The effects of humour based activities on expression skills of 7th grade students

In this study, the effects of humour-based activities on expression skills of 7th grade students were analysed. Subjects such as "Personal Development", "Social Life" and "National Culture" were chosen as the themes of the study. The present study was designed in accordance with a half experimental concept with pre-test and post-test groups. In this study, student working groups were determined with easily accessible sample technique, and according to the results of the applied pre-tests of the evaluation forms for expression skills, success equivalents were taken into consideration. Thus both groups were evaluated before and after the experiment. The research was carried out to 40 7th grade students in Turkish lessons in the 2nd semester of 2016-2017 academic year. While control groups were taught manner of expressions according to the Turkish education program activities, the experimental group was taught it with humour-based activities designed by the experts. This research was enriched with memoirs, comic stories and short films as well as caricatures. The data of the research was obtained from "Speaking Skills Assessment Form" and "Written Expression Assessment Form" in the MEB 2006 (Ministry of National Education of Turkey) Primary School Turkish Lesson (6, 7, 8. Classes) Education Program. The assessment forms were carried out as both pre-test and post-test to see the difference between writing and speaking skills of both control and experimental groups. The data obtained from the research was analysed with SPSS (15.0) pocket program. While endeavouring to solve sub problems, it was benefited from paired samples t-test. At the end of the study, it was found out that post-test scores of the expression skills (writing and speaking) of the students in the experimental group who studied Turkish with humour-based activities were meaningfully higher than the post-test scores of the students in control group. Key Words: Turkish Lesson, Expression Skills, Humour-based Activities.