Abstract:

For various reasons, teachers seldom apply humor into English teaching in Chinese Middle Schools. However, there are many benefits if teachers can adopt humor in classes. It can create lively classroom atmosphere and help students get rid of fatigue; it can make students focus on classes; it can break the ice between teachers and students, it can also help students view things from a different angle and develop their abilities.
According to the three classical humor theories (superiority theory, relief theory, and incongruity theory) and some modern studies on humor like pragmatic theory and audience-based theory, the essays elaborates 9 methods which teachers can adopt to make humor. They are (1): find and correct mistakes, (2): use metaphors in grammar teaching, (3): set a scene, (4): rewrite something based on samples, (5):make use of body languages, (6): use homophonic artfully, (7): apply teachers’ own experiences into English teaching, (8): play jokes on teachers themselves, (9): conduct some activities like role-play. There are also some principles that teachers should follow while they are employing these methods. They should control the quality and the quantity of humor; they should also make humor suitable at particular situations and try to make humor happen naturally; they should update humor constantly if possible.
Only if teachers follow these principles and adopt some methods accordingly, can they raise students’ learning interest and thus improve their learning efficiency.

Keywords: Humor; English Teaching; Chinese Middle Schools

摘  要:
在中国的中学英语课堂上，由于时间、课程安排等种种原因，教师很少将幽默运用到课堂教学中。然而，教师若能在课堂上合理恰当的使用一些幽默，不仅能消除学生的疲劳感，活跃课堂气氛，吸引学生的注意力，消除师生之间的隔阂，还能够帮助学生从新的视角看待问题，发展学生的能力，优化学生的个性品质。
根据三大传统幽默理论（优越论，乖讹论和释放论）和一些现代的幽默研究理论，例如基于观众理论，在课堂上，教师可以主要通过九种方法来制造幽默，分别是纠错法，在语法教学中运用幽默，设置场景，重新改写例句，运用肢体语言，巧用一词多译，将教师自己的经验运用于英语教学之中，开教师自己的玩笑和组织一些角色互换的活动。教师所采用的幽默不是随意信手拈来开的，必须要遵循一定的原则，如幽默的质量原则，数量原则，场合适宜原则，自然原则和与时俱进原则。
只有遵循了这些原则并采用适当的方法才能确保幽默为教学服务，提高教师的教学效率和学生的学习效率。

关键词:幽默;英语教学;中国中学