Inside Out

e-lesson Week starting: 31st March 2008

1. Laughter
This week’s lesson takes an appropriately light-hearted look at the subject of laughter.

Level
Intermediate and above (equivalent to CEF level B1 and above)

How to use the lesson

1. Brainstorm on the subject of humour. Ask your students what makes them laugh.
For example, what TV comedies do they like, and why? Do they know any funny
jokes that they can tell in English?

2. Give your students five to ten minutes to read through Worksheet A, encouraging
them to look up new vocabulary. Tell them they are going to answer a series of
questions on the text, but that they shouldn’t write anything down at this stage.

3. When the time is up, give each student a copy of Worksheets B and C, then divide
the class into pairs and ask students to work together. In Exercise 1 they have to find
the words or expressions to match the definitions. In Exercise 2 they should answer
the true/false/doesn’t say questions, and in Exercise 3 they have to decide whether or
not the excerpts from the text have been written correctly. Whereas Exercises 1 and 2
require the students to refer back to the text, ask them not to do so while completing
Exercise 3.

4. Check answers in open class.

Answers
Exercise 1
1. inhibition(s) 2. amusing 3. collapse 4. calm down 5. superior 6. online
7. guy 8. shy 9. benefit 10. claim 11. provoke 12. stupidity
13. have (something) in common 14. border

Exercise 2
1. F 2. D 3. D 4. T 5. F

Exercise 3
1. Correct.
2. Correct.
3. Incorrect. … a shared joke can have a bonding effect on groups of people …
4. Incorrect. ... a British psychologist, Richard Wiseman, conducted an online study ...
5. Incorrect. ... not everyone laughs at the same things.
6. Incorrect. ‘There is a silence, then a shot is heard.’
7. Incorrect. A love of laughter is probably one of the things all people have in
common.
8. Correct

This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net.

It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.
 Inside Out
2. Related Websites
Send your students to these websites, or just take a look yourself.

http://laughlab.co.uk/
The website of the Richard Wiseman’s LaughLab experiment, containing some
interesting analyses of jokes and the way they work. Challenging for intermediate
level.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/oct/03/3
An article (2002) on Wiseman’s project from the British newspaper The Guardian.
Challenging for intermediate level.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6274119.stm
A BBC article (2007) on the physical health benefits that apparently derive from
laughter. Challenging for intermediate level.

This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net.

It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.