The Effect of Degree of Conceptualization of Idioms by Native (American) vs. Non-native (Iranian) English Speakers on Learning Idioms (original) (raw)
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The present study investigated the effect of using picture, Persian translation equivalent (L1), and English definition (L2) on the learning of 20 decomposable and nondecomposable idioms by 68 Iranian TEFL undergraduates. The focus was on learning both meaning as well as form of the idioms. The idioms were given to the participants to translate into Persian three weeks before the experiment to ensure the participants' unfamiliarity of the idioms. The idioms that were known even by one student were crossed out. Each group of the participants received the instruction in 3 sessions (about 7 idioms each session), and reviewed them in the fourth. The participants received 2 recognition tests (one on form and the other on meaning of the L2 idioms) in the form of multiple-choice in the fifth session, and the same recognition as well as 2 production tests in the form of fill-in-the-blanks 3 weeks later (first on form and then on meaning). The delayed posttests were given in 2 consecutive sessions: first, the production and then the recognition. The findings showed that the picture group outperformed the other groups in all situations. However, a significant outperformance of L1 group over L2 group was observed for decomposable idioms in the first posttest regarding form. The results suggest the pedagogical value of pictures for the teaching of meaning and form of decomposable idioms.
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Learning idioms which is considered a very essential part of learning and using language (Sridhar and Karunakaran, 2013) has recently attracted a great attention of English learning researchers particularly the assessment of how well Asian language learners acquire and use idioms in communication (Tran, 2013). Understanding and using them fluently could be viewed as a sign towards language proficiency as they could be an effective way to give students better conditions to enhance their communication skills in the daily context (Beloussova, 2015). Investigating how idiomatic expressions are dealt with and processed in a second language or foreign language is an issue worth examining further since it may give language teachers a better idea of some of the strategies language learners use in order to interpret figurative language. Despite their importance, learning and using English idioms by Arab EFL learners have not been investigated extensively, and no research has been conducted on Jordanian students' idiomatic competency. Thus, the researcher decided to work on these un-tackled issues in the Jordanian context. Most idioms-based investigations are the difficulties Jordanians learners of English face when translating them into Arabic (Hussein, Khanji, and Makhzoumi, 2000; Bataineh and Bataineh, 2002; Alrishan and Smadi, 2015). The analysis of the test showed students' very poor idiomatic competence; particularly a very limited awareness of the most frequently used idioms despite their overwhelming desire to learn them. Data analysis of the questionnaire revealed the strategies students use and the problems they face in understanding and learning idioms.
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This paper primarily focused on the description of the results of a study conducted with sixty Iranian adult EFL learners to investigate how the reading strategies and pragmatic elements are likely to govern and characterize the comprehension and interpretation process of English idioms with and without contextualized reading. It also intended to determine the role of cultural mappings and the extent to which Iranian EFL learners' knowledge of cultural idioms is affected by their L1 when they try to construct their own meanings. The researchers came up with some interesting inferences about such theme-based patterns of idiomatic expressions through descriptive statistics and analysis of the participants' metacognitive comments in four phases of the study.
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The field of idiomaticity is considered by many researchers as an important area, especially when it comes to L2 and/ or EFL learners. Mastering idioms and the ability to use them in the written and the spoken discourse is considered as a sign towards proficiency. However, it is noticed clearly that there is not much research done in this respect. Lazar (1996) states that figurative language is an area often neglected in the teaching of vocabulary. In this respect, this study was conducted to investigate the difficulties faced by 40 Libyan students in understanding idiomatic expressions. Additionally, it was to shed light on some strategies employed by those students to ease their way in understanding and using idiomatic expressions. The paper aims to investigate problems and difficulties encountered by the Libyan students and strategies used to overcome these problems and difficulties. Keywords: idiomatic expressions, idiomaticity, literal and figurative meaning, Idiom processing strategies
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The objectives of the present study were threefold: First, it sought to investigate difficulties Iranian EFL high school learners face to understand English idioms. Second, it attempted to explore intermediate EFL learners' language learning strategy preferences to comprehend idioms. Third, it aimed to examine whether there was a significant difference between successful and less successful students' strategy use in idiom comprehension. To this end, 200 Iranian male and female students from the three grades of different senior high schools in Qom, Iran, were selected through convenience sampling. They responded to a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire (Alhaysony, 2017), investigating the challenges of idiom comprehension. Afterwards, they took the Oxford Quick Placement Test. Ninety-eight of them were selected as intermediate learners. Third, they took a multiple-choice test on idiom comprehension, developed by the researcher, and responded to the Strategy Inventory for La...
The Effect of Context on Learning Idioms By Iranian EFL Learners
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2017
The purpose of the present study was the investigation of the effect of context on teaching Idioms and using contextual-clues by the EFL learners for getting the meaning of Idioms. For this aim, 60 out of 80 students were selected through administration of Nelson English Language Test and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Both groups took part in the pertest. In each session, the same Idioms from the Idioms organizer book were presented to the participants in both groups and some exercises from the book were done to make them more characterize to students. The contextualization of the Idioms was administered and its results were compared with the results of pertest through a paired samples t-test. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in learning the meaning of Idioms by using them in favor of the former. The findings have significant pedagogical implication for Iranian EFL learners, teachers, course book designer and material developers in providing a better context for Learning English.
Teachers’ Beliefs about Teaching Idiomatic Expressions: The Case of Iranian EFL Learners
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2015
The pervading use of idiomatic expressions in authentic input, their frequency in the English language and the increasing difficulties that learners experience with this type of language are compelling reasons that made idioms an integral part of vocabulary learning. To solve learners' problems regarding idiomatic expressions, first a need analysis is required. In order to reach this purpose a questionnaire was given to sixty EFL teachers in the universities of Iran to see what the problems of learning idiomatic expressions and their causes are. This study analyzed teaching and learning of idioms in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In the current study the problematic parts of the educational system, teachers' methodology, materials and the students' approaches toward learning idiomatic expressions were detected.