A very informative and happy workshop from Danny Singh, who introduced us to a very innovative lesson. Laughter Yoga is in his words, “the most important tool in my lesson”, it makes students more open to all kinds of creative and dynamic learning styles. In the beginning we started with some breathing techniques and he then introduced us to different kinds of laughter. We tried the: -Welcome laugh - Three variations of the milkshake laugh (which is his favourite) - The bee laugh - The bear laugh The Elephant laugh
In order
for laughter to be beneficial to the body, we need at least 15-20 minutes of
laughing. A child laughs about 300 times a day while an adult only about 10 times.
Danny described how he found out about Laughter Yoga and what its benefits are.
As we laugh for no reason, with no jokes or humour, there are no language,
cultural, religious or political barriers to laughing. It reduces stress, we
get warmed up and it improves the mood of both the students and the teacher.
Laughing reduces inhibitions, so after the laughter exercises, the teacher
could ask students to do any task he/she wants. Laughing also improves group
dynamics and improves relations between students. Another important thing is
that you can insert vocabulary while you are giving instructions for the laughs
and students learn without even noticing it. The session ended practicing two
more laughs and two other physical activities: - The word formation: We were
divided into groups and had to form a word, either presenting letters with our
bodies or making an image of the word we were representing. - Write on
somebody’s back, practicing verbs – Student number one writes the infinitive of
the verb, student number 2 has to understand the word and write the past tense
of the verb on his/her partner’s back. - The car wash (pretending to go under a
car-wash) - The swing laugh, where we formed a circle and came closer looking
at the sky laughing.
You can
find more information on Danny Singh’s page: www.laughnlearn.net
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