Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom
A Project of The Internet TESL Journal

Teachers often use jokes in the ESL/EFL classroom to teach culture, grammar and vocabulary.
If you know a joke that works well with ESL/EFL students, please submit the joke.

Puns

Three tomatoes are walking down the street, a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. The baby tomato is lagging behind the poppa and momma tomato. The poppa tomato gets mad, goes over to the momma tomato and stamps on him --
(STAMPS on the ground)
-- and says: catch up.

There once was a very large lady in our town. She wore a dress size 16. I knew her when she was young, but she had a much smaller size.
Why do you think she is now wearing a size 16?
I guess she just 8 + 8 (ate and ate).
Submitted by David Trimingham

A man wanting to borrow another man's newspaper asks, "Are you finishe(d)?"
The other man replies, "No, I'm Norwegian."
Submitted by Aleksander Eriksen

I was arrested at the airport. Just because I was greeting my cousin Jack!
All that I said was "Hi Jack", but very loud.
Submitted by Carcelli's family

A woman was driving in her car on a narrow road. She was knitting at the same time, so she was driving very slowly.

A man came up from behind and he wanted to pass her. He opened the window and yelled, "Pull over! Pull over!"

The lady yelled back, "No, it's a sweater!"
Submitted by: Britt Bolving Hansen

Two friends meet and one of them says:"I've taught my dog how to speak English!"

"That's impossible", says the other man."Dogs don't speak!"

"It's true! I'll show you." He turns to his dog, "How's the situation in England?"

The dog answers: "Rough, rough."
Submitted by: Alexandra Pedro

One day an English grammar teacher was looking ill.

A student asked, "What's the matter?"

"Tense," answered the teacher, describing how he felt.

The student paused, then continued, "What was the matter? What has been the matter? What might have been the matter... ?"

Submitted by: Fredric

Teacher: Rumiko, be careful your purse is open. Someone might take your money!
Rumiko: Oh, no. I left it open so I can get more money.
Teacher: How can you get more money?
Rumiko: The weather report said we would have some change in our weather!
Submitted by Walter Lowe, aka "Anonymouse"

Boyfriend: What is your favorite music group?
Girlfriend: I love U2!
Boyfriend: I love you too, but what is your favorite music group?
Submitted by Phyllis

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, "So what's with the long face?"
Submitted by Joe Cohen Sped Teacher

I hear this new cemetry is very popular. People are just dying to get in.
Submitted by Glen Ash

One day a man went to see the Mozart's tomb.
When he got there, the tomb was open and Mozart was sitting there tearing up pieces of paper.
The men asked: "What are you doing with all of your great works of music?"
Mozart repied, "I'm decomposing!".
Submitted by Marcia Villasana

There is this man who meets a fairy. He is granted three wishes. Having wished for his most urgent needs the man uses his third wish to ask the fairy to return and give him three more wishes.

The fairy complies and says: "You can call me whenever you want."

"How can I call you. Please tell me your name." the man says.

"My name is Nuff," says the fairy.

"Well", says the man "That is an odd name. I have never heard of it before."

The fairy replies, "Surely you will have heard of Fairy Nuff." (fair enough)
Submitted by: Uli (Paderborn, Germany)

[This one works best when spoken aloud.]
Once upon a time a mother skunk had two children named "In" and "Out". They were very active children and whenever In was in, Out was out. When Out was in, In was out.
One day when Out was in and In was out, the mother skunk said "Out, go out and find In and tell In to come in." Out went out to find In to bring In back in. Within a minute, Out came back in from going out and Out brought In right back in.
Amazed, the mother skunk said, "Out, you just went out to find In and brought In right back in! How did you do it?"
To this, Out replied "Instinct!" [In stinked]
Submitted by Walter Lowe

What's the difference between white socks and red socks?
(Students will most likely answer the color)
Then you say, "yes, that's one difference but there's another:
The White Sox play in Chicago and the Red Sox play in Boston!
Submitted by: Rolando Silva

In London, one man to another:
A: "You know, my daughter has married an Irishman"
B: "Oh, really?"
A: "No, O'Reilly"
Submitted by: Scalmo (Italy)

A man walks into a bar with a lizard on his shoulder. He walks up to the bar and asks for a pint for himself and a half pint for Tiny, his lizard.

The barman looks a little taken aback but serves him and Tiny. Finally, curiosity gets the better of him;

Barman: Why do you call him Tiny?
Man: Because he's my newt.

It pays to be prepared to teach newt, lizard and minute afterwards, but expect a few groans as the penny drops!
Submitted by Andy Harvey, Solihull College, UK.

A useful one on homophones :

Once upon a time, somewhere in Europe, a family with three sons lived on a farm. As the farm was too small to support all of them, and the parents were not yet ready to retire, the sons decided to emigrate to South America, where they bought a ranch and raised beef cattle.

Question: So what did they call their ranch?
Answer: They called it "Focus", because that's where the sun's rays meet (sons raise meat).
Submitted by: Jacky Amar

This is the same joke as above, but an earlier submission and worded differently.

Three brothers started a cattle ranch out west. They were very successfull, but could not agree what to call their ranch. They finally agreed to wire their father back east and abide by his decision. He replied at once they should call it "focus". They did so, but now argued endlessly about why he had given them that name. They sent him another wire to ask why that name. He replied, "Simple, because focus is where the sun's rays meet (son's raise meat)."
Submitted by Don Holzworth

A: How do you like your new job at the cemetery?
B: I quit after a week. I found the work too frustrating.
A: What happened?
B: No matter what I said to the customers, they were always dead right!
Submitted by Bob Burgel, Vancouver

There were two spies escaping from the enemy over the Alps into neutral Switzerland during the war. As they began to feel safe, one spy starts to tell the other what he found out in enemy territory. The other tells him to speak quietly.
"Why?", asks his friend a little perplexed. "There's nobody around for miles. I could scream and not a soul would hear us up here.....!"
"Ah," replied the other,"haven't you heard? There are mountain ears?"
(mountaineers)
Submitted by Paddy Greenleaf, teacher IH Viseu, Portugal

Lynn: Tom's always running into cars in front of him at traffic lights making dents.
Max: Is he really? A wreckless type, huh? What does he do for a living?
Lynn: He is a dent-ist.

(If the student can also speak Japanese, then continue the joke.)

Max: I suppose he's had to pay a lot in damages.
Lynn: No. He usually says "sorry" and gets away with it.
Max: Don't they complain?
Lynn: It may be strange, but they don't.
Max: What are they afraid of?
Lynn: They're afraid of shikaeshi from the dentist!

(For those of you who don't speak Japanese, "shikaeshi" means revenge or getting back at someone while "shikaishi," which sounds similar, refers to a dentist.)
Submitted by Seiichi Nakada, Pu.D (a doctor of punology)

A: Did you hear about the guy with the corduroy pillow?
B: No, I didn't.
A: Really? It made headlines!
Submitted by Dale Ehrlich; Seoul, Korea

Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL ClassroomA Project of The Internet TESL Journal

Puns

Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom
A Project of The Internet TESL Journal