Abstract

Affective factors are very important in second or foreign language learning. This study focused on the type of affective interaction a very successful teacher, a non-native English speaker from the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria, used to create rapport with her English language learners in Southern California, USA. During the 75-minute classroom observation, the researcher recorded, coded and counted certain affective markers, such as teacher smiles or laughs, student laughs, teacher jokes, student jokes, teacher gestures, and instances of students initiating questions or information. The subsequent interview revealed the teacher profile, her background, her beliefs about humor and its cultural differences, her students’ response to humor, appropriate topics for joking in the second-language classroom, the effect of humor on student achievement and job satisfaction. The results point to great potential and need for more research on humor in second or foreign language teaching and cross-cultural communication.