The implementation of theme based teaching to improve students achievement in narrative text

2. Warmers or Wrap-up

Sometimes it can be fun to break the ice by telling a simple joke to start the day’s lesson. It’s not that hard to find jokes related to just about any topic you can imagine. For example, if you’ve planned a lesson on food or American culture, you could open your lesson with a short joke:
Q: What kind of nut has a hole?
A: A donut. 
Give the students at least a few minutes to try to figure out the answer. If a student guesses correctly, great! If not, give them the answer and provide them with an explanation as you see fit.
Another option is to wrap-up a class with a joke.
A good joke is perfect for easing any lingering tension, especially after a long, hard lesson.
You can even give challenge your students with a riddle at the end of class, asking them to report back with their answers in the next class.
If possible, try to use a riddle that’s related to the material you discussed in class. For example, for a lesson on weather, you might use:
Q: I fly without wings, I cry without eyes. What am I?
A: Clouds

3. Complete the Joke or Fill in the Blank

This activity is ideal for practicing reading comprehension and critical thinking once students are familiar with the types of jokes we have in English.
Prepare a worksheet that lists as many different jokes as you like. For each joke, remove one of the keywords and put it in a word bank box at the top of the worksheet. In class, instruct students to work individually or in small groups to fill in the missing words and complete the jokes. Students must carefully read each joke and understand it to determine which word from the word bank fits in the blank.

4. Match the Beginning of the Joke with Its Ending

Great for encouraging teamwork, critical thinking and general language practice, this activity will keep your students engaged and curious.
For this activity, you will need to type up a list of jokes you’d like to use with your students. Type them in such a way that you can cut them in half. Then, print the sheet out and cut the jokes in half so that the beginning of the joke is separated from its punchline.
For example, if you use the joke: I’m a big fan of whiteboards. I find them quite re-markable. “I’m a big fan of whiteboards” should be on one slip of paper and “I find them quite re-markable” should be on another.
In class, distribute the pieces of the jokes so that each student has a slip of paper. The students must circulate the room and talk with each other in order to find the beginning or ending half of the joke they have.A foreign language teacher can take two possible approaches to introducing a joke in language teaching:The first approach concentrates on a more profound purpose and that is to teach students how the English sense of humour works.The second approach deals with a rather straightforward use of jokes in the teaching of vocabulary and grammar.

1. 
   Teaching how the English sense of humour works
   

The basis for every nation's humour lies in its historical, socio-cultural and linguistic background. In order to get to know a nation's sense of humour one is forced to search much deeper.
It is a world-wide belief that the English people have a strange sense of humour. But to oppose this statement it’s time to scan jokes properly. I strongly oppose this statement. Further on, I would like to add it’s upright to say that such a statement is used only by the people who know very little about the English language.
In contrast to the Slovenian language which is an inflectional language, English is an analytical language. In other words inflections are scarce, grammatical meanings must be expressed by alternative means like periphrastic constructions, word order etc. As a result of this the English language is abundant in idioms, phrases, homonyms and homophones. Most of the English jokes are based on such play on words.
So what can a teacher do to improve the students' understanding of the English sense of humour? As a starting point a teacher can try to introduce jokes which are closely related to the English cultural and historical background, giving emphasis on the words her students are already familiar with. Once this stage is reached she can gradually proceed to improving their understanding by various activities.