Friday 7 November 2014

Letting the Idioms out of the bag

Let the cat out of the bag / Not my cup of tea / Spill the beans / Clear as mud.

The Story

Idioms have been on my mind lately.  For example, I'd been wondering how actually to define an idiom, and what idioms students really need to know.  I also had vague recollections of looking through an Academic English textbook a couple of years ago that insisted students be taught that words such as 'affluent' are idioms, because of the Latin etymology from ad+fluere = flowing towards.  While this may be linguistically accurate, it's hard for me to imagine any student being enough of a language nerd to be helped by such an approach.  Anyway, isn't all speech necessarily figurative, when we decide that a sequence of sounds represents meaning?

Then, looking through my old bookmarks from before maternity leave (a lifetime ago!) I rediscovered Chia Suan Chong's 2012 post Death By Idioms, and realised that many of my musings had had their origin there, such as:
  • debating the benefits of teaching idioms from regional and global Englishes
  • whether phrasal verbs and other fixed expressions should be counted or taught as idioms, and, yes,
  • how useful teaching idioms really is.
Chia Suan's post included a survey into idiom teaching practices, which asked whether people would or wouldn't teach specific idioms, including the hoary old chestnut, "raining cats and dogs".  There's also an interesting graph of people's criteria for choosing the idioms they teach, from "I use it often" to "I think it sounds good" - you can see the results in her follow up post here.

Both posts are thought-provoking and entertaining - do go and read them if you haven't yet.  Done it?  Ok then.

So, I've conducted my own survey, which has received 30 responses to date.  I plan to leave it open for the time being, and if more people respond later, I'll publish a follow up.  I wanted to discover how often people are actually teaching idioms, and how they do it, as well as their opinions on the issue more generally.

A big thank you to everyone who participated.


The Survey


What you think about teaching idioms:
  • 70% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that it is important for students of English to learn and understand idioms.  However, only 40% said it's important for students to use idioms themselves when speaking or writing.  30% either disagreed or strongly disagreed that being able to do this is important.
  • Half the respondents stated that idioms presented in textbooks are not up to date or relevant to students' needs.
  • Regarding the usefulness of grouping idioms around a topic such as animals or parts of the body, there was a fairly even spread of answers, with roughly a quarter of people agreeing, a quarter disagreeing, and a quarter neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
  • Finally on this group of questions there were 3 clear majorities: over 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their students enjoy learning idioms, nearly 70% enjoy teaching idioms, and more than 85% find idioms useful for cultural comparison and discussion activities.
How frequently you teach idioms:
  • 20% of respondents teach idioms weekly, 40% teach them monthly, 30% less than monthly, and 10% never or almost never.  (I realise now that information about types of classes taught would have been a useful addition to this question - is it ESP teachers who are skipping idioms, for example?
  • Using lists of idioms from the Internet isn't a common teaching tool - 60% of teachers surveyed never or almost never do it.  
  • You're a conscientious lot - only 20% of teachers in the survey skip idiom activities from your textbook on a weekly or monthly basis.  (Again, I'm curious to know more at this point - are some people teaching idioms from outdated or poorly-written textbooks because it's on their curriculum, while ignoring their personal reservations?)
Your teaching methods and activities:
  • 46% of teachers who completed the survey said that the way they taught idioms had changed in the last 3 years.  Here are their comments:


Stopped doing them formally and started bringing them up in class more naturally, when a meaning occurs.
11/5/2014 9:58 PM 
I think in the past I used to do what was in the book, but now I take a more opportunistic and natural approach. When there's an appropriate context? Teach it.
11/2/2014 12:20 AM 
Generally, I spend far less time on them. I grew aware of how infrequently a lot of the textbook idioms are used in everyday English. I also think it sounds odd then a student who impedes meaning through using incomplete sentences, for example, then comes out with 'it's raining cat's and dogs'.
11/1/2014 10:08 PM 
I used to think they were important, but have come to realize that it really depends on with whom my learners will be communicating and for what purposes.
11/1/2014 1:49 PM 
I focus on visuals and also compare the literal meaning with the metaphorical.
11/1/2014 1:40 PM 
Focus more on idiomatic expressions that are more commonly used, e.g. phrasal verbs, more frequently used idioms (using something like netspeak.org to gauge frequency)
11/1/2014 8:04 AM 
I have realised that passive recognition is more important than active usage and adapted teaching to reflect this
10/31/2014 11:39 AM
I make it much more student centred now, they have to discover the meaning themselves, through activities rather than just giving them explanations.
10/30/2014 9:05 PM 
Putting them into context more.
10/29/2014 8:52 AM 
The activities
10/29/2014 8:21 AM 
Look for idiomatic chunks in texts we study.
10/27/2014 8:41 PM 
Gave up presenting them according to the topic, just explain them when we come across one in a text or dialogue
10/27/2014 7:28 PM 
Maybe I am more likely to explain (yes explain) idioms than I would have been a few years back.
10/27/2014 12:35 PM 

(From SurveyMonkey.com.  Answers have not been edited, but links to individualised data have been removed to protect respondents' privacy.)

  • And here are responses to the question "Do you have any favourite teaching activities for idioms that you'd like to share?":

Finding them in authentic materials, e.g. News articles (written or spoken) and eliciting/explaining them in context.
11/5/2014 9:58 PM 
Nope
11/2/2014 12:20 AM 
Literal miming. In telling an anecdote, students mime out the literal expression (e.g. if the story contains 'i was just banging my head against a brick wall', the student mimes the action and the others shout out the phrase). An alternative could be a form of literal idiom pictionary in which the teams are expected to say the idiom and use it in context to gain a point.
11/1/2014 10:08 PM 
illustrations matched to idioms
11/1/2014 3:13 PM 
No. Context is what is important - it's not like you can separate idioms out into one single "idioms lesson" each term. If it's meaningful, teach it when it comes up.
11/1/2014 3:11 PM 
No
11/1/2014 2:04 PM 
I let idioms come up naturally, either ones that I would use naturally in a context that has presented itself or ones that the students come across and are curious about. Otherwise, I don't actively teach them.
11/1/2014 1:49 PM 
I've created my own 'idioms' website and sometimes use it for presenting idioms and subsequent discussion: http://www.visual-idioms.com/
11/1/2014 1:40 PM 
Using pictures; situations; personalising
10/31/2014 8:01 AM 
give pairs an idiom and the correct definition. Then tell them to create two false definitions. they present to the class and everyone else has to decide which is the correct definition.
10/30/2014 9:05 PM 
I have a cut and stick activity, discussion activity and song gap fill activity (Pompeii by Bastille)
10/30/2014 8:23 PM 
if you're teaching a class who all speak the same language, so can find equivalent idioms in that language and in English, write them on slips of paper, and get the students to work together to pair them up.
10/29/2014 8:52 AM 
Getting students to write stories that include, for example, five of the idioms they have just learnt is one that the students really enjoy.
10/29/2014 8:21 AM 
Text mining.
10/27/2014 8:41 PM 
None
10/27/2014 12:38 PM 

(From SurveyMonkey.com as above.  I considered removing the No / Nope / None answers, but have left them in to be representative.  I presume they mean "I don't have favourite activities" rather than "I don't want to share my favourite activities"!  One typo corrected.)

  • And finally:

Prob better for comprehension than production. Students rarely sound natural when they use them.
11/2/2014 12:20 AM 
Frequency of use should, I believe, be the guiding factor. For this reason, phrases such as the EFL classic 'raining cats and dogs' are not especially useful. Confronted with a phrase like this (if indeed that ever happened), students would be better positioned if they simply had a range of strategies available to check meaning or ask for clarification. It could be argued, however, that more commonly-used phrases like 'to cut corners' are rather more beneficial. Another possible point might be that phrasal idioms are of slightly more use if the student is going to be regularly engaging with native speakers. If the learner will uses his/her English mainly with other foreign learners or in a mainly academic context, phrasal idioms are even less useful.
11/1/2014 10:08 PM 
understanding them opens a world to global English and multiculturalism
11/1/2014 3:13 PM 
If it's meaningful, teach it when it comes up.
11/1/2014 3:11 PM 
Idioms (if used correctly) can enhance fluency
11/1/2014 2:04 PM 
Idioms should be taught and learnt. Not knowing an idiom may cause serious misunderstandings or even a communication breakdowns. They're a great way of enlarging one's vocabulary and they can help Ss to peek into a different culture.
11/1/2014 1:40 PM 
Idioms, probably not that useful. Someone once said to me (probably jokingly, I don't know their source) that a native speaker on average uses a particular idiom (e.g. raining cats and dogs) once every 7 years.
11/1/2014 8:04 AM 
The most important thing is for students to recognise that the idiom 'to put all your eggs in one basket' is nothing to do with cooking or eggs.
10/31/2014 11:39 AM 
At advanced level. Mostly for understanding less for use
10/31/2014 8:01 AM 
Never really thought about it! I teach them if they come up in the book, but don't go out of my way (!) to find them. Students enjoy them though, especially when they're different in their own language, for example 'In the middle of nowhere' is something like 'the place where foxes say goodnight' in Czech :)
10/31/2014 5:50 AM 
It is useful, but certainly shouldn't be over done. Especially for academic students, they should actually avoid them as they are not well thought of in academic speaking and writing.
10/30/2014 9:05 PM 
Idioms are very important for fluency and native speakers use idioms along with phrasal verbs in everyday speech.
10/30/2014 8:23 PM 
They're essential for the comprehension of higher-level students.
10/29/2014 8:52 AM 
It is useful to recognise them so they can understand them, but we need to ensure we are teaching used idiomatic phrases rather than cliches.
10/27/2014 8:41 PM 
I think it can be entertaining for them, but not particularly useful as idioms are not used as much in language. I prefer to concentrate on collocations and chunks
10/27/2014 7:28 PM 
I'm not sure exactly mean by idiom but if it's something like "a pinch of salt" I'd spend as little time as possible on it unless I was teaching a chef class or something similar.
10/27/2014 12:38 PM 
I think something my students often miss out on is how we can be flexible with some idioms and how we are not with others. I mean, some of them are fixed, while others are not so much. This sort of info seems valuable for my students so that they will know when they hear a variation of an idiom.
10/27/2014 12:35 PM 

(From SurveyMonkey.com as above.  I have corrected one spelling error but otherwise nothing is edited.)


Thoughts and Interpretation


I don't want to draw too many conclusions from this - there's clearly a wide range of opinions among teachers even in a small group.  But it's encouraging to me that people are teaching idioms mindfully, adapting their practices as their thinking develops.  There are also some great ideas here that I may use in future, so thank you again to everyone who shared.  I wouldn't say that my own ideas on idioms have changed as a result of the survey (I belong to the teach-less-than-monthly, more-important-to-understand-than-use, school of thought), however my practices have certainly changed over the last 3 years, and I anticipate that they may change again.  Never say never!


Image made using photos taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @fionamau, Sophia Mavridi, Emma Newman Segev, Martin Eayrs used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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