Does humour used in EFL classrooms in Islamic higher education reflect Islamic values?

ABSTRACT

This study examined the use of humour in EFL classrooms in Islamic higher education in Indonesia. It intends to find out whether Indonesian EFL teacher educators used humour as pedagogy and how they used it. Using a narrative inquiry method, it involved 25 EFL students undertaking English Writing courses working in groups of two or three members to write descriptive texts on the humorous moments in their classroom process. Nine of them were purposively selected for analysis using humour theories and removed the rest because of not humorous moments. It revealed that the teacher educators used various kinds of humour in EFL classrooms, such as humorous comments, lecturers’ humorous life stories, puns, and teasing students. However, most were unrelated to the course materials they taught and did not reflect Islamic values. In conclusion, this study has provided insights into humour used in the Indonesian Islamic higher education, which is crucial for academics to pay attention to using humour, such as not harming students.

KEYWORDS:

• English as a foreign language (EFL)
• humour
• Islamic higher education
• Islamic values

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest.