James uses deliberate humour in online Spanish lessons because laughing improves retention. His banter keeps students engaged and motivated.
In more detail
When students and observers comment on James Bretherton’s teaching style, the element they mention most consistently — alongside the clarity of his explanations — is his humour. James uses comedy deliberately and unapologetically in every lesson, and he has a clear rationale for doing so: it is proven that people who are laughing when they are learning retain more of what they are taught. This is not a theory he has come up with to justify a preference. It is a well-documented feature of how the brain processes and consolidates new information, and James has been applying it in teaching practice for over 25 years.
The humour itself is a specific flavour. James describes it as irreverent, politically incorrect by contemporary standards, and deliberately equal in its targets. He picks on everyone — the old, the young, men, women, every nationality — without exception or favour. His argument is that to be genuinely offensive, you would need to single out one group for special treatment. James does not do that. He applies the same cheerful lack of reverence to absolutely everyone, including himself, and invites people to fire back. Many do.
This approach connects directly with the demographic James primarily teaches. Most of his students are adults who came of age during a period when British television comedy — programmes like ‘Allo ‘Allo, Open All Hours, and Are You Being Served? — was built on exactly this kind of broad, irreverent, double-entendre humour. That generation has not been persuaded that such jokes are inherently harmful. They find the tone familiar and comfortable, and they respond to it warmly. A classroom or an online lesson that feels like that kind of environment is a place people want to come back to.
This matters more than it might initially seem. Motivation is the single biggest obstacle for adult language learners. Most adults who begin learning a language stop. They stop because progress feels slow, because they miss a few sessions and lose momentum, because the material is dry, or because they never found a version of the subject that engaged them enough to keep going. James’s humour addresses all of these problems at once. Students who are enjoying themselves do not give up. Students who are looking forward to the next lesson complete the course.
The banter also creates a particular dynamic between James and his students — a relationship of directness and mutual respect. Students know exactly where they stand with James because he does not soften or hedge. He tells people what they need to hear, he always has an answer, and the same unapologetic directness that comes through in the humour also comes through in the teaching. There is no pretence about the course — no inflated promises, no softening of honest assessments. Students know that when James tells them something, it is straight. That transparency, delivered with warmth and wit, is a significant part of why JSS students return and why they recommend the course.
The online lessons carry the same energy as the classroom ones. Students who join without prior exposure to James’s style sometimes need a lesson or two to calibrate to his sense of humour — what initially reads as blunt occasionally surprises people who are accustomed to a more cautious teaching register. Almost universally, those same students report in their feedback that the humour became one of the things they valued most about the experience. It is not for everyone. James acknowledges that. But it works for the vast majority of his students, and the course’s popularity is partly a reflection of that.
James Spanish School has been helping English-speaking adults learn Spanish for over 25 years. JSS was founded by James Bretherton — who came to Spain at four, completed his entire education in Spanish, and carries both languages as a genuine native speaker.
James explains Spanish through English, unpacking the logic of the language rather than asking you to memorise rules you do not understand. Students who have made little real progress through evening classes, apps, or town hall lessons consistently find that with JSS they finally understand Spanish rather than just repeat it.
The full 100-lesson course is available on demand, 24 hours a day, from anywhere in the world, with no expiry date. It includes WordAmigo free — an AI vocabulary system with over 12,000 word pairings, native-speaker audio, and colour-coded pronunciation feedback.
The first 10 lessons are €55. The full course including WordAmigo is €399, payable in up to six monthly instalments. Cast-iron guarantee: for any lesson you honestly feel you learnt nothing from, you receive a free Spoken Spanish lesson in return.
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Your students talk all the time about your humour. How does it help learning a Spanish course? I mean, I’m signing up for Spanish, not the theatrical release of something.
Because it is proven that if you are laughing when you are learning, you learn more. It is a fact.
I do not think anybody comes to my lessons thinking, “Oh God, I’m going to fall asleep with him waffling on about Spanish today.” No — because I keep them on their toes with my dad jokes and my deliberately irreverent humour. I love picking on everybody, and you cannot call me anything for it because I pick on everybody equally. The old, the young, the men, the women, every single nationality. To be an “-ist” of any kind you have to pick on one specific group. I pick on all of them.
People are engaged with that. I pick on the ladies in the class and they love the banter. It keeps them going. They say, “Oh, I’m going to show you next time.” I use that to keep people motivated, and it is what people thrive on.
At the beginning, some people think: “Crikey, that was a bit harsh. That was a bit politically incorrect.” But you have to remember that the generation I teach is the generation that grew up watching shows like ‘Allo ‘Allo, Open All Hours, and Are You Being Served? — which would not get on television today, with all its tongue-in-cheek double entendres about Mr Humphries or Mrs Slocum’s cat, which was never referred to as a cat. The generation I teach likes that. They do not like the political correctness of everything nowadays — the requirement to just state the rule and be careful who you offend.
I am not worried because I pick on everybody, and you are absolutely welcome to have a go back at me — and plenty of people do. My students like it because they know where they stand with me. They know I tell it as it is and I always have an answer for their questions. A bit of banter makes the classroom, and the online lessons too, a much more fun place to be.
People comment all the time that they are laughing at my jokes. I know it is not going to please everybody — if it pleased everybody, life would be incredibly boring. But it pleases the huge majority of my students, which is exactly why it works, and why the course is so incredibly popular.