Laughing while learning: ESP learners’ perspectives on teachers’ use of humour in online classrooms

Abstract This study investigates how teachers’ use of humour in online English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classrooms shapes students’ affective engagement, learning retention, and motivational responses, framing humour as both a pedagogical asset and a potential barrier. Guided by the Instructional Humour Processing Theory (IHPT), the research explores how students cognitively process and emotionally respond to various types of humour, particularly in digitally mediated language learning environments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twenty (20) undergraduate ESP students from a private Indian university, the study purposely recruited participants from diverse academic disciplines and cultural backgrounds to ensure cross-cultural and linguistic representation. Findings reveal that students valued humour—especially content-integrated jokes, puns, and analogies—for improving attentiveness, reinforcing memory, and fostering a sense of psychological ease in virtual classrooms. Teachers’ use of humour served multiple functions: facilitating focus, reducing anxiety, and creating a more inclusive classroom environment. However, the study also highlights potential drawbacks, including perceived disrespect, distraction, or reinforcement of power imbalances, particularly when humour lacked cultural sensitivity or involved sarcasm. By foregrounding students’ lived experiences and applying IHPT to online ESP education, this study contributes to the growing body of work on humour in digital pedagogy. It emphasizes the need for carefully calibrated, culturally responsive humour practices that enhance, rather than hinder, instructional outcomes. Future research should adopt cross-institutional and longitudinal designs to examine humour’s sustained effects on learning, classroom dynamics, and intercultural inclusivity in global ESP contexts.