Puns

Our world and our students' worlds are so different.

I needed to teach a lesson on puns to my Form IIIs. My sister occasionally sends comic strips she cuts out from the newspaper. I had saved several of them thinking I could use them as a teaching aid.

I started the lesson with the definition of a pun and gave a few examples:
* A backward poet writes inverse.
* She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
* With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
* A pessimist's blood type is b-negative.
As English is the girls' third or even fourth language, we spend a lot of time clarifying meanings of words. The dictionary is our best friend.

Then I decided to use one of those comic strips from my sister. It showed a teenager walking around holding an avocado for about six frames. In the last frame he goes into the dining room where his parents are seated. He asks, "How much longer do I have to hold the guacamole?" His dad says to his wife, "Never send Norman to make a taco."

Do you know how long it took to explain American culture so they could appreciate the humour? I needed to tell them what a taco is, what guacamole is, how to make it, how to eat it, even what "hold the _____" means. About five minutes into the explanation I wondered why I had ever started. However, the girls loved the lesson. As I was leaving class that day one of them said, "That was a fun lesson."

During my research on puns I discovered a website that has a pun a day. I think we'll start lessons for the next week or so with a pun. What a great way to encourage vocabulary and critical thinking.

A funny side note - the girls made me reexplain how to make guacamole so they could write down the recipe. Some of them even jotted down what is in a taco. I wonder how many of them are going to try them over December holiday?