Using humorous wordplay as an educational tool to enhance vocabulary acquisition in B1 students at the Institute of Languages of the University of Cuenca

Abstract

This research project aims at explaining how humorous wordplay can be used as a tool for improving the processes of vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary is recognized as one of the most important sub skills of any language and in the case of English, this is not the exception, that is why teachers should draw attention to the role that it plays in English as a Foreign Language learning process. This project is focused on explaining how humorous wordplay can be used as a method by creating wordplay-based activities to determine how these activities can be used to improve and help students from the Institute of Languages at the University of Cuenca increase their size and knowledge of vocabulary. This research project is considered an exploratory study and the data was obtained using qualitative methods from the analysis of diverse studies to demonstrate the advantages of using humorous wordplay as a method for teaching vocabulary. Additionally, document analysis was used to determine the most common forms of wordplay which are: puns, anagrams, riddles, and tongue twisters. In addition, a series of interviews were done with teachers from the Institute of Languages in order to analyze their perceptions about vocabulary and the use of wordplay in classrooms. The extensive examination of previous studies demonstrated the effectiveness of using humorous wordplay in the vocabulary learning processes. The analysis also demonstrated that by exploring the forms of wordplay, the learners should be able to understand other aspects of the English language such as homophones and homographs words, and some other linguistic features