments: questionnaire addressed to English teachers and addressed to the students; the latter two correspond to the population under study and the guide of observation in the classroom.

The results of these instruments are measured if the techniques used to evaluate the process are ideal according to the grammar approach and allow the development of activities and teaching resources.

Variable No. 4: Training of the English teachers in the development of oral grammar expression skills and listening comprehension of A2 students through humoristic texts

Conceptual definition

Chomsky defines it as the preparation given to the teachers so that they can play better against students, understanding back to training for the professional degree that confirm them as teachers. The content of the training should be as broad as possible, holistically speaking, to complement and reinforce the knowledge necessary in the consolidation of communication skills required for the proper exercise of the office and must take into account the quality, innovation and high sense of commitment to the needs of the country and all its regions in face-to-face and virtual modes.

Operational definition

The training of teachers and professors in the field of grammar skills, specifically from the grammar approach in the areas of oral expression and listening comprehension should develop holistically in three dimensions:

a. The staff (relates to being) it is that the teacher will look and be held for personal interest.

b. The Professional (related to doing) and refers to which the teacher should do because your employer requires it be (specific institution).

c. The context (related to the living). It is what the teachers do when they arrive to the schools where they work, either when they attend conferences of the different associations and provided training on the subject in study.

The response shall be considered relevant when at least 70% of respondents who responded to each questionnaire indicate that they have been trained in at least one of the dimensions referred to in the preceding paragraph, allowing you to visualize that they actually have training in the communicative approach which allows them to contribute to the development of the skills of oral expression and listening comprehension in the student body; in pursuit of a more comprehensive communicative competence. When that proportion answer contrary to the one described, it will be considered not relevant and when they are less than 31 percentages not will be taken into account. The foregoing in accordance with diagram 20 of interpretation of results, appearing pages back.

Data analysis techniques

Once the field work was finished and the transcripts of the classes, the interviews and the story completed, I concentrated on the analysis and interpretation of the data. Through repeated and careful reading of the materials obtained, the following recurrent themes were identified:

– the purposes that teachers considered when using humour in their classes

– the different modalities of humour they used. It also seemed important to pay attention to some common characteristics of the teachers that contributed to create classroom climate.

I made a new reading of the materials, in which I highlighted with different colours the fragments of the texts that seemed to correspond to the three topics just mentioned. I elaborated a typology of purposes, one of modalities and another of characteristics, assigning a code to each "type". With this coding system I marked the fragments underlined on the edge of the sheet. I cut out these fragments and put them together in groups according to the assigned code. I verified that in each of the groups there were fragments from each of the informants and discarded those that did not have contributions from all the teachers, except for one of them that I decided to keep due to the relevance I had for my work. I built arrays to be able to appreciate more easily which of those "types" were recurrent and which were related to each other and could be unified. Finally I built a matrix that allowed me to visualize together all the data obtained. During all the work described, more globalizing ideas appeared, which allowed me to cross-type between the groups I had formed and also with the recurrent characteristics that I had identified in the teachers of the sample. These ideas were those that finally gave rise to the creation of the categories that are proposed.

Chapter 5. Data Analysis

5.1 Humour in the curriculum

The academic disciplines are a way of organizing the curriculum that goes back to the early stages of the history of education. Its permanence through time in the different levels and modalities of the educational system leads us to analyze some of the criteria that underlie this format. Contributions from the field of epistemology, psychology and sociology, among others, allow us to deepen the didactic reflection on the teaching and learning processes achieved through the study of disciplines in educational institutions. Understanding that teaching is a moral practice that commits teachers to permanent critical analysis of our work, we believe that clarifying the problem of the disciplinary structure of the curriculum will make it possible to improve our didactic constructions, clarifying both limitations and obstacles as well as regulations. potentializing of these curricular proposals.

Humour such as social constructions

One aspect that is relevant to analyze at this time is the problem of the erasure or overlapping of boundaries and borders between many of the current fields of knowledge. Before we commented that the work and joint growth between different scientific disciplines that share some epistemological peculiarities leads to foster interdisciplinary approaches that often generate border regions or new fields of study. However, when we analyze the history of Humour development, we often find that these blurring and emergence respond, in reality, to complex socio-political and economic phenomena that must be elucidated, given that: "A crucial way to reformulate and transcending the limits within which we work, consists in seeing […] to what extent those limits are not given or fixed, but produced through conflicting actions and the interests of the men of history" (M. Young, 1977: 248-249).

This description of certain vicissitudes in the historical development of humour as a discipline leads us to recover some of the statements made by critical theorists regarding the role of the curriculum. T. Tadeu da Silva (2001) explains that the traditional theories of the curriculum were "acceptance, adjustment and adaptation", while the critics are theories of "distrust, questioning and radical transformation". For these theories, what is interesting is not to specialize in techniques on how to prepare a curriculum, but to build conceptualizations that help to understand what the curriculum does in the educational reality.

One of the representatives of the critical theories of the curriculum is Michael Apple, who in his book The official knowledge (1995) asks about the belonging of the most valuable knowledge, understanding that there are always groups in society that establish strategies to ensure the domination. These hegemonic groups exercise control through different mechanisms. On the one hand, discursive constructs are generated that reduce the real to the merely knowable, overlapping arbitrariness and inadequacies, and on the other hand, there are actions for the massive diffusion of these discourses about reality in order that they are known and accepted as truth.

Another of the intellectuals who has critically theorized about the curriculum, Basil Bernstein (1971), observes that "the way in which a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits and evaluates the knowledge destined for teaching reflects the distribution of the existing power within it and the way in which social control of individual components is guaranteed in it ". Humour, as content selected and organized to be taught in educational institutions, therefore need to be considered as products that must be analyzed from their socio-historical construction, since they are works of the "cultural market" that can be put into question, constituting in addition only one of the possible forms that the curriculum of studies can adopt.

In this sense, we agree with T. Becher (1993) in which the specialized interests of knowledge are also related to the processes of division of academic work. The emergence of university education made it possible to organize a federation of specialties, and insofar as the subjects managed to take their place in the knowledge building, it was possible to consolidate, on the one hand, a substantial increase in intellectual productivity, and on the other hand, a greater recognition of epistemological authority.

Within this same approach, Michael Young (1971) explains that the curricula that characterize literate societies transmit knowledge of alphabetical type, promote intellectual individualism, entrench abstract knowledge disconnected from everyday life and value objectively evaluable knowledge. If we analyze, for example, the role that the university had at the beginning of the 20th century, we will observe that its main function was related to the development of research. However, in view of the need of the State to stimulate economic growth – also taking into account the absence of formal industrial policies – there is now talk of a second academic revolution, given that a new contract has been produced between academia and society through which the research is only going to be sustained in the universities to the extent that they assume a business role. Notwithstanding this description of the problems that we must face with respect to the function of knowledge in our society, it is essential that those of us committed to the public and democratic transmission of knowledge reflect on the role that higher-level institutions must fulfil the training of professionals in the various disciplinary fields. It is intended that the school allows the analysis of a categorical structure that makes it possible theoretically to base priority aspects of the society in which we live, such as environmental education, the problems of power, the struggles of minorities, nuclear disarmament, etc. These contents should not only be given to students of the social sciences, but should be common for all those who have chosen to study a certain area of ​​knowledge to practice a profession. It is also essential to offer a basic training articulated with short, flexible and changing specializations. The humoristic training spaces, therefore, will be open and agile with respect to the advancement of knowledge, constituting significant experiences that are not isolated or fragmented. For this, in addition, basic aspects of the emerging practices of future graduates will have to be incorporated, understanding that all of them, whatever their specificity, are social practices that require an attitude of lasting commitment to improve and transform reality.

Didactic debates around the teaching of the humour

Addressing the analysis of school content organized in humour means also reflecting on the place of the method in teaching. G. Eldestein (1996) observes that the debate about the method was abandoned during the 1980s, currently considering that its study only acquires meaning when it is first treated as a knowledge problem, given that the method appears to be conditioned to a large extent by the nature of the phenomena of each disciplinary field. This author talks about "methodological construction" to describe the relationship between the conceptual structure -syntactic and substantive- of a discipline and the cognitive structure of the subjects in a situation of appropriating it. This construction has an unique character, is always established in a framework of particular situations and implies an axiological perspective with respect to science, culture and society. The method, therefore, not only refers to the interactions that occur in the classroom, but also involves the performance of a profoundly creative act on the part of the teacher in which different logics must be combined in different teaching contexts. From these reflections we can state that the structuring of the educational curriculum through different models is not a topic that only concerns the analysis of the problem of knowledge, but is intrinsically articulated with the debate about the content- method relationship. M. Pansza (1988) describes three different forms of curricular organization: by subject, by area and by module.

With respect to the subject curriculum, the author considers that it responds to mechanistic or subjectivist conceptions of learning, since there is no deep interaction between the subjects and the objects of study. The atomization of the knowledge that is produced in this model by the conformation of curricular spaces and fragmented activities -materials, practices and techniques; classroom and laboratory classes; repetition of contents, etc.-, reproduces from its conception the separation established between educational institutions and society, cancelling the critical role that the school must have with respect to the conservative mechanisms of it. The curriculum by areas proposes, instead, a grouping of the disciplines, which can be made from different criteria-related disciplines in their objects of study and / or methodologies, polar disciplines, etc.-. From this model, we try to respect the current modes of development of science characterized by the blurring of its borders, generating learning processes more in tune with the forms of production of knowledge and with the psychological needs of students.

However, the experiences performed from the implementation of the curricular organization by areas have shown that it has not been possible to totally overcome the problem of the fragmentation of the contents in the educational institutions and that, in addition, this model requires an operation most operational administrative The curriculum by modules, however, raises an interdisciplinary conception integrating teaching, research and service in higher education, understanding that knowledge involves a progressive construction of objective truth. The study modules are self-sufficient units that overcome the theoretical-practical split, which make it possible to address specific problems of the community called "objects of transformation". In addition, historical-critical analyzes of dominant, decadent and emerging professional practices in society are carried out, giving priority to the development of the latter. Despite the advantages of this innovative proposal for the organization of the curriculum at the top level, M. Pansza explains that some of its key problems have been the lack of prior knowledge of many students to be able to seriously analyze the complex objects of study; the scarce formation of some teachers in pedagogical-didactic disciplines; the need to make explicit clearly prior to the development of the project, the criteria, scopes and fundamental conceptualizations of the project -for example, what is understood by interdisciplinarity-, and the detailed analysis about which are the problems of the community that can really be addressed by the students.

Clifton Conrad (1979) mentions the [anonimizat] model, which gives students ample freedom to study the contents that respond to their interests, setting their own times and conditions for learning, under the guidance of a specialist ; the model of the Great Books and Ideas, based on the approach of classical authors through Socratic methods; the Social Problems model, organized around central issues that require the integration of knowledge and an attitude of commitment and initiative to carry out community actions; the Selected Competencies model, designed from courses that presuppose behavioural objectives and competencies to be achieved through different degrees of efficiency; and the model of the Academic Disciplines, whose formulation is made from the knowledge structures proposed by the disciplines, understanding them as: … community of people, expression of the human imagination, a domain, a tradition, a syntactic structure , a way of asking, a conceptual structure, a specialized language or another system of symbols, a heritage of literature and artefacts and a communication tool, an evaluative and affective instance, and an instructive community. (Brownel, cit by Conrad, 1979)

The hegemony of the curriculum regarding the humour can hinder innovation, preventing glimpse other ways of organizing curricula and maintaining hierarchies of prestige and academic domains. This model, in addition, presupposes the use of the languages ​​of science for the application of knowledge, the extension of basic research and the generation of conditions for inter or multidisciplinary study at the highest levels of disciplinary specialization, which entails a series of difficulties when planning these activities in educational institutions. However, Conrad explains that this form of organization has several advantages, since the disciplines constitute modes of thinking that simplify the order and communicate knowledge systematized in certain areas.

They are also research models, since new scientific developments can be generated in their fields. The generalization of this type of curricular proposal allows, in addition, the mobility of students in the various institutions of the educational system, since it is highly feasible to revalidate common contents that have been studied from disciplinary programs with similar characteristics. Notwithstanding this description of the multiple alternatives that exist when programming a curricular design, and even when the decisions taken have an innovative nature with respect to the more traditional options, this does not exempt educational institutions from the responsibility of teach, at all levels and modalities, the language of the disciplines.

J. Lemke (1997) states that scientific dialogue has two patterns in school: a thematic pattern of elaboration of complex meanings about a particular object, and a pattern of activity, which implies the "way" in which knowledge is they learn through strategic actions of students and teachers in a game of mutual expectations. Typical triadic question / answer / assessment dialogues, for example, allow for minimal student participation. Consequently, the contents of science remain implicit during the development of the class and no genuine processes of understanding are generated. True dialogue, on the other hand, which involves the recurrence of a wide range of possible answers within which the answers of the students are not always correct or known in advance by the teacher, stimulates the development of real processes of discussion and exchange in the classroom. Students and teachers are involved in the school through interconstructed expectations from different levels of representation. The indication, by the teachers, of the importance of certain topics, the regulation of the difficulty of a task by means of the formulation of simple questions that promote participation, the creation of dilemmatic or mysterious situations that arouse curiosity, the use of play and humour, are daily performances of teachers who demonstrate the use of thematic tactics in the classes to organize the treatment of the content of school disciplines.

For their part, students also find ways to exercise some control over the development of teaching situations. Requests for clarification, interrogative answers, chorus responses and chat among peers, for example, constitute tactical behaviours that make it possible to mediate the processes of didactic communication in the classroom. The students' conversation is a very common way to help each other, to share doubts and opinions about the topics studied, or to relax and establish interpersonal relationships. However, the automatic and excessive repression of these behaviours by teachers generates authoritarian and boring classes, in which intelligent discussions are not produced and learning is not enjoyed. These actions of students and teachers in school institutions lead us to reflect on a fundamental problem of the current educational system: the teaching of science as a specialized language. When we talk about teaching and learning science, we are clear that what is intended is not that students repeat neatly memorized terms arbitrarily, but build complex meanings from the argumentative particularities of the different disciplinary fields. G. Claxton (1994) uses the metaphor of "laboratoryland" to describe the barriers between the science taught in school and the real world in which we live.

In this respect, there is disillusionment in the students with respect to the study of the disciplinary fields, because they are transmitted in a fragmented, boring and dogmatic way. It's like a train trip with the windows closed: the landscape is outside our senses and our minds. This does not mean that the school must train scientists during the stages of compulsory education, but that its commitment lies in providing opportunities to access knowledge of the logic of science, and appropriate levels of scientific literacy that make it possible to understand and use in life daily the basic contributions of the same. For this, says the author, it is important that the teacher stimulates processes of everyday knowledge through counterintuitive reflections; that offers an interesting menu to awaken the interest and the desire to know; that creates "greenhouses" for learning in which the complexity is reduced initially and then, gradually, emphasizes from increasingly deeper analysis criteria; that advises its students, in addition to imparting knowledge; that assumes itself as a student eager to learn constantly; and that has the capacity to reflect on the teaching processes, taking responsibility for the planning and monitoring of all its stages. As we stated when we analyzed the characteristics of the substantial and syntactic structures of the disciplines, it is fundamental that educational institutions teach these forms of epistemological organization of sciences through the different texts in which they are inscribed. Students must be able to recognize their meanings both in the didactic proposals with which a class is scheduled, as in the paragraphs of a study book or in the format of an audiovisual material that disseminates certain concepts.

A mountain in geography is not described in the same way as in the contexts of everyday life or artistic expression, for which reason we consider it necessary to teach the genres required by science in order to be interpreted and communicated. This leads to the use of the semantic patterns of scientific disciplines in the classroom through, on the one hand, the non-arbitrary and reciprocal conversation between students and teachers, and on the other hand, the systematic and detailed writing of the contributions of the sciences. The use of complex sentences, the education in basic linguistic skills and the elucidation of the logical relations that exist between the concepts are some examples of elementary activities that it is essential to teach in order to manage the language of the disciplines. The stereotypy and banalization with which school exams are administered also becomes an obstacle to the learning of the disciplines. If the tests constitute standardized corsets in which students are asked to literally repeat accumulated information, they will prevent real comprehension processes from developing. When, on the other hand, students have the possibility of expressing their thinking in the situations of examination by means of the manifestation of the appropriations obtained about the disciplines, the joint and shared construction of significant and pertinent texts to the different scientific discourses is made possible.

Humour is a vital element in the educational process, so it is necessary to claim humour as a didactic medium and as a curricular object for the integral development of the person. The effectiveness of the message depends, to a great extent, on a good channel to transmit it and, in this case, humour is an excellent vehicle to transfer the message from the communicator to the receiver and produce in it the reaction that completes the cycle of communication.

To establish a connection between the concepts associated with humour, and its possible usefulness as a pedagogical tool, it is necessary to establish in which areas of pedagogy the application of humour can become relevant, what its effects would be, as well as determining in what cases the use of humour may become irrelevant. That is why, in the first instance, I will briefly mention the three fundamental axes for the classification of educational goals, which are currently the basis of the realization of the curriculum in various countries.

Thus, this taxonomy constitutes a fundamental tool in the structuring of the curriculum, since it allows the definition of objectives in the educational and didactic field. Thus, the valid evaluation of the student is to determine to what extent has reached certain objectives, which leads to divide the cognitive objectives into two parts: the first comprises the simple behaviour of remembering knowledge, and the other, the more complex behaviours of certain skills and technical abilities. Based on this, the educational objectives present a hierarchical structure that goes from the simplest to the most elaborated: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Therefore, educators should consider these levels and, through different pedagogical activities, they should advance in level until they reach the highest levels.

Personally, I believe that the benefits that I probed regarding the use of humour as a pedagogical tool are only the exposure and compilation of diverse perspectives already existing, nevertheless establishing a link with the educational goals and the national curriculum is already a step to advance in the direction of more and more finished and profitable studies around this topic.

5.2 Humour in the English textbooks

Assessing English Textbooks

The panorama of the Humour teaching of the last decades is characterized by the progressive implantation of the new technologies in the classroom. However, it is undeniable that the textbook continues to occupy a predominant place in everyday teaching practice. Its popularity lies in its usefulness to teachers and pupils; to the first, the book provides a set of materials difficult to be replaced without a great investment of time and money; the second gives him an overview of the subject, and allows him to prepare and review classes (O'Neill, 1982: 5).

In relation to the learning and teaching Humour, the English textbook reflects a vision of the language and culture of its speakers and a certain teaching approach that can influence positively or negatively in the learning of that language by part of the students (Richards, 1993: 16).

With regard to the assessment of materials for learning and teaching of non-maternal languages, we can bring together different research trends:

evaluations of curriculum design (Dubin, Olshtain, 1986:15), (Johnson, Johnson, 1989: 22), (Alderson and Beretta, 1992);

the creation of models for the analysis of textbooks and teaching materials (Cunningsworth, 1998: 32), (Ellis, 1997: 36-42);

analysis of courses for English self-learning (Roberts, 1995, pp. 513-530);

large-scale assessments of language learning and teaching materials (Fitzpatrick, 2000, p.12);

small- scale analysis of some aspects of textbooks, and of different materials;

For example, in relation to textbooks, we find an analysis of vocabulary (Miranda, 1990: 111-119), speech acts, reading activities, sexism and transverse themes ( Jacobs and Goatly, 2000: 256-264).

As a document of utmost importance in fleshing out the contents of education, textbook are specific to a series of functions listed and analyzed by several authors. For example, Nicola I. (Nicola, 1996: 372), addressing this issue believes that the main functions of the English textbooks are:

information function justified by the fact that every textbook is an important source of knowledge for students regarding the humoristic aspect; perhaps 70-80% of the knowledge acquired by them in the teaching-learning originated in this document, while a much smaller percentage teacher comes on the channel or means of mass communication;

formative function, explained by because of the operand contents develop students a range of intellectual working skills, develop their operators structures adapted to different types of content, they can become familiar with a series of algorithms that apply to certain categories of documents;

stimulating function is explicable in terms of English textbook’s quality can enhance student motivation for learning-training activity regarding the humoristic aspect, can stimulate curiosity, interests and concerns may widen to know;

self-assessment function because self-education can prepare students for helping to form an individual work style thanks to whom the future can acquire a range of knowledge and information through personal effort.

Another author, R. Seguin referring to the English textbook’s functions considered that among the most important are (Seguin, 1989: 22-24):

1) information function

knowledge selection must be made in order to avoid overloading regarding the humoristic aspect;

when selection is done, knowledge must bear in mind certain reductions, simplifications, reorganizations in the context of humour.

2) structuring the learning function. Learning the humoristic aspect can be done in several ways:

from practical experience to theory;

from theory to practical applications by controlling acquisitions;

from practical exercises in developing the theory;

from exposure to examples, the illustrations;

from examples and illustrations to observation and analysis.

3) guiding the learning function which can be achieved by:

repetition, memorizing, imitating patterns;

opened and creative activities of the humoristic aspect of students who can use their experiences and observations.

To successfully fulfil the functions of the specific manual must honour a number of requirements which are grouped into three categories, namely:

a) Requirements of psycho-pedagogical nature of the observance which require that the textbook knowledge and information is presented so that students can assimilate, understand and apply it;

b) Requirements regarding the quality of paper and printing ink, text readability and so on;

c) Aesthetic requirements (quality illustrations used to-drafting, binding and so on.).

If, as we have previously shown there have been advances in recent decades both in curriculum development and in designing the syllabi, it was normal for textbooks to benefit of the same attention and thus to introduce innovations in their development.

This was accomplished and is currently the most notable innovation focused on the one hand, on the development of special textbooks for teachers and special textbooks for students and on the other hand, the development of alternative textbooks for the same discipline that is taught by a class or education level.

Developing special English textbooks for teachers and students is a win, because each of them is related somewhat different from this tool that materializes contents of the educational process. For example, manual teacher or teacher's book is distinguished primarily in that it includes a larger amount of knowledge and information, and this is natural because the teacher must have a surplus of knowledge and information that appeal only in cases namely special when students face some misunderstandings, or when ask about a theme or topic, more examples and more embodiments. Also, the English textbook for teachers includes a number of methodological indications about the way they have to teach certain content regarding the humoristic aspect.

Teacher's textbook includes types of exercises and problems that students must solve in order to demonstrate the degree of understanding of the contents that were the subject of training activity.

Regarding the textbook for students, it is distinguished primarily by lower volume of knowledge and information with a variety of larger exercises and problems that students will have to solve them by including independent work sheets and instruments through which students can assess themselves.

The second major innovation in the field of published textbooks is the alternative to the same discipline that through a certain education level. This innovation is productive and it can be easily justified in terms of psycho-pedagogical if we start from the premise that, since students are different between them both by cognitive, affective, motivational potential, then it seems natural that the textbooks for them to be different and to be designed so that it can be made compatible with certain categories of students. (Riasati, Zare, 2010: 54)

For example, a student with greater possibilities for discipline, better motivated, it could opt for a more elaborate and sophisticated manual that corresponds to a greater extent to its psychological characteristics; on the contrary, a pupil less equipped and less motivated to a certain discipline can opt for a manual better illustrated, less complicated, that it favours and it advantages him to solve problems or specific activities at that discipline.

On the other hand, one must clearly indicate the alternative that textbooks prove their effectiveness as long as it still provides training unit, students in the same discipline, which means that each version of the manual should provide the core of the discipline, and the differentiation between variants to refer mainly to the presentation of contents, iconographic material and the variety of exercises proposed to the students. If this requirement is not respected some variants of textbook effectively penalize students who opt for them. (Riasati, Zare, 2010: 66)

If the curriculum, syllabus, textbook are the main documents that materializes contents of the educational process, one must not forget that there are other curricular supports which have a negligible role, such as monographs on certain topics, journals, collections and chrestomathies, atlases and albums, educational software, tape, which can be appealed in certain contexts training to overload students, but to make them more effective and enjoyable learning regarding the humoristic aspect.

Since ancient times, people have tried to find a method to make life easier. Thus, whether made tools to build a home or that hunted to eat, they themselves initiated activities to satisfy basic of needs. Today, however, with the evolution of society, the same man who once was building a house and hunt to survive, is the one who discovered that in education, regardless of age, plays a special role manual. So the question arises: Is it true that the textbook is a creation that serves no purpose for which it was designed – to educate, shape, help?

The textbook is an official document that provides curriculum concretization in a form that relate to the humour knowledge and skills systemically through various teaching units, operationalized and structured chapters, subchapters, group lessons, learning sequences.

The first argument in favour of the idea that by following content is reached to educate stems from the fact that any manual highlights the system of knowledge and skills fundamental to the field of study concerned, this means teaching appropriate images, diagrams, drawings, photos, symbols.

Moreover, any textbook reflects the benchmarks and skills in the school curriculum and guidelines, theories, standards and conventions in relation to which they are presented, explained and applied contents reflect the recent acquisitions of the domain in the school curriculum. Thus, students are given the possibility of receiving, as actual images about the world and avoid some stereotypes formed as a result of seclusion in obsolete structures – elements that help also in a good and lasting education.

All of the educational function of the school textbook are interconnected and the idea that the concepts of structure content of any textbook are presented, interpreted and applied in accordance with the meanings and scientific principles, accompanied by alternatives for interpretation, which indicates the opening it propose any textbook, within the maintenance purpose for which it was proposed. For example, textbooks of English language and literature does not provide unique solutions to solve the items, but encourages both students and coordinators discipline to propose alternatives for interpretation and resolution of the humoristic texts, in other words, it educates students, on the basis of theoretical principles and compliance, in order to adopt a personal point of view.

Another argument for the usefulness of school textbooks regarding the humoristic aspect is that it acquire through its training function. This is closely related to the function of education previously mentioned, and refers to the stimulation of individual, independent and autonomous students. Textbook structure, complex or simple, provides models of inductive reasoning, deductive or analogue, to maintain its role of encouraging an open pedagogical project.

Another argument claims that English textbook achieves regarding the humoristic aspect is represented by its purpose for which it was designed from the fact that it helps in two important ways: on the one hand, to stimulate the operations triggering activation and support attention and motivation of students and learning and, on the other hand, to stimulate internal mechanisms reverse connection, existing in teaching activities.

One possible option for evaluating the English textbook is to use a list that can be provided by the author. Experts generally present detailed listings and place special emphasis on important things such as methodology, language content, assessment, activities, book components and so on. Another good option is to make own lists according to what the school is looking for. (Cunningsworth, Kuse, 1988: 128-139).

There are several things to keep in mind before selecting the English textbook. First, special attention must be paid to the type of students who are in school. It is important to know their age, their economic status and their educational level. It is necessary to know the policies of the school and its objectives so that the approach that supports the book fits into that learning community. It is also relevant to know the profile of English teachers. They must know their training in the area of ​​language teaching, whether or not they have experience, if they have experience managing such students and so on. In addition one must know about the availability of equipment.

When evaluating the English textbooks, teachers must intervene because they are going to implement them in the classroom. Also, they should feel at ease with the book enhancing a careful review of it. However, it is generally the authorities who select the books and teachers are limited to use them even though the election does not seem appropriate. If teachers participate in the process it is easier for them to accept change in the institution. Publishing houses may also support selection because they are the ones who know the product best and can explain the approach on which the book is based in detail.

In each country, one of the strongest investments in education systems has always been to increase the percentage of literate population. However, contrasting the numbers of literate population with those of books read per inhabitant, we find that there is a significant poverty, because who knows how to read, does not. Reading grows the importance of textbooks.

For this reason, today there is an additional challenge to literacy, that of getting the literate population to become a reading population. This task is no longer an exclusive task of the school system; teachers, librarians, bookstores, publishers and, above all, parents should strive to make children capable of reading and becoming effective readers.

If this were not enough, the television and other media that mainly handle the information through images, have collaborated to give priority to the same image that uses a perceptive and concrete language, very simple to assimilate, in front of the word and the concepts, which involve a conceptual and abstract language and that require a creative process of thought.

For this reason it is very important to consider that having the different educational tools (books, CD-ROM, videos, Internet) within reach does not guarantee learning and acquiring knowledge and skills by itself, but the factor that makes them really useful and transcendent is the reading of its content; this is why developing the habit of reading in their children becomes one of the main qualities with which a person must count in order to successfully face the challenges of the world to come.

It is fundamental for parents to know all the benefits that reading provides and the conditions conducive to creating in their children the habit of reading:

• How to promote a positive attitude of people, especially children, towards reading.

• What family activities, type of readings and exercises make the development of the habit to be pleasant.

• How to fully and intelligently take advantage of technological tools.

Characteristics of school textbooks

Not every book that has been used in school is a "school handbook" in the strict sense. It is only those works that are specifically conceived with the intention of being used in the teaching-learning process, an intention indicated by its title, its subject, level or modality, its internal didactic structure, and its content, sequence of a school discipline.

The main characteristics that an English textbook contains in a strict sense would be: intentionality on the part of the author, systematicity, in the exhibition of the contents, sequentiality, adequacy for the pedagogical work, expository text style, text and illustrations combination, content regulation, their extension and the treatment of them and state administrative and political intervention. (Siegel, 2014: 363-367)

The apparent simplicity of English textbooks often obscures a complex series of interventions, whether personal, institutional, technological or business. The contents and their organization usually respond to previous normative regulations, exposed in curricula and programs that conform the so-called "prescribed curriculum", of more or less obligatory fulfilment.

Regarding the English textbook, a socializing factor of first importance, may have been the type of written text that for a longer time was exposed to state control and prior censorship of its contents. As support for knowledge, it imposes a distribution and hierarchy of knowledge and contributes to forming the intellectual armour of students. As an instrument of power, the English textbook contributes to linguistic uniformity, to cultural levelling and to the propagation of dominant ideas. (Siegel, 2014: 375)

The English textbook is in many ways the true manifest curriculum of the school, which the school truly teaches, being the most used teaching resource in practically all educational systems. The school texts, being one of the most characteristic products of the school institution, have become an object of study of great interest, as testimonies that can reveal aspects that until now have been neglected or opaque, whether related to the inner life of the school institution or about the ideological influences and political motivations that gravitated over disciplines and curricular contents. Through them, the English textbook intends to recover and analyze also pedagogical theories and methodological principles, both those that were predominant and had massive diffusion in determined periods and countries, as innovative pedagogical experiences or reformist, minority or individual ones. English textbooks offer a very rich material for the analysis of the different social and political conceptions that influenced its elaboration. They were shaped by the different ideologies and currents of thought that happened in the course of history, but above all contain the most outlined expressions of the dominant ideas in each epoch. They are not a description or a photographic record of that society and culture, but they express, rather, an idealized horizon of knowledge, purposes and valuations, a set of interpretations and positions that express subjective visions of the social world, susceptible, in turn of being analyzed to try to understand the school history and the processes of culture transmission. (Kim, 2001: 219- 243)

Criteria regarding textbooks analysis and a good learning in teachers’ and students’ opinion

This part of the analysis consisted of examining eight criteria to be met by texts to create a learning process similar to what is “recommended” in all teacher-training institutes (but rarely implemented), from teachers and students point of view. Again it is worth remembering that a good teacher can meet these criteria without the need for texts, but that when used, they must also meet at least eight criteria:

Stimulate free writing, since only a systematic thinking process is completed when it is put into writing. The text should clearly indicate, in each activity or module, the moments of free writing in which the student must necessarily think in a systematic way (for which may include pertinent questions). This requires that the teacher devote his time to reviewing the students' work rather than dictating subjects;

Facilitate the socialization of personal work. Students can prepare, in groups of four or five, a version that integrates the work of several of them (for example, a written version of an observation), so that the teacher only revises a more elaborate one which, in turn, allows self-evaluation of work in each). Therefore, the texts must ensure that each activity includes both personal and group work.

Give opportunities to make a decision within well-defined alternatives. Every time a student makes a decision he must think, and therefore acquires a greater commitment / interest with what he decides to carry out. That is why the text should offer you the opportunity to choose the specific situations that allow you to learn the same educational goal;

Achieve local adaptation through instructions that lead the student to identify the alternatives that exist in the local situation. The text should indicate to the student how to identify the examples-situations that exist in their reality, related to types of work, mobilization, health, production, history, geography, stories, legends, flora, fauna, minerals and other topics that include the national curriculum. Once identified, each group can select a situation on which it will work;

Provide a method to learn from the context and develop a permanent ability to systematize observations. Local adaptation of each activity requires including observation, oral and written description, integration with peer observations, but should also include self-assessment with respect to a model (and corresponding revision of the entire sequence of stages) so that the final version can be reviewed later by the teacher. In this way, the essential elements of the scientific method and of technology are integrated, which will, in later stages (perhaps in the middle level), become familiar with other methods;

Create community participation through the process of identifying and selecting local context examples used in the learning process. An important part of learning experiences should use everyday information about health, remedies, work, family, food, plants, seeds, animals, crafts, stones, maps, games, songs, anecdotes, local history, cardinal points, radio and TV. Much of this information requires the collaboration of parents and, in that process, they discover the vital contribution that their culture makes to the school;

Inducing a modular assessment that allows students to move at their own pace. Each sequence of activities should include, at the end, the description of a similar activity (even if it corresponds to a situation that is very different from the local context) with which students can compare the results of their work to identify ways to complete or improve their own work. This self-assessment also reduces the amount of time the teacher must spend to correct, since you do not have to review everything that students write. In any case, evaluating objectives in short periods (from one to two weeks) allows students to systematically complete each sequence (module) before moving on to the next, or the teacher decides if other activities are necessary before continuing with the following module

Finally, avoid extra work to the teacher that obliges him to sacrifice his family life or his rest time. The text should include all instructions necessary for the student-group to participate in the learning situation, even if the teacher can modify them at any time. The teacher should not create new learning situations at each opportunity, but use the best experiences accumulated until that time, without prejudice to improvise when circumstances require.

There are many other aspects and questions that we must ask ourselves when designing materials or we limit ourselves to selecting and adapting existing ones. Breen and Candlin (1987: 14-28) offer a very useful and complete guide. Its frame of reference and key aspects includes the following categories.

1. Objectives and contents of the curricular material: objectives of instruction that are proposed, what gives the apprentices and what they omit.

2. Tasks that they propose for the learning: sequence of work that they establish, type of tasks that suggest: variety, clarity and adequacy.

3. Requirements of the materials to the teacher who carries them out: identification of the teacher with the lines of work proposed, degree of professional competence required by the tasks.

4. Variety of resources and didactic materials: adaptation of the materials to the needs and interests and expectations of the students.

5. Adequacy of materials for learning English at the desired level: sequencing, structure and continuity.

6. Adequacy of materials to generate the desired learning processes: autonomous learning, discovery learning, learning construction, content-based learning, cooperative learning.

The relationship of criteria proposed by Breen and Candlin (1987: 25) is useful and can help us, but it is not enough. We must deepen in other aspects related to the type of learning that we want to facilitate and to propitiate through the materials. In this sense, it is advisable to explore other areas and consider to what extent certain materials can contribute to its development. Littlejohn and Windeatt propose the following (Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989: 156-175):

1) knowledge of general facts or related to specific academic disciplines (general and / or specialized training);

2) teachers’ vision of what knowledge is and how it develops;

3) teachers’ conception of language learning;

4) roles of the teacher and students in the classroom;

5) opportunities for the development of cognitive abilities;

6) and finally, the values and attitudes that reflect the materials and meta-cognitive instruction: learning to learn.

A few years earlier, Cook (1983: 229-237) proposed:

a) knowledge about academic subjects,

b) the content that the student can contribute,

c) the language studied,

d) literary texts,

e) culture and

f) the subjects of interest of the students.

The characteristics and criteria suggested by Littlejohn and Windeat (1989: 185) for curricular materials include the following aspects:

General culture and specialized training

The materials should contribute to the general training of students, to the development of their general knowledge, and to their specific training in certain subjects or areas of knowledge. As we will explain in the following pages, one of the approaches that can best meet those objectives is what is commonly called content-based approach.

Materials reflecting appropriate theories about teaching and learning

The most appropriate curricular materials will be those that best reflect our conception of teaching and are consistent with the theories of learning that are most appropriate in each context. At present, learning is seen as an active and dynamic process that involves selecting information, processing and organizing it, relating it to previous experiences and knowledge, using it in appropriate contexts and situations, evaluating it and reflecting on the effectiveness of results, etc. The materials must facilitate the progressive "construction" of knowledge through "significant" learning that will enrich the students' complex cognitive structure. In addition, Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989: 200-210) emphasize the importance of materials and tasks that favour reflection on the processes of learning and metacognitive instruction, the fact that students learn to learn.

Materials and resources based on an adequate conception of the language and its learning

When using materials, it must be taken into account that a language is not only a system of forms, structures and words, but also from the pragmatic point of view it is also a system of communicative acts and it is expected that the media and Resources used favour the development of communicative competence of students, understood as the integration of five sub-competences: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discursive, cultural and strategic (Canale, 1983: 78). The learning of languages ​​takes place through personal and creative processes, global and cyclical, meaningful and in close relation with the interests, needs and mental schemes of the subjects who learn it. Sometimes it can be done intuitively and subconsciously because of the "input" used in curriculum materials or by the teacher.

Role distribution

We believe that the materials we use to teach and learn English (or any other language) must be designed and used in accordance with the above approaches and in a way that favours the development of:

a) oral and written communicative competence, both of linguistic and communicative activities and of skills, strategies, strategies and procedures that promote the adequate use of oral and written English;

b) attitudes and values ​​that favour some autonomy and self-regulation of learning and

c) self-evaluation of teaching and learning processes. To fulfil all these objectives there must be certain alternation of roles on the part of teachers and students in the use of materials for teaching and learning. Teachers may use the materials as a source of information that the student will receive, select, organize and assimilate according to their individual characteristics. Other times, the teacher will act as mediator or facilitator of learning and it will be the students who, autonomously, and with the help of the curricular materials employed, will regulate and be responsible for what they learn.

Developing problem solving skills

The educational resources and resources should also provide opportunities for students to solve issues and problems similar to those they will need to solve in real life when they practice. This is achieved through the resolution of tasks that relate to the world of education: planning of educational work, analysis and commentary on teaching and learning situations, etc.

Values ​​and Attitudes in Materials

  When we use the curricular materials, we can use them in a "referential" way, acting the teacher as an informant and the student as content receiver or in a more "experiential" way, when we invite the students to experiment with the selected resources. As we will see later, the "experiential" approach is more effective because it is often more meaningful and relevant to students. To the extent that materials provide more experiential situations, the greater the internalization of the values ​​and attitudes that transmit these materials. As Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989: 220) affirm, there is a relation between the values ​​that are transmitted in the texts that we use in class and those that are forged the students: "recent studies claim a direct relationship between the values ​​and attitudes learners express and those found in texts with which they work”. In this respect, it is fundamental that the material used reflects the plurality of races, religions and beliefs that exist in contemporary society.

In learning second languages, one of the biggest enemies is the anxiety caused in part by the shame of the students not feeling competent. It is the teacher's job to provide an adequate climate in which the student is relaxed and can fully exploit their qualities. The level of anxiety of students is lower when the teacher uses teaching methods with a sense of humour. For this reason we consider justified the activities proposed below as well as the introduction of grammatical structures and vocabulary, as well as help for immersion of the student in another culture.

The sense of humour exists in all cultures and is reflected in different ways in the language. Similarly, languages ​​reflect humour through word games, double meanings and inconsistencies. Following Elliott Oring's theories of humour, in any joke there is an appropriate incongruity: "The perception of humour depends on the perception of an appropriate incongruity -that is, the perception of an appropriate interrelationship of elements from domains that are generally regarded as incongruous "(Oring, 1992, 2). In order to reach a full understanding of the appropriate incongruities, that is to say, of humour, one must have a high degree of competence in the second language, and even then a cultural baggage is necessary that is lacking if one is not native and one is immersed in the culture. Now, our proposal is to affirm that at different levels of language learning, from elementary to very advanced levels, it is convenient and fruitful to use humourous material whenever a careful selection is made of it. Next we will present a series of materials focused on the teaching of English for students in which the grammatical, vocabulary and cultural aspects that can be studied will be analyzed.

The panorama of the language teaching of the last decades is characterized by the progressive implantation of the new technologies in the classroom. However, it is undeniable that the textbook continues to occupy a predominant place in everyday teaching practice. Its popularity lies in its usefulness to teachers and pupils; to the first, the book provides a set of materials difficult to be replaced without a great investment of time and money; the second gives him an overview of the subject, and allows him to prepare and review classes (O'Neill, 1982, p.25).

In relation to the learning and teaching English language, the English textbook reflects a vision of the language and culture of its speakers and a certain teaching approach that can influence positively or negatively in the learning of that language by part of the students (Richards, 1993, p.16).

With regard to the assessment of materials for learning and teaching of non-maternal languages, we can bring together different research trends:

evaluations of curriculum design (Dubin, Olshtain, 1986, p.15), (Johnson, Johnson, 1989, p. 22), (Alderson and Beretta, 1992);

the creation of models for the analysis of textbooks and teaching materials (Cunningsworth, 1998, p.32), (Ellis, 1997, pp. 36-42);

analysis of courses for English self-learning (Roberts, 1995, pp. 513-530);

large-scale assessments of language learning and teaching materials (Fitzpatrick, 2000, p.12);

small- scale analysis of some aspects of textbooks, and of different materials;

For example, in relation to textbooks, we find an analysis of vocabulary (Miranda, 1990, pp. 111-119), speech acts, reading activities , sexism and transverse themes ( Jacobs and Goatly, 2000, pp. 256-264).

As a document of utmost importance in fleshing out the contents of education, textbook are specific to a series of functions listed and analyzed by several authors. For example, Nicola I. (Nicola, 1996, p. 372), addressing this issue believes that the main functions of the English textbooks are:

information function justified by the fact that every textbook is an important source of knowledge for students; perhaps 70-80% of the knowledge acquired by them in the teaching-learning originated in this document, while a much smaller percentage teacher comes on the channel or means of mass communication;

formative function, explained by because of the operand contents develop students a range of intellectual work skills, develop their operators structures adapted to different types of content, they can become familiar with a series of algorithms that apply to certain categories of documents;

stimulating function is explicable in terms of English textbook’s quality can enhance student motivation for learning-training activity, can stimulate curiosity, interests and concerns may widen to know;

self-assessment function because manual self-education can prepare students for helping to form an individual work style thanks to whom the future can acquire a range of knowledge and information through personal effort.

Another author, R. Seguin referring to the English textbook’s functions considered that among the most important are (Seguin, 1989, pp. 22-24):

1) information function

Select knowledge must be made in order to avoid overloading;

when selection is done, knowledge must bear in mind certain reductions, simplifications, reorganizations.

2) structuring the learning function. Learning can be done in several ways:

from practical experience to theory;

from theory to practical applications by controlling acquisitions;

from practical exercises in developing the theory;

from exposure to examples, the illustrations;

from examples and illustrations to observation and analysis.

3) guiding the learning function which can be achieved by:

repetition, memorizing, imitating patterns;

opened and creative activities of students who can use their experiences and observations.

To successfully fulfil the functions of the specific manual must honour a number of requirements which are grouped into three categories, namely:

a) Requirements of psycho-pedagogical nature of the observance which require that the textbook knowledge and information is presented so that students can assimilate, understand and apply it;

b) Requirements regarding the quality of paper and printing ink, text readability and so on;

c) Aesthetic requirements (quality illustrations used to-drafting, binding and so on.).

If, as we have previously shown there have been advances in recent decades both in curriculum development and in designing the syllabi, it was normal for textbooks to benefit of the same attention and thus to introduce innovations in their development.

This was accomplished and is currently the most notable innovation focused on the one hand, on the development of special textbooks for teachers and special textbooks for students and on the other hand, the development of alternative textbooks for the same discipline that is taught by a class or education level.

Developing special English textbooks for teachers and students is a win, because each of them is related somewhat different from this tool that materializes contents of the educational process. For example, manual teacher or teacher's book is distinguished primarily in that it includes a larger amount of knowledge and information, and this is natural because the teacher must have a surplus of knowledge and information that appeal only in cases namely special when students face some misunderstandings, or when ask about a theme or topic, more examples and more embodiments. Also, the English textbook for teachers includes a number of methodological indications about the way they have to teach certain content.

Teacher's textbook includes types of exercises and problems that students must solve in order to demonstrate the degree of understanding of the contents that were the subject of training activity.

Regarding the textbook for students, it is distinguished primarily by lower volume of knowledge and information with a variety of larger exercises and problems that students will have to solve them by including independent work sheets and instruments through which students can assess themselves.

The second major innovation in the field of published textbooks is the alternative to the same discipline that through a certain education level. This innovation is productive and it can be easily justified in terms of psycho-pedagogical if we start from the premise that, since students are different between them both by cognitive, affective, motivational potential, then it seems natural that the textbooks for them to be different and to be designed so that it can be made compatible with certain categories of students. (Riasati, Zare, 2010, p.54)

For example, a student with greater possibilities for discipline, better motivated, it could opt for a more elaborate and sophisticated manual that corresponds to a greater extent to its psychological characteristics; on the contrary, a pupil less equipped and less motivated to a certain discipline can opt for a manual better illustrated, less complicated, that it favours and it advantages him to solve problems or specific activities at that discipline.

On the other hand, one must clearly indicate the alternative that textbooks prove their effectiveness as long as it still provides training unit, students in the same discipline, which means that each version of the manual should provide the core of the discipline, and the differentiation between variants to refer mainly to the presentation of contents, iconographic material and the variety of exercises proposed to the students. If this requirement is not respected some variants of textbook effectively penalize students who opt for them. (Riasati, Zare, 2010, p.66)

If the curriculum, syllabus, textbook are the main documents that materializes contents of the educational process, one must not forget that there are other curricular supports which have a negligible role, such as monographs on certain topics, journals, collections and chrestomathies, atlases and albums, educational software, tape, which can be appealed in certain contexts training to overload students, but to make them more effective and enjoyable learning.

Since ancient times, people have tried to find a method to make life easier. Thus, whether made tools to build a home or that hunted to eat, they themselves initiated activities to satisfy basic of needs. Today, however, with the evolution of society, the same man who once was building a house and hunt to survive, is the one who discovered that in education, regardless of age, plays a special role manual. So the question arises: Is it true that the textbook is a creation that serves no purpose for which it was designed – to educate, shape, help?

The textbook is an official document that provides curriculum concretization in a form that relate to the knowledge and skills systemically through various teaching units, operationalized and structured chapters, subchapters, group lessons, learning sequences.

The first argument in favour of the idea that by following content is reached to educate stems from the fact that any manual highlights the system of knowledge and skills fundamental to the field of study concerned, this means teaching appropriate images, diagrams, drawings, photos, symbols.

Moreover, any manual reflects the benchmarks and skills in the school curriculum and guidelines, theories, standards and conventions in relation to which they are presented, explained and applied contents reflect the recent acquisitions of the domain in the school curriculum. Thus, students are given the possibility of receiving, as actual images about the world and avoid some stereotypes formed as a result of seclusion in obsolete structures – elements that help also in a good and lasting education students.

All of the educational function of the school textbook links and the idea that the concepts of structure content of any textbook are presented, interpreted and applied in accordance with the meanings and scientific principles, accompanied by alternatives for interpretation, which indicates the opening it propose any textbook, within the maintenance purpose for which it was proposed. For example, textbooks of English language and literature does not provide unique solutions to solve the items, but encourages both students and coordinators discipline to propose alternatives for interpretation and resolution, in other words educates students, on the basis of theoretical principles and compliance, to adopt a personal point of view.

Another argument for the usefulness of school textbooks is that it acquire through its training function. This is closely related to the function of education previously mentioned, and refers to the stimulation of individual, independent and autonomous students. Textbook structure, complex or simple, provides models of inductive reasoning, deductive or analogue, to maintain its role of encouraging an open pedagogical project.

Another argument claims that English textbook achieves its purpose for which it was designed from the fact that it helps in two important ways: on the one hand, to stimulate the operations triggering activation and support attention and motivation of students and learning and, on the other hand, to stimulate internal mechanisms reverse connection, existing in teaching activities.

One possible option for evaluating the English textbook is to use a list that can be provided by the author. Experts generally present detailed listings and place special emphasis on important things such as methodology, language content, assessment, activities, book components and so on. Another good option is to make own lists according to what the school is looking for. (Cunningsworth, Kuse, 1988, p. 128-139).

There are several things to keep in mind before selecting the English textbook. First, special attention must be paid to the type of students who are in school. It is important to know their age, their economic status and their educational level. It is necessary to know the policies of the school and its objectives so that the approach that supports the book fits into that learning community. It is also relevant to know the profile of English teachers. They must know their training in the area of ​​language teaching, whether or not they have experience, if they have experience managing such students and so on. In addition one must know about the availability of equipment.

When evaluating the English textbooks, teachers must intervene because they are going to implement them in the classroom. Also, they should feel at ease with the book enhancing a careful review of it. However, it is generally the authorities who select the books and teachers are limited to use them even though the election does not seem appropriate. If teachers participate in the process it is easier for them to accept change in the institution. Publishing houses may also support selection because they are the ones who know the product best and can explain the approach on which the book is based in detail.

In each country, one of the strongest investments in education systems has always been to increase the percentage of literate population. However, contrasting the numbers of literate population with those of books read per inhabitant, we find that there is a significant poverty, because who knows how to read, does not. Reading grows the importance of textbooks.

For this reason, today there is an additional challenge to literacy, that of getting the literate population to become a reading population. This task is no longer an exclusive task of the school system; teachers, librarians, bookstores, publishers and, above all, parents should strive to make children capable of reading and becoming effective readers.

If this were not enough, the television and other media that mainly handle the information through images, have collaborated to give priority to the same image that uses a perceptive and concrete language, very simple to assimilate, in front of the word and the concepts, which involve a conceptual and abstract language and that require a creative process of thought.

For this reason it is very important to consider that having the different educational tools (books, CD-ROM, videos, Internet) within reach does not guarantee learning and acquiring knowledge and skills by itself, but the factor that makes them really useful and transcendent is the reading of its content; this is why developing the habit of reading in their children becomes one of the main qualities with which a person must count in order to successfully face the challenges of the world to come.

It is fundamental for parents to know all the benefits that reading provides and the conditions conducive to creating in their children the habit of reading:

• How to promote a positive attitude of people, especially children, towards reading.

• What family activities, type of readings and exercises make the development of the habit to be pleasant.

• How to fully and intelligently take advantage of technological tools.

Characteristics of A2 school textbooks

Not every book that has been used in school is a "school handbook" in the strict sense. It is only those works that are specifically conceived with the intention of being used in the teaching-learning process, an intention indicated by its title, its subject, level or modality, its internal didactic structure, and its content, sequence of a school discipline.

The main characteristics that an English textbook contains in a strict sense would be: intentionality on the part of the author, systematicity, in the exhibition of the contents, sequentiality, adequacy for the pedagogical work, expository text style, text and illustrations combination, content regulation, their extension and the treatment of them and state administrative and political intervention. (Siegel, 2014, pp. 363-367)

The apparent simplicity of English textbooks often obscures a complex series of interventions, whether personal, institutional, technological or business. The contents and their organization usually respond to previous normative regulations, exposed in curricula and programs that conform the so-called "prescribed curriculum", of more or less obligatory fulfilment.

Regarding the English textbook, a socializing factor of first importance, may have been the type of written text that for a longer time was exposed to state control and prior censorship of its contents. As support for knowledge, it imposes a distribution and hierarchy of knowledge and contributes to forming the intellectual armour of students. As an instrument of power, the English textbook contributes to linguistic uniformity, to cultural levelling and to the propagation of dominant ideas. (Siegel, 2014, p. 375)

The English textbook is in many ways the true manifest curriculum of the school, which the school truly teaches, being the most used teaching resource in practically all educational systems. The school texts, being one of the most characteristic products of the school institution, have become an object of study of great interest, as testimonies that can reveal aspects that until now have been neglected or opaque, whether related to the inner life of the school institution or about the ideological influences and political motivations that gravitated over disciplines and curricular contents. Through them, the English textbook intends to recover and analyze also pedagogical theories and methodological principles, both those that were predominant and had massive diffusion in determined periods and countries, as innovative pedagogical experiences or reformist, minority or individual ones. English textbooks offer a very rich material for the analysis of the different social and political conceptions that influenced its elaboration. They were shaped by the different ideologies and currents of thought that happened in the course of history, but above all contain the most outlined expressions of the dominant ideas in each epoch. They are not a description or a photographic record of that society and culture, but they express, rather, an idealized horizon of knowledge, purposes and valuations, a set of interpretations and positions that express subjective visions of the social world, susceptible, in turn of being analyzed to try to understand the school history and the processes of culture transmission. (Kim, 2001, pp. 219- 243)

Criteria regarding A2 textbooks analysis and a good learning in teachers’ and students’ opinion

This part of the analysis consisted of examining eight criteria to be met by texts to create a learning process similar to what is “recommended” in all teacher-training institutes (but rarely implemented), from teachers and students point of view. Again it is worth remembering that a good teacher can meet these criteria without the need for texts, but that when used, they must also meet at least eight criteria:

Stimulate free writing, since only a systematic thinking process is completed when it is put into writing. The text should clearly indicate, in each activity or module, the moments of free writing in which the student must necessarily think in a systematic way (for which may include pertinent questions). This requires that the teacher devote his time to reviewing the students' work rather than dictating subjects;

Facilitate the socialization of personal work. Students can prepare, in groups of four or five, a version that integrates the work of several of them (for example, a written version of an observation), so that the teacher only revises a more elaborate one which, in turn, allows self-evaluation of work in each). Therefore, the texts must ensure that each activity includes both personal and group work.

Give opportunities to make a decision within well-defined alternatives. Every time a student makes a decision he must think, and therefore acquires a greater commitment / interest with what he decides to carry out. That is why the text should offer you the opportunity to choose the specific situations that allow you to learn the same educational goal;

Achieve local adaptation through instructions that lead the student to identify the alternatives that exist in the local situation. The text should indicate to the student how to identify the examples-situations that exist in their reality, related to types of work, mobilization, health, production, history, geography, stories, legends, flora, fauna, minerals and other topics that include the national curriculum. Once identified, each group can select a situation on which it will work;

Provide a method to learn from the context and develop a permanent ability to systematize observations. Local adaptation of each activity requires including observation, oral and written description, integration with peer observations, but should also include self-assessment with respect to a model (and corresponding revision of the entire sequence of stages) so that the final version can be reviewed later by the teacher. In this way, the essential elements of the scientific method and of technology are integrated, which will, in later stages (perhaps in the middle level), become familiar with other methods;

Create community participation through the process of identifying and selecting local context examples used in the learning process. An important part of learning experiences should use everyday information about health, remedies, work, family, food, plants, seeds, animals, crafts, stones, maps, games, songs, anecdotes, local history, cardinal points, radio and TV. Much of this information requires the collaboration of parents and, in that process, they discover the vital contribution that their culture makes to the school;

Inducing a modular assessment that allows students to move at their own pace. Each sequence of activities should include, at the end, the description of a similar activity (even if it corresponds to a situation that is very different from the local context) with which students can compare the results of their work to identify ways to complete or improve their own work. This self-assessment also reduces the amount of time the teacher must spend to correct, since you do not have to review everything that students write. In any case, evaluating objectives in short periods (from one to two weeks) allows students to systematically complete each sequence (module) before moving on to the next, or the teacher decides if other activities are necessary before continuing with the following module

Finally, avoid extra work to the teacher that obliges him to sacrifice his family life or his rest time. The text should include all instructions necessary for the student-group to participate in the learning situation, even if the teacher can modify them at any time. The teacher should not create new learning situations at each opportunity, but use the best experiences accumulated until that time, without prejudice to improvise when circumstances require.

There are many other aspects and questions that we must ask ourselves when designing materials or we limit ourselves to selecting and adapting existing ones. Breen and Candlin (1987, pp.14-28) offer a very useful and complete guide. Its frame of reference and key aspects includes the following categories.

1. Objectives and contents of the curricular material: objectives of instruction that are proposed, what gives the apprentices and what they omit.

2. Tasks that they propose for the learning: sequence of work that they establish, type of tasks that suggest: variety, clarity and adequacy.

3. Requirements of the materials to the teacher who carries them out: identification of the teacher with the lines of work proposed, degree of professional competence required by the tasks.

4. Variety of resources and didactic materials: adaptation of the materials to the needs and interests and expectations of the students.

5. Adequacy of materials for learning English at the desired level: sequencing, structure and continuity.

6. Adequacy of materials to generate the desired learning processes: autonomous learning, discovery learning, learning construction, content-based learning, cooperative learning.

The relationship of criteria proposed by Breen and Candlin (1987, p.25) is useful and can help us, but it is not enough. We must deepen in other aspects related to the type of learning that we want to facilitate and to propitiate through the materials. In this sense, it is advisable to explore other areas and consider to what extent certain materials can contribute to its development. Littlejohn and Windeatt propose the following (Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989, pp. 156-175):

1) knowledge of general facts or related to specific academic disciplines (general and / or specialized training);

2) teachers’ vision of what knowledge is and how it develops;

3) teachers’ conception of language learning;

4) roles of the teacher and students in the classroom;

5) opportunities for the development of cognitive abilities;

6), and finally, the values and attitudes that reflect the materials and meta-cognitive instruction: learning to learn.

A few years earlier, Cook (1983, pp. 229-237) proposed:

a) knowledge about academic subjects,

b) the content that the student can contribute,

c) the language studied,

d) literary texts,

e) culture and

f) the subjects of interest of the students.

The characteristics and criteria suggested by Littlejohn and Windeat (1989, p.185) for curricular materials include the following aspects:

General culture and specialized training

The materials should contribute to the general training of students, to the development of their general knowledge, and to their specific training in certain subjects or areas of knowledge. As we will explain in the following pages, one of the approaches that can best meet those objectives is what is commonly called content-based approach.

Materials reflecting appropriate theories about teaching and learning

The most appropriate curricular materials will be those that best reflect our conception of teaching and are consistent with the theories of learning that are most appropriate in each context. At present, learning is seen as an active and dynamic process that involves selecting information, processing and organizing it, relating it to previous experiences and knowledge, using it in appropriate contexts and situations, evaluating it and reflecting on the effectiveness of results, etc. The materials must facilitate the progressive "construction" of knowledge through "significant" learning that will enrich the students' complex cognitive structure. In addition, Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989, pp.200-210) emphasize the importance of materials and tasks that favour reflection on the processes of learning and metacognitive instruction, the fact that students learn to learn.

Materials and resources based on an adequate conception of the language and its learning

When using materials, it must be taken into account that a language is not only a system of forms, structures and words, but also from the pragmatic point of view it is also a system of communicative acts and it is expected that the media and Resources used favour the development of communicative competence of students, understood as the integration of five sub-competences: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discursive, cultural and strategic (Canale, 1983, p.78). The learning of languages ​​takes place through personal and creative processes, global and cyclical, meaningful and in close relation with the interests, needs and mental schemes of the subjects who learn it. Sometimes it can be done intuitively and subconsciously because of the "input" used in curriculum materials or by the teacher.

Role distribution

We believe that the materials we use to teach and learn English (or any other language) must be designed and used in accordance with the above approaches and in a way that favours the development of:

a) oral and written communicative competence, both of linguistic and communicative activities and of skills, strategies, strategies and procedures that promote the adequate use of oral and written English;

b) attitudes and values ​​that favour some autonomy and self-regulation of learning and

c) self-evaluation of teaching and learning processes. To fulfil all these objectives there must be certain alternation of roles on the part of teachers and students in the use of materials for teaching and learning. Teachers may use the materials as a source of information that the student will receive, select, organize and assimilate according to their individual characteristics. Other times, the teacher will act as mediator or facilitator of learning and it will be the students who, autonomously, and with the help of the curricular materials employed, will regulate and be responsible for what they learn.

Developing problem solving skills

The educational resources and resources should also provide opportunities for students to solve issues and problems similar to those they will need to solve in real life when they practice. This is achieved through the resolution of tasks that relate to the world of education: planning of educational work, analysis and commentary on teaching and learning situations, etc.

Values ​​and Attitudes in Materials

  When we use the curricular materials, we can use them in a "referential" way, acting the teacher as an informant and the student as content receiver or in a more "experiential" way, when we invite the students to experiment with the selected resources. As we will see later, the "experiential" approach is more effective because it is often more meaningful and relevant to students. To the extent that materials provide more experiential situations, the greater the internalization of the values ​​and attitudes that transmit these materials. As Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989, p.220) affirm, there is a relation between the values ​​that are transmitted in the texts that we use in class and those that are forged the students: "recent studies claim a direct relationship between the values ​​and attitudes learners express and those found in texts with which they work”. In this respect, it is fundamental that the material used reflects the plurality of races, religions and beliefs that exist in contemporary society.

5.3 Initial tests

Graph 1: Group 1 (A, B, C) Pre-test

Table 1: Group 1 Pre-test

Statistics

Graph 2: Group 2 (Grades D, E and F) Pre-test

Table 2: Group 1 Pre-test

Statistics

5.4 Final tests

Graph 3: Group 1 ( A, B, C) Pos-test

Table 3: Group 1 post-test

Statistics

Table 4: Group 2 Post-test

Statistics

In group 1, as it can be seen in the pre-test, the students' most accurate answers are 2 and in the post-test it increases to 6, the average is 3.5 in the pre-test and increases to 5, 7 in the post-test and the median that in the pre-test is 4 passes in the post-test to 6. This comparison shows that significant learning increased in this group.

In group 2 it is observed that in the pre-test the frequency of correct answers that is most repeated is 3 and in the post-test it is maintained, the median goes from 3 (in the pre-test) to 4 (in the post -test) and the average goes from 2.9 (in the pre-test) to 4.3 (in the post-test) the difference is very little between both tests.

Record of field notes

In group 1 (Grades: A, B, C), which corresponds to the students who were applied the pedagogical strategy of humour for the development of the topic "typology of argumentative descriptive texts", the following behaviors were observed in the classes:

• They were attentive participating in the development of the topic, in the first class the teacher asked them to place the desks in a circle for the organization of the group, the other days of class when the teacher arrived the students had the classroom organized in the same way which helped so that time was allocated for the class and part of it was not used in organization.

• They were silent to wait to know what was going to be done in the class, presenting expectations for the group technique that was going to be used.

• They presented group cohesion, to turn off cell phones, not to be absent from the classroom, they stayed without asking permission for any activity that they usually argue, like going to the bathroom, making photocopies, etc.

• During the development of the classes there were no conflicts or contradictions between them.

• At the end of the classes, they asked the teacher when he would return and what the next class would do.

• As some jokes were used as questions during the development of the topic, this allowed them to laugh and share experiences from the workshops, but no indiscipline was formed. In other words, the time of laughter was spontaneous but not permanent.

• In the classes outside the classroom, specifically in the coliseum, they were participating with joy and had as spectators the students of the control group (grades D, E, F) and other groups, who claimed why the teacher was not going to the class of them. For this reason, the school coordinator suggested that these classes not be held outside the classroom, because the spectators did not want to enter the classrooms, and some even told their teachers why they did not do the classes outside as they were doing with the students. degrees in which this project was developed.

• Students' cooperation with the teacher was generated in the attainment of resources to develop the topic, in the specific case that the material was not enough for all the students, they did it for the happy development and term of the class.

• They participated in the classes until their completion, without allowing them to interfere in different activities programmed by the school's coordination.

In group 2 (Grades: D, E, F), which corresponds to the students who applied the traditional pedagogical strategy for the development of the topic "typology of argumentative descriptive texts", the following behaviors were observed in the classes:

• Attended the presentations of the teacher, who manages discipline control techniques to be attentive and work on assigned tasks.

• Some students asked permission to leave the class such as paying a receipt at the secretariat, going to the bathroom, going to talk to a teacher about an evaluation they have pending.

• Cell phones sometimes rang, which produced the teacher's wake-up call.

• The good students answered questions and participated in the class, the students who did not care about the class were found doing other activities, they stopped talking or annoyed the classmates, but the control and attention call of the teacher controlled the group .

Student opinions

At the end of the classes the students of the two groups were asked to write their opinions about the developed classes, then some of them are presented at random and are appended to the end of the document:

Group 1

• The last five classes five classes were very good because it is a very cool way as the Lord teaches us about so many topics, I think you learn better in this way.

• A very fun and practical way to learn, because it not only teaches us, but also makes us more united and gives us freedom of expression.

• We learned what a descriptive text is by means of playful workshops, in which the message was always to learn.

• Actually we learned a lot and we also had a lot of fun.

• They were elegant classes because with a little fun you learn.

• They were very good because I learned a lot and it was not boring.

• I found them very cool, I think this is a good way to learn, I say it because I did learn something.

• They were the best classes of my entire student life, I learned playing and had very Bacanos moments.

• Well, for my concept they were very cool classes, because they were different from the others, and he was the only teacher who remembered us.

• They were very good I learned a lot, at the same time having fun, I relaxed and talked with people who did not.

• The classes were very fun and he felt that we did learn the topics given in these exercises, and it is a good learning technique that should continue to be implemented.

Group 2

• The argumentative texts descriptions.

• They have been good and of many knowledge I like the classes.

• They are very good classes because they taught us new things for our language.

• I find the context of the last classes interesting, since the arguments were correctly learned.

• They have been very productive classes and they have taught us a lot.

• That we have learned to distinguish several things from literature.

• They have seemed very good to me because we have seen argumentative and descriptive texts.

• I have learned because they can explain us and little by little they teach us more about language.

• They are important new things to me, and I learned everything they taught.

• They seemed very important to me and they taught us different types of arguments.

• I liked the classes because I learned about the types of description and argumentation, the teaching methodology was good and practical.

6 Conclusion

It is important to clarify that the number of students did not stay in the two groups, due to circumstances beyond the researcher, the day that the post-test was applied, not everyone was in school, and applying it afterwards would imply that they had asked the classmates about the test and that would alter the results. In addition, in group 2 were the students who scored the most in the state tests, and yet group 1 exceeded them in the post-test, as can be seen in the following interpretation. Comparing group 1 with group 2, in the first the most successful answers (fashion) in the pretest are two (2) while in group 2 the most repeated are three (3). In the post-test the correct answers that are most repeated in group 1 goes from two (2) to six (6) and in group 2 three (3) is maintained. In both groups in the pre-test there are students who do not have any correct answer, aspect that disappears in the post-test, in group 1 the correct answers oscillate between two (2) and nine (9), and in group 2 between one (1) and (8). In the pre-test in group 1, 87.1% of the students had five (5) and fewer correct answers and in the post-test 42.7%, that is, they decreased by half. In the pre-test in group 2, 89.9% of the students had 5 and fewer answered correctly and 70.6% in the post-test, that is to say, a quarter fell. In the post-test in group 1 42.7% have five answers and less successful, while group 2 has 70.6% and fewer correct answers, that is, in group 1 they approved over 6 the 57.3 % of students, more than half, while group 2 approved over 6 29.4%, less than a third of the sample. The two groups in the pre-test were similar in previous knowledge on the topic "typology of descriptive and argumentative texts". In the post-test, there is a difference between the two groups; group 1 – to which the pedagogical strategy of humour was applied – obtained greater correct answers than group 2 – to which the traditional instructional pedagogical strategy was applied. In the observations made by the teachers, there is a difference in the behavior of the students, in group 1 they changed their behavior, they generated positive attitudes towards the topic to be developed, they were motivated to participate in the classes, as they expressed themselves, they learned In a fun way, they felt good and asked why they had not been taught in that way before, some said they were the best classes in the last two years of the English language course. In group 2 the students behaved as usual, the most judicious attended, made silence while the teacher explained, some withdrew from the classroom, arguing multiple reasons, and most carried out the assigned tasks. There was group control on the part of the teacher and the topic was successfully completed. In the students' responses to their opinions on the subject classes "descriptive and argumentative text typology", you can see a big difference in their opinions about the pedagogical strategy, the students of group 1 state that the educator used a different form to the traditional one when dictating the classes, and that were fun, that even though they laughed, they also learned, an aspect that was reflected in the results of the final test where more than half of the group obtained six (6) and more successful points. In the answers of the students of group 2 they think that they learned a new topic, which is good because it helps them differentiate the descriptive texts and the argumentative ones, but in essence they do not say anything about the pedagogical strategy, since they are already used to that form to receive the classes. The students of group 1 with whom the educator developed the topic "typology of descriptive – argumentative texts", with the pedagogical strategy of humour, could differentiate between this strategy and the traditional one, when they affirm that they learned in a different and entertaining way, that is to say , confirm what Payo (1996) says "humour is the different way of seeing reality, which determines a way of feeling and acting … educating from humour is taking into account that all human beings have the ability to laugh, and that is excellent for mental, emotional, bodily, social and work health, the sense of humour is to choose to see life from a different point of view ".

In the development of the classes with the pedagogical strategy of humour, the students of group 1 were on the lookout, did not withdraw from the classes and did not even want to finish them, that is, at no time did the humour lead to the disorder, the educational applications of humour in the learning process was a vehicle of the objectives of the educator and students as stated by Puche and Lozano (2002) to release tensions and learn in a pleasant way, because humour creates a relaxed atmosphere, a better relationship. Regarding the results obtained in the post-test, group 1 obtained better results in meaningful learning, it is verified what says Payo (1996), ideas linked to humour last longer in the mind, learning is better when the students laugh, open the mind; It is the most appropriate time to admit ideas. In the planning of classes Ziv (2001) says that the pedagogical strategy can advise an action with humour and joy, knowing how to laugh using effectively the means available to it, and knows how to find new ones, that is, the educator must have a sense of and thus be able to convert the media into effective educational methods, as is the case of humour. It is normal for some students to project tensions in the classroom, but if the educator has a sense of humour as the main features that make up his work as stated by Hermann Nohí (2000), it is not difficult to achieve an order that allows coexistence, if the educator enters a classroom in a funny way, can help the students to develop the class in a pleasant way free of tensions. In this study the students were interested and free from tensions, and frequently asked when the next class would be. Escalona (2000) says that a positive sense of humour increases the enjoyment of learning, reduces defenses, and increases availability, opens communication and increases the personal sense of belonging. This aspect was evidenced in this pedagogical experience with the students of group 1, because the patterns of some of them that are defensive, not creative and even hostile, with the use of humour in the classes, was an ingredient to change those patterns, since that at no time showed fatigue, or adversity to the class of the topic "typology of descriptive – argumentative texts" the use of positive humour took shape in the activity and purposes of the group, were better related to each other, were less shy, managed to express their feelings, therefore participated more positively in the group experiences.

The results show that significant learning was achieved in group 1 where the topic "descriptive – argumentative text typology" was developed, since more than half of the students approved with 6 correct answers and more, that is, in the process the development of the pedagogical strategy of humour was generated in the mind of them, from the previous knowledge, new information, but they were also willing to acquire learning with potentially meaningful material, with logical sense, in such a way that the ideas remained In the cognitive structure, there was significant learning, because the interaction between the educator, the student and the humourous resources, which allowed them to be motivated and willing to work and participate. In group 2, although there was also significant learning in less than a third of the students, it was half of them with respect to group 1, who passed with 6 and more successful re-exposures.

Significant learning involved the contextualization of the student taking it into practice in a humourous way, to solve problems and use it in the approach of new situations and to make new learning as Ausubel (1983) says, the students of the groups had the same previous knowledge as it appears in the pre-test, and in the post-test group 1 have more learning, which means that the pedagogical strategy of humour helped the results to be better in this group.

CONCLUSIONS

In the school curriculum, humour in education is both a method and a subject. As a subject, the curriculum uses various humouristic elements such as movement, voice, concentration, improvisation and role play to aid the personal development of the student. As a method it utilises role play and acting out to teach the student through experience, for example, to learn the facts of an historical event by acting it out. In many schools, humour is now a separate department. In some schools it is used as a method to teach a number of subjects.

Apparently, the use of teachers from other educational areas is a significant phenomenon for discouragement and lack of dedication of students in learning languages, which causes the class to become monotonous, disinterested and insignificant. The materials play a significant role, the quality of strategic tools, training analyst or pedagogue who are exposed students have great influence on oral production, grammar, communicative and written, however the materials are a major factor in education foreign languages. Wearing suitable strategic procedures greatly facilitates cognitive learning magnitude compressive factor as transcendent.

Authentic humour as a tool for teaching a second language can be used with different teaching methods and approaches. In literature classes, for example, the teacher can have a focus on the literary aspect of the play. You can focus their study on the analysis of the work from the purely linguistic and stylistically. You can analyze and explore related content to historical and social period in which the work was written and in relation to the personality of the author and his contemporaries. In addition you can use the theatrical literary text as a tool to review grammar, teaching new vocabulary in context, and especially as an interactive model to integrate the three communicative modes: Interpretive, Interpersonal and Presentation.

Regarding the present research:

• The groups had approximately the same scores in the previous knowledge, which indicates that they were in the same conditions to initiate the topic of "typology of descriptive – argumentative texts".

• Group 1, with which the theme was developed with the pedagogical humour strategy, more than half of the students passed the final test with more than 6, while group 2, with which the same subject was developed, but with the traditional pedagogical strategy, it approved only one third of them, which implies that the pedagogical strategy of humour influences the significant learning of the students.

• According to what was observed by the evaluator, the group in which the pedagogical humour strategy was applied showed greater motivation towards the class; better discipline; I like to see the educator arrive; participation and active collaboration in group work.

• Traditional pedagogical strategies and humour generate significant learning, but better results are obtained in students, when humour is used, because it allows them to be willing, relaxed, attentive and expectant to new situations that may arise, that is, the pedagogical strategy of humour is a pedagogical alternative that allows to have students motivated, because there will always be new humour, the classes are never repeated in the same way and also the educator will always have to use new jokes, anecdotes, stories, etc. without repetitions because it would lose the grace if they are used again.

• The educator who uses the pedagogical strategy of humour, must be an innate creative, since he can not repeat his repertoire with the same groups, is a researcher of humour, and is consistent with what he does in class, in any event of everyday school life

• The pedagogical strategy of humour allows a better control of the group, helps group cohesion, implies that students create an environment conducive to learning free from the rigidity of the traditional pedagogical strategy, but with order and cordiality.

• The pedagogical strategy of humour decreases intergroup aggression, increases better interpersonal relationships among students, leads them to exchange with more hilarity, to be more tolerant and less impulsive.

• The pedagogical strategy of humour allows the members of the group to get to know each other more, share part of their tastes, preferences, fears, joys, ambitions and dreams.

The use of humour, as part of a series of theatrical techniques, favours the incorporation of many disciplines, such as literature, music, history, art, etc. Therefore, the use of humour in the classroom allows students to improve sensitively, English pronunciation, communication skills and knowledge of the English social and cultural reality. The ultimate meaning of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to help incorporate theatrical language teaching as a game of appropriation and assimilation of reality activities, which develop oral expression as the main capacity.

Name:____________________

Grade:________________

INITIAL TEST

I. Reading & Comprehension

You will read a text and then you will have to choose the correct answer for the given questions about it.

QUETZAL ROUTE

Quetzal Route is a program addressed to young people. It was created in 1979, at the suggestion of the King of Spain, and headed by the famous Spanish adventurer Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo. It is a study trip formed by 330 young people between 16 and 17 years old from more than 65 countries around the world. For a month and a half, the young participants visit different places in Spain and Latin America studying different aspects of their wonderful history and culture.

The selection of participants takes place every year through a rigorous process, choosing the best students from each country.

During the adventure, history, art, astronomy, biology or music classes are interspersed with walks, visits to historical places, practical workshops, conferences, seminars and sports, the attendance to all activities being mandatory.

Each participant is part of a group of 18 young people, under the direction of a monitor and all are in charge of the order, vigilance and cleaning of the common areas of the camps, residences or shelters where they usually stay although sometimes they sleep in the open air.

All the expenses of maintenance, transportation, lodging and those generated by the planned activities are covered by the scholarship. However, each student may have pocket money for minor expenses but the use of credit cards or traveler's checks is not advised.

Nowadays, this famous route is a program belonging to the Ibero-American General Agency and it is declared of international interest by UNESCO.

Questions:

1. According to the text, the Quetzal route is a trip for …

a. going around the world

b. knowing the Hispanic culture

c. practicing sport outdoors

2. According to the text, the participants…

a. can select the activities

b. are responsible for cleaning the accommodation places

c. always sleep in tents

3. Students are advised that during the trip they do not …

a. pay all expenses

b. bring cash

c. use credit cards

You are going to read some messages. You must relate the messages (A-J) with the sentences (1-6). There are ten messages, including the example. Select six. You must mark the relationship on the Answer Sheet.

A. You are not allowed with animals

B. Do you want to spend this summer on the beach? Call us, we have the ideal house for you: 685 30 89 45

C. Enter our supermoda.com website and buy directly

D. Now you can talk more and pay less. More information at 624 34 85 67

E. Andrew, call me by phone before noon, it is urgent.

F. The train from London to Oxford has its departure at 4 o'clock

G. "Furniture Style". Visit our new store in 55, London Avenue

H. During the summer months the new library hours are from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

I. Silence, please! We are working!

J. Mary, buy fruit before returning home, there is nothing in the fridge!

You will read an article about some animals that appeared in a television documentary. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose the phrase (a-h) that best suits each space (1-7). There is an additional phrase that is not necessary to be used.

Desert TV stars

The meerkats of the Kalahari desert, in South Africa, are famous and Ann and Steve Toon went to look for them. The meerkats are animals that measure about 30 cm in height and live in groups of 20 to 30 animals.

Those we were looking for were filmed over a period of four years and starred in a television documentary series. We wanted to see them in reality.

So it's 5.30 in the morning and we're in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the sun to dissipate the remnants of yesterday's storm clouds. In the vicinity, a large raven lets out its deafening bull's-eye touch. 1 ___. And while we look away from the ball, a meerkat makes its appearance. It sticks his head out of the burrow where it has spent the night. 2 ___. Apparently satisfied, it is standing. It is followed by a female, and then by a few adults. We arrived with high hopes in the middle of extreme heat yesterday afternoon, but soon we became disappointed. 3 ___.

Today, however, at last, we are a few meters away from some of the most charismatic creatures in the wild world. Here are the savages of an award-winning television series. We are excited that adult meerkats are quickly followed out of the burrow by four five-week-old pups. It's the summer breeding season, so we expect to see young people. 4 ___ .

Incredibly funny and cute, each of the young meerkats is a perfect and smaller version of their parents. "Mmm, eh, mmm," we hummed softly and several times as we approached the pups with wide-angle lenses. This is the special call that taught us to use the volunteer assistant of the expedition who tracked the group for us. He assures them that our presence is not a threat. 5 ___.

Each meerkat continues to monitor the environment and it does not stop crossing the path of others, as they do any morning. The animals that live here were studied for many years within a larger extended research study known as the Kalahari Suricatos Project. 6 ___.

Meerkats are ideal candidates to be studied by researchers because they are active during the day and live in fairly open terrain in the Kalahari. Animals have become accustomed to having human beings around them and their behavior has not changed with the researchers next door. 7 ___. This lack of attention to humans extends beyond the researchers and includes people like us and the television team. Unfortunately, our time with these lovely creatures is over, but tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, the project will continue as before. They will continue to be heavy, observed and will be the center of concerns. And on television, the world's most famous meerkats will simply continue to live their fascinating unique lives as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening around them …

a. At first we felt ashamed, and very aware that we were observed, but it seems to work because the animals are calm and you can get close to them.

b. We realize that it has seen us and examines us before leaving completely.

c. This is because they are more active early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

d. Without it, it would not have been possible to make the television programs that had brought us here.

e. Therefore, it is important to collect information, spend every day hours in the field without affecting the routine of the animals.

F. This makes us jump and distracts our attention from why we are here.

g. When we planned our visit we had this possibility in our heads, but even so we could not believe our luck.

h. This was due to a series of interminable and deafening thunderstorms in the Kalahari that caused our subjects not to appear

II. Writing

Chose one joke from those written below and interpret it in your own manner:

A snail walks into a bar and the barman tells him there's a strict policy about having snails in the bar and so kicks him out. A year later the same snail re-enters the bar and asks the barman "What did you do that for?" 

PUPIL: "Would you punish me for something I didn`t do?" 

TEACHER:" Of course not." 

PUPIL: "Good, because I haven`t done my homework." 

Once there were three turtles. One day they decided to go on a picnic. When they got there, they realized they had forgotten the soda. The youngest turtle said he would go home and get it if they wouldn't eat the sandwiches until he got back. A week went by, then a month, finally a year, when the two turtles said,"oh, come on, let's eat the sandwiches." Suddenly the little turtle popped up from behind a rock and said, "If you do, I won't go!" 

Teacher: Did your father help you with your homework? 

Student: No, he did it all by himself.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Name:____________________

Grade:________________

INITIAL TEST

I. Reading & Comprehension

Below is a text explaining the customer rights of a telephone company. Read the text and answer the questions (1-6). Select the correct option (A, B or C). Mark the chosen options in the Answer Sheet.

TELEPLAN

Fixed telephony user rights

In compliance with current regulations, we contact you to reiterate your rights as a user of our services. These rights, detailed below, will be communicated periodically to you every six months. According to this regulation, all operators must have a customer service department. Teleplan offers the free helpline at 2002, the commercial attention line and the teleplan.com website. If you have registered with us by telephone, you must know that you have the right to have a written contract that includes general conditions. If you have not received it, you can request it at teleplan.com or on the free number 900 456 667. You have the right to cancel your contracted services at any time. The only requirement is that you notify us at least two business days before the date on which it will take effect.

You can unsubscribe through the following channels:

– By telephone, calling the number 2002. In that case, keep the reference number of your withdrawal, which we will provide.

– By fax, sending a letter to the fax number 902897654, indicating your personal data and telephone number.

– By mail, to the following address: Apartado de Correos 2000. Barcelona.

Once your application is received, the withdrawal will be processed in the minimum period of two and maximum of ten working days.

Teleplan will notify you one month in advance of any modification of the contract that has its cause in any of the valid reasons that appear in it, such as, for example, the price increase. If you do not agree with the new conditions, you can terminate the contract without penalties and all this without prejudice to the particular conditions of permanence that, in your case, you could have subscribed.

You can request the restriction of international calls and additional charging services (prefixes 403, 406, 407 and 605).

After your request, we will activate the restriction within a maximum period of ten days, after which it will be impossible to access this type of calls from your phone, unless you request it again. In relation to the additional pricing services, if you do not agree with your billing, you should know that, if you do not pay the part of the invoice corresponding to these services, you will not be cut off the telephone service, although you will have access to these prefixes.

In case of temporary interruption of the service the operator is obliged to compensate him, at least with an amount that is determined according to both the time during which the line was interrupted, and the average consumption of the last three months. If the resulting amount is greater than one euro, the compensation will be automatically made on the next invoice. If you have Internet access service, in case of temporary interruption of service, Teleplan is obliged to compensate you with an amount that is determined by prorating the monthly fee for the time the line was interrupted.

Teleplan will indemnify you only when the interruption has occurred between 8 a.m. to 22 a.m. and has been longer than six hours.

In case you do not agree with the part of the invoice relating to the Internet, you should know that, if you pay part of the invoice related to telephone calls, access to the telephone service can not be cut, although access to the telephone Internet. If you have a problem in your contractual relationship, you can contact us through our customer service, which will assign a number to your complaint.

One month after its presentation, if you are not satisfied with the solution obtained or if you have not received a response to it, with that number you can submit a claim to the Telecommunications Service Office of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce.

You can contact the Telecommunications Service Office of the Ministry through the number 901453377 or on the web www.usuariotelef.com. In it they will advise you on your rights and on how to file a claim in case you did not get a satisfactory answer from us.

QUESTIONS

1. According to this document, the Teleplan customer …

a) You can download your contract from the company's website.

b) receive semi-annual communication of changes in conditions.

c) you can contract our services without having signed any contract.

 2. Abandon the service of this company …

a) it requires some days until it is performed.

b) can be obtained immediately through the telephone.

c) is processed through an exclusive telephone number for it.

3. In case of price increases, former Teleplan customers can …

a) keep old prices one month longer than new customers.

b) rescind the contract due to disagreement with the measure.

c) renegotiate with the company its contracting conditions.

4. This company offers the user the option of …

a) negotiate the cost of special rate calls.

b) delay the payment of a part of the fee if necessary.

c) limit certain very expensive call services.

5. In case of having also contracted access to the Internet, …

a) the non-payment of this service will not affect the call service.

b) a price reduction is obtained between 8 and 22 hours.

c) will have a special rate if the consumption exceeds six hours.

6. In case you want to file a claim, …

a) have a month since the problem occurs.

b) you must do so through the company's website.

c) has a public orientation service.

2. Read the following text, from which six paragraphs have been extracted. Then read the seven proposed fragments (A-G) and decide where in the text (1-5) each of them should be placed.

Mark the chosen options in the Answer Sheet

THE CHALLENGE OF NEW GENERATIONS

To find a meaning to the complex relationships between young people and institutions, a useful exercise would be to remember the contexts in which these generations have developed. Such a company would lead us to observe, on the one hand, that it is not only the young population that changes, but society as a whole, and on the other, that it is not only youth that modifies society, but rather society is the one that changes the way of being young.

Without wishing to be exhaustive, there are several points that seem important to me when it comes to understanding today's adolescents. In the first place, it is a generation born in democracy. 1 ______________________

This is also the most educated generation in the history of the country. Compared to previous times, not only are there more young people in the classrooms, but they also spend more time in them. As a result, many young people have received more training than their parents and have higher expectations about their future trajectories. 2______________________

We can not forget that the current one is a generation marked by the market. For better or for worse, when the young people of today were shaping their identity they experienced the boom of consumption: to their homes came various luxury goods, televisions and credit cards, as well as debts. 3 ______________________. In simple terms, the message is the following: you are what you can buy.

The current one is a connected generation, and versatile in the use of new technologies. That allows them to communicate on a large scale and with low levels of control. Young people today can socialize autonomously and without the supervision of anyone, using their own codes and symbols. 4 ______________________.

For this generation, those that were traditional sources of identity, especially politics, religion and family, have lost weight. While this is a general trend in the society at the beginning of the 21st century, it seems to be radicalized among young people. The value and the social mandate of being oneself, the fact that they are "my" desires, actions and merits that define "what I am", is quite widespread among adolescents. eleven ______________________.

This generation grew while the power of socialization institutions – family or school – and of the respective authorities – parents and teachers – was weakened to establish rules and impose their criteria. Today the logic of negotiation prevails. Of all forms, it is necessary to observe that this change is not only explained by the progressive disappearance of the authoritarian culture or by the youthful perception that they have total autonomy. 5 ____________________

That does not mean that their solidarity or concern for others disappears, but it does change the axis of identity. It is very difficult for anyone to tell them what they should be in the future, since they perceive that their life is in their hands and that they will be the ones who choose what they want to be.

3. You are going to read some book ads. You must link the announcements (A-J) with the texts (1-6). There are ten ads, including the example. Select six. You must mark the relationship on the Answer Sheet.

A. Easy computing. If you have a computer and do not know anything about computers, this is the book you need. Learn in a week, in a simple way.

B. Grammar, vocabulary and exercises. The best book to learn English in a short time. With CD to listen to dialogues in real situations.

C. The life of … is a collection about the life of the twenty most famous people of the 20th century. Artists, writers, scientists … Complete collection: 150 euros.

D. After sixty. If you are over sixty years old, in this book you have practical advice for your body, your food, your social life …

E. Dictionary for children. Spanish-English / English-Spanish More than 2000 words. Recommended for students from seven to twelve years old. Price: 10 euros

F. Old and second-hand books. Offer in all types of books. Find the cheapest books here. From 3 to 9 euros

G. With the book Art in Italy you can find out about the most important monuments of a country: churches, cathedrals … More than 1000 color photographs. Price: 80 euros

H. The most sympathetic and current stories for the little ones in the house. Books with CD to learn with music. A fantastic world for them.

I. With Easy Recipes you can prepare in a short time the best salads, fish and meats. This book will help you.

J. Tourism nowadays is a book with the most complete information of European cities: monuments, hotels, restaurants, shops … Price: 12 euros

II. Writing

Chose one joke from those written below and interpret it in your own manner:

A man is talking to God.

The man: "God, how long is a million years?"

God: "To me, it's about a minute."

The man: "God, how much is a million dollars?"

God: "To me it's a penny."

The man: "God, may I have a penny?"

God: "Wait a minute."

Q: What did the ocean say to the beach? 

A: Nothing, it just waved!

The teacher speaking to a student said, "Saud, name two pronouns." 

Saud who suddenly woke up, said, "Who, me?"

Q: Can a kangaroo jump higher than the Empire State Building? 

A: Yes, because the Empire State Building can't jump!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________