In these stories, the ghosts are often not very scary. They can be clumsy, like when they try to float through walls but end up getting stuck halfway. They also tend to be a bit silly, for instance, making faces at people instead of scaring them.
One funny ghost story could be about a friendly ghost in an old house. The ghost was always making things move in a comical way. For example, it would stack the cups into a really tall and wobbly tower just to make the people living there laugh.
There is a funny ghost story where a ghost was trying to learn ESL too. It haunted an ESL classroom at night. It would flip through the textbooks and try to pronounce the words. One night, a teacher came back for something and saw the ghost. Instead of being frightened, the teacher helped the ghost with its pronunciation. And from then on, the ghost would often come to the classroom to study with the teacher at night.
The interaction between the human characters and the ghosts can be really interesting. In some stories, the humans and ghosts end up becoming friends. They might communicate in a funny way, like the ghost using broken English to tell its story. And also, how the ghosts' presence affects the normal situation is interesting. For instance, a ghost that haunts a coffee shop and starts making coffee in a very strange but effective way for the customers. It adds an element of surprise and humor to the story.
They often involve misunderstandings of language elements like words, phrases or grammar. For example, a learner might misunderstand the meaning of 'break a leg' and get really confused when told to say it to an actor before a performance.
One funny ESL story is about a student who confused 'chicken' and 'kitchen'. When the teacher asked what he had for dinner, he said 'I ate kitchen for dinner'. Another is a student who thought 'pregnant' meant 'fat' and told a lady she looked very 'pregnant' when he just wanted to say she was overweight. And there's also the story of a student who mispronounced 'sheet' as 'shit' and caused quite a bit of embarrassment in class.
Well, ESL funny short stories frequently incorporate cultural elements in a light - hearted way. This helps ESL students learn about different cultures while having a laugh. For example, a story might be set during a foreign festival and some misunderstandings occur due to cultural differences. The stories also make use of exaggeration to create humor. A character might eat an enormously large amount of food in a story, which is not realistic but very funny. And they are designed to be easily adaptable for different language levels, so whether you're a beginner or an intermediate ESL learner, you can enjoy and learn from them.
One common element is the setting. Often, it's in a spooky place like an old house, a cemetery or an abandoned building. These places create an atmosphere of fear and mystery.
One interesting ESL ghost story could be about a haunted house. There was a big, old mansion on the outskirts of town. People said that at night, they could see a strange white figure in the attic window. It was believed to be the spirit of a young girl who had died there many years ago. Whenever someone new moved into the house, they would hear her crying in the middle of the night.
Sure. There was a student who always confused 'sheet' and'shit'. One day in class, he was talking about his new bed and said, 'I got a new shit on my bed.' Everyone burst out laughing.