Techniques for teaching english pdf

Also, lecturers emphasized the effectiveness of this strategy in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions. In other words, students should practice the language of that world in the classroom, and incorporating authentic resources helps them to acquire good communicative competence.

The great thing is that authentic materials are everywhere, which makes them easy to find and simple to practice.

So, lecturers must encourage students to explore authentic materials around by themselves since they could greatly benefit from this kind of exposure. This finding is also consistent with Neissari et al. Teaching Within Context Teaching within context is considered to be an effective teaching strategy and students should take advantage of contextual clues to guess the meanings of idiomatic expressions, especially the opaque ones.

Idiomatic expressions presented in context are easier for students to understand rather than those presented in isolation, and therefore teaching them should always occur in a linguistically supportive context. In this regard, all lecturers revealed that teaching idiomatic expressions should take place in a rich context. They confirmed that this strategy trains students to focus on the contextual clues since these expressions are comprehended with the context in which they are used.

According to them, this strategy involves increasing the ability that the expressions will be remembered. In this strategy, lecturers explained that some idiomatic expressions should be presented in a suggestive context and they encourage and ask students to infer the meaning of unfamiliar expressions.

Then, they ask students recall expressions that have been presented in the context. This technique would be very useful and effective and results in correct interpretation according to them. This result is consistent with Cooper who explored the comprehension strategies used by L2 learners when trying to translate the meanings of English idioms and found that the most commonly used strategy was guessing from context.

Also, this finding agrees with a study conducted by Alhaysony who emphasized the importance of teaching and learning idioms within context, and teachers should equip students with appropriate skills to use the context in guessing the figurative meaning of idioms.

The finding is also consistent with Alias who recommended that teachers must be aware of guessing strategy in comprehending idioms and educate their students about it. The finding is, furthermore, in line with those of Al Hassan and Suhodolli a in that using context is an effective approach in teaching idiomatic expressions.

Using L1 To Comprehend L2 Idiomatic Expressions As a matter of fact, not all idiomatic expressions are equally difficult for students to master. An important factor that affects L2 expressions comprehension is cross-language overlap, which is the degree to which L2 expressions correspond to L1 expressions.

According to lecturers 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, in an attempt to understand the meanings of L2 expressions, students can compare both literal meanings of expressions components and their relations to expressions in their native language. Lecturers consider this strategy an effective way of teaching translation of idiomatic expressions.

Indeed, cultural knowledge of both the SL and TL is an important factor since there is a positive transfer in terms of identical and similar expressions. Positive transfer occurs when the L1 can be used to produce expressions in the L2 because the forms and patterns from the L1 are identical or similar to the ones in the L2, and this brings about correct L2 expressions. The more semantic similarity between languages, the more comprehensible and translatable expressions will be.

Therefore, expressions that are identical in both the SL and TL will be the easiest to comprehend and produce. Such identical and similar expressions between cultures reflect universal shared bodily experiences. This finding is compatible with the finding of Pimenova who recommended a task where students are asked to write two or three idioms that have both the same meaning and structure in their native language and English, also two or three idioms that have the same meanings but different lexical constituents, or vice versa.

Using Pictures One important feature of language education is the retention of previously learned materials; the ability of students to recall or remember things after a while. Idiomatic expressions can be taught based on amazing and colourful pictures. This indicates that teaching such expressions can be interesting and fun.

When students find pleasure and joy in what they learn, they undoubtedly want to know more about it and thus perform better. It can be said that using pictures in teaching figurative expressions is a creative and effective mnemonic strategy, especially if the pictures are memorable and humorous.

Then, students being asked to guess the expression signified in the picture. This finding is in parallel with Fotovatnia and Khaki who conducted a study in which the role and pedagogical implications of pictorial cues in teaching and learning idiomatic expressions were emphasized. Besides, this finding is also supported by Suhodolli b who stated that the use of pictures is one way of teaching idioms.

Using Exercises And Activities Idiomatic expressions can be taught in many ways, giving students different written exercises might help them to comprehend these figurative expressions, such as filling in blanks with a suitable idiom, matching idioms to their definitions, circle the correct meaning, using idioms in essay writing, multiple-choice tasks, and many more.

In fact, teaching these figurative expressions through exercises is definitely a convincing way, and students might enjoy and benefit from these activities. Five of the lecturers 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 proposed that exercises are useful for students when teaching figurative language, and help them to understand and expand their knowledge of these expressions.

Lecturers suggested different exercises that can be given in form of a worksheet, such as gap-filling, using idiomatic expressions to answer given questions, writing sentences or a short paragraph, and matching questions to possible responses. Lecturers stressed the importance and effectiveness of exercises in enhancing different language skills including translation of idiomatic expressions.

This finding is in the same line with Asri and Rochmawati who found that teachers may use several strategies in teaching idiomatic expressions, and using exercises are one of them. It is a common strategy for communicative use of language where students take on the roles to perform in front of the class. In other words, students need to conceptualize a situation and create a conversation using selected idiomatic expressions. It is therefore an effective teaching strategy that can help students learn expressions in context and express themselves.

They added, dialogues offer situations for students to practise idiomatic expressions within the conversation, and it is an effective method and it works in teaching translation of such expressions. Interestingly, these expressions can be presented in a way that students use them in action instead of just memorizing. Consequently, the students find the opportunity to practice such expressions in a natural environment; in dialogues which they compose.

The dialogues supposed to be rich in idiomatic expressions, which provide students with opportunities to practice the oral skill before facing the real English world. Besides, dialogues and role-playing can make it easier for learners to keep in mind the dialogue that they created while practising with the group.

This strategy also makes students enjoy the experience of learning idiomatic expressions in the company of their colleagues. Role-playing has different advantages in promoting naturalness and creativity for better retention and recall of figurative expressions.

This finding is in line with Moslehi and Rahimy who found that there is a positive relationship between role-play through dialogues and knowledge of English idioms. Likewise, Freyn and Gross recommended using a multimodal approach to teaching English idioms, among them is role play.

The finding is, furthermore, in line with those of Khonbi and Sadeghi in that among the different teaching modes in idioms, the most beneficial was role play.

Conclusion The study problem is largely related to the absence of a specific strategy and methodology to teach EFL students about English idiomatic expressions. This problem has broadly made English idiomatic expressions an arduous task for EFL students to comprehend.

Thus, the study highlights strategies to be used by lecturers toward teaching translation of idiomatic expressions. Considering the pervasiveness of idiomatic expressions in everyday communication and their perplexing nature for students, idiomatic language may be introduced inside the classroom so that students can begin to employ them successfully in natural settings.

Since idiomatic language involves cultural and linguistic features that are challenging to students, it is however the responsibility of lecturers to explore the best strategies that will make their students becomes motivated and interested in learning the idiomatic language. The study revealed that lecturers employ different strategies in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions, which are using authentic materials from real life, teaching within context, using L1 to comprehend L2 idiomatic expressions, using pictures, using exercises and activities, and dialogues and role play.

The study also discovered that using several strategies to teach such expressions could be effective and beneficial to students. These strategies can evoke awareness among students and help them to understand the nature of these figurative expressions in general.

EFL students need authentic materials including news reports, magazines, brochures, short stories, TV shows, documentaries, songs, movies, food menus, and websites to improve communication skills and understand idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions can as well be taught using amazing and colourful pictures. Exercises and activities are other suitable strategies for making idiomatic expressions interesting for EFL students.

Hence, all these afore-stated strategies enable students to enjoy learning idiomatic expressions. Therefore, the study contributes toward providing strategies that could facilitate teaching translation of idiomatic expressions. References Ababneh, S. International Journal of English Language Education, 4 1 , Afshar, N. The Effect of Role-play through Dialogue vs.

Written Practice on Knowledge of English Idioms. Al Hassan, S. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7 3 , Alias, N. Master Thesis, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Asri, A. Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, 2 1 , Behtash, E. The Effect of Audio-Visual vs. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 5 2 , Beloussova, V. Master Thesis, University of Tartu, Estonia. Burke, D. Carter, R. Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives.

London, UK: Allen and Unwin. Chen, Y. English Language Teaching, 6 6 , Cieslicka, A. In Book: Heredia, R. Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cooper, T. Processing of Idioms in L2 Learners of English. Teaching Idioms. The Reading Teacher, 38 3 , Fernando, C. Idioms and Idiomaticity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fotovatnia, Z. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2 2 , Freyn, A. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7 11 , Hinkel, E.

Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 5 3 , Huizenga, J. Can You Believe It? Stories and Idioms from Real Life: Book 1. Iranmanesh, A. International Journal of Learning and Teaching, 10 2 , Khonbi, Z.

Geeraerts, R. Dirven, J. Taylor and R. Langacker Ed. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Idioms: A View from Cognitive Semantics. Applied Linguistics, 17 3 , Langlotz, A. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lundblom, E. Mehrpour, S. These cultural expressions can be taught in creative ways that go beyond memorization or sightless guessing. Thus, lecturers need to employ effective and flexible strategies in teaching idiomatic expressions and educate their students about them.

Research Questions This study aims to answer the following two questions: 1. What are the strategies used by lecturers in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions? To what extent are the used strategies effective? Research Methodology The present study followed a qualitative approach wherein the research type is exploratory research. Eight English lecturers are purposively selected to be the participants of this study.

All the participants have a PhD degree in translation, and have more than ten years of experience in teaching translation. The lecturers were asked to answer two open-ended questions in the interview related to the strategies used by them in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions, and to what extent are the strategies effective. The collected data were analyzed and classified using thematic analysis. Analysis and Discussion For better analysis, thematic content analysis was used to analyze data, which is the most commonly used qualitative approach in analyzing interviews.

This type of analysis provides flexibility in interpreting data and grouping them into broad themes. Using Authentic Materials From Real Life Authentic materials present real-life examples of everyday language and provide information about the target culture.

They serve as a reminder to learners and motivate them. In language teaching, authentic resources are called authentic because they include more realistic and natural examples of language use than those available in textbooks since they are created for real communication. These resources reflect the real-world language, such as TV programs, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, articles, advertisements, songs, and brochures. These materials promote students with motivation and interest in language learning and result in improving communicative competence.

Therefore, lecturers should encourage their students to explore authentic materials in the second language because they could greatly benefit from this kind of exposure, and even find these out for themselves. Considering that these materials help students to understand and use particular expressions relevant to particular situations, and thus improving their knowledge of the idiomatic language.

Lecturers can introduce authentic English materials into their classes to expose students to the language as it is spoken. The findings revealed that lecturers have positive attitudes toward using authentic materials in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions.

All lecturers supported strongly using authentic materials for exposing students to the real English language and developing their communicative skills as well as confidence in real situations. Also, lecturers emphasized the effectiveness of this strategy in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions.

In other words, students should practice the language of that world in the classroom, and incorporating authentic resources helps them to acquire good communicative competence. The great thing is that authentic materials are everywhere, which makes them easy to find and simple to practice.

So, lecturers must encourage students to explore authentic materials around by themselves since they could greatly benefit from this kind of exposure. This finding is also consistent with Neissari et al. Teaching Within Context Teaching within context is considered to be an effective teaching strategy and students should take advantage of contextual clues to guess the meanings of idiomatic expressions, especially the opaque ones.

Idiomatic expressions presented in context are easier for students to understand rather than those presented in isolation, and therefore teaching them should always occur in a linguistically supportive context.

In this regard, all lecturers revealed that teaching idiomatic expressions should take place in a rich context. They confirmed that this strategy trains students to focus on the contextual clues since these expressions are comprehended with the context in which they are used. According to them, this strategy involves increasing the ability that the expressions will be remembered. In this strategy, lecturers explained that some idiomatic expressions should be presented in a suggestive context and they encourage and ask students to infer the meaning of unfamiliar expressions.

Then, they ask students recall expressions that have been presented in the context. This technique would be very useful and effective and results in correct interpretation according to them. This result is consistent with Cooper who explored the comprehension strategies used by L2 learners when trying to translate the meanings of English idioms and found that the most commonly used strategy was guessing from context.

Also, this finding agrees with a study conducted by Alhaysony who emphasized the importance of teaching and learning idioms within context, and teachers should equip students with appropriate skills to use the context in guessing the figurative meaning of idioms. The finding is also consistent with Alias who recommended that teachers must be aware of guessing strategy in comprehending idioms and educate their students about it.

The finding is, furthermore, in line with those of Al Hassan and Suhodolli a in that using context is an effective approach in teaching idiomatic expressions. Using L1 To Comprehend L2 Idiomatic Expressions As a matter of fact, not all idiomatic expressions are equally difficult for students to master.

An important factor that affects L2 expressions comprehension is cross-language overlap, which is the degree to which L2 expressions correspond to L1 expressions. According to lecturers 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, in an attempt to understand the meanings of L2 expressions, students can compare both literal meanings of expressions components and their relations to expressions in their native language.

Lecturers consider this strategy an effective way of teaching translation of idiomatic expressions. Indeed, cultural knowledge of both the SL and TL is an important factor since there is a positive transfer in terms of identical and similar expressions. Positive transfer occurs when the L1 can be used to produce expressions in the L2 because the forms and patterns from the L1 are identical or similar to the ones in the L2, and this brings about correct L2 expressions.

The more semantic similarity between languages, the more comprehensible and translatable expressions will be. Therefore, expressions that are identical in both the SL and TL will be the easiest to comprehend and produce. Such identical and similar expressions between cultures reflect universal shared bodily experiences.

This finding is compatible with the finding of Pimenova who recommended a task where students are asked to write two or three idioms that have both the same meaning and structure in their native language and English, also two or three idioms that have the same meanings but different lexical constituents, or vice versa. Using Pictures One important feature of language education is the retention of previously learned materials; the ability of students to recall or remember things after a while.

Idiomatic expressions can be taught based on amazing and colourful pictures. This indicates that teaching such expressions can be interesting and fun. When students find pleasure and joy in what they learn, they undoubtedly want to know more about it and thus perform better.

It can be said that using pictures in teaching figurative expressions is a creative and effective mnemonic strategy, especially if the pictures are memorable and humorous. Then, students being asked to guess the expression signified in the picture. This finding is in parallel with Fotovatnia and Khaki who conducted a study in which the role and pedagogical implications of pictorial cues in teaching and learning idiomatic expressions were emphasized.

Besides, this finding is also supported by Suhodolli b who stated that the use of pictures is one way of teaching idioms. Using Exercises And Activities Idiomatic expressions can be taught in many ways, giving students different written exercises might help them to comprehend these figurative expressions, such as filling in blanks with a suitable idiom, matching idioms to their definitions, circle the correct meaning, using idioms in essay writing, multiple-choice tasks, and many more.

In fact, teaching these figurative expressions through exercises is definitely a convincing way, and students might enjoy and benefit from these activities. Five of the lecturers 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 proposed that exercises are useful for students when teaching figurative language, and help them to understand and expand their knowledge of these expressions.

Lecturers suggested different exercises that can be given in form of a worksheet, such as gap-filling, using idiomatic expressions to answer given questions, writing sentences or a short paragraph, and matching questions to possible responses. Lecturers stressed the importance and effectiveness of exercises in enhancing different language skills including translation of idiomatic expressions.

This finding is in the same line with Asri and Rochmawati who found that teachers may use several strategies in teaching idiomatic expressions, and using exercises are one of them. It is a common strategy for communicative use of language where students take on the roles to perform in front of the class.

In other words, students need to conceptualize a situation and create a conversation using selected idiomatic expressions. It is therefore an effective teaching strategy that can help students learn expressions in context and express themselves. They added, dialogues offer situations for students to practise idiomatic expressions within the conversation, and it is an effective method and it works in teaching translation of such expressions.

Interestingly, these expressions can be presented in a way that students use them in action instead of just memorizing. Consequently, the students find the opportunity to practice such expressions in a natural environment; in dialogues which they compose.

The dialogues supposed to be rich in idiomatic expressions, which provide students with opportunities to practice the oral skill before facing the real English world. Besides, dialogues and role-playing can make it easier for learners to keep in mind the dialogue that they created while practising with the group. This strategy also makes students enjoy the experience of learning idiomatic expressions in the company of their colleagues.

Role-playing has different advantages in promoting naturalness and creativity for better retention and recall of figurative expressions. This finding is in line with Moslehi and Rahimy who found that there is a positive relationship between role-play through dialogues and knowledge of English idioms. Likewise, Freyn and Gross recommended using a multimodal approach to teaching English idioms, among them is role play. The finding is, furthermore, in line with those of Khonbi and Sadeghi in that among the different teaching modes in idioms, the most beneficial was role play.

Conclusion The study problem is largely related to the absence of a specific strategy and methodology to teach EFL students about English idiomatic expressions. This problem has broadly made English idiomatic expressions an arduous task for EFL students to comprehend. Thus, the study highlights strategies to be used by lecturers toward teaching translation of idiomatic expressions.

Considering the pervasiveness of idiomatic expressions in everyday communication and their perplexing nature for students, idiomatic language may be introduced inside the classroom so that students can begin to employ them successfully in natural settings. Since idiomatic language involves cultural and linguistic features that are challenging to students, it is however the responsibility of lecturers to explore the best strategies that will make their students becomes motivated and interested in learning the idiomatic language.

The study revealed that lecturers employ different strategies in teaching translation of idiomatic expressions, which are using authentic materials from real life, teaching within context, using L1 to comprehend L2 idiomatic expressions, using pictures, using exercises and activities, and dialogues and role play. The study also discovered that using several strategies to teach such expressions could be effective and beneficial to students.

These strategies can evoke awareness among students and help them to understand the nature of these figurative expressions in general. EFL students need authentic materials including news reports, magazines, brochures, short stories, TV shows, documentaries, songs, movies, food menus, and websites to improve communication skills and understand idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions can as well be taught using amazing and colourful pictures. Exercises and activities are other suitable strategies for making idiomatic expressions interesting for EFL students.

Hence, all these afore-stated strategies enable students to enjoy learning idiomatic expressions. Therefore, the study contributes toward providing strategies that could facilitate teaching translation of idiomatic expressions. References Ababneh, S. International Journal of English Language Education, 4 1 , Afshar, N. The Effect of Role-play through Dialogue vs.

Written Practice on Knowledge of English Idioms. Al Hassan, S. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7 3 , Alias, N. Master Thesis, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Asri, A. Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, 2 1 , Behtash, E. The Effect of Audio-Visual vs. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 5 2 , Beloussova, V. Master Thesis, University of Tartu, Estonia.

Burke, D. Carter, R. Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives. London, UK: Allen and Unwin. Chen, Y. English Language Teaching, 6 6 , Cieslicka, A. In Book: Heredia, R. Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Cooper, T. Processing of Idioms in L2 Learners of English. Teaching Idioms. The Reading Teacher, 38 3 , Fernando, C. Idioms and Idiomaticity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fotovatnia, Z. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2 2 ,