Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, Vol. 02 No.

01, April 2017

INNOVATIVE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IDIOMATIC

EXPRESSIONS FOR EFL LEARNERS

Atiqah Nurul Asri

State Polytechnic of Malang
atiqah.na@gmail.com

Dyah Rochmawati
University of PGRI Adibuana Surabaya
dyra.hadi@yahoo.com

Abstract: Idioms are an important part of acquiring a language and often

indicate proficient learner. English idioms are a part of the cultural
elements of the language which should be mastered by EFL learners. By
developing a clear understanding of figurative language, such as idiomatic
expressions, students can further comprehend texts that contain
metaphorical and lexical meanings beyond the basic word level. However,
learners with cultural literacy and language weakness are often challenged
by idioms. There are several different ways to improve learners‘ idiom
comprehension. The present article investigates what types of innovative
teaching approaches and methods can be used when teaching idiomatic
expressions to learners of English. It suggests that idioms need to be
learned so increasing the learners‘ awareness of these unique words and
phrases can help them learn to identify and interpret them with greater
success.

Key words: idiomatic expressions, teaching, EFL learners.

INTRODUCTION
The 21st century skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving,
creativity, and collaboration demand teachers to increase learner effectiveness and
efficiency as well as learner engagement and satisfaction (Kim, 2011).
Consequently, they must create a stimulating and effective learning environment
which brings about more positive student attitudes toward learning.
This kind of innovative teaching becomes necessity when teaching English
idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions are phrases that carry different
meanings than the literal definition of their component words. Therefore, there are
some problems in both processes of understanding and translating them.
Understanding idiomatic expressions is considered to be problematic for
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learner. Idioms are often unpredictable in
meaning, that is, their meanings cannot always be derived from the literal
meanings of the constituent parts (Strakšiene, 2009). Many idiomatic phrases
appear to be decomposable or analyzable, with the meanings of their parts
contributing independently to their overall figurative meaning. Quite possibly,

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EFL learners are unfamiliar with both the words in the expression and the
expression itself. Usually, they first analyze the literal level. For instance, "It's
raining cats and dogs," means it is raining extensively, but they usually get the
meaning of ―dogs and felines are falling from the sky‖. Another example is the
idiom "He kicked the bucket" meaning that someone has died, but they would
picture a man literally kicking a bucket down a road.
In addition, even though idioms are considered to be one of the ―hardest
and most interesting parts of the English vocabulary‖ they can be culturally-
restricted (Strakšiene, 2009) meaning that it can be ―valid only within a particular
culture‖ (Webster‟s Third New International Dictionary, 2002).Culture plays an
important role in the course of the idiom interpretation. It, therefore, requires
enhancing cross-cultural awareness and needs open – minded understanding of the
culture of the second language from different aspects. (Al-Shawi & Mahadi,
2012). Each language has its own idiomatic expressions, although they can vary
across borders. In America, when one is accused of being crazy, he is referred to
as "off the wall" or "over the deep end." In the United Kingdom, he may be
"sixpence short of a shilling," "mad as a bag of ferrets" or "mad as a box of frogs."
Differences in idiomatic expressions within a single language can lead to
confusion and misunderstanding (Shapely, n.d.). Fei (2005) has suggested that
―when understanding metaphors in cross-cultural communication, people tend to
transplant their own cognitive mode of a metaphor into another, which becomes
the main reason of the misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication.‖
Furthermore, the scarcity of teaching materials and the lack of a clear
methodology make idioms a stumbling block for EFL students. This leads the
teaching and learning of idioms to be a hard task (Rohani & Ketabi, 2012; Saleh
&Zakaria, 2013).
However, learning idiomatic expressions in English may bring about some
benefits for EFL learners. Firstly, learning the idiomatic expressions of another
language will be a guide to understanding the humor and character of that culture
as idioms constitute an important cultural element of the language. Secondly, it
helps them grasp the peculiarities of the English language
(Shapely, n.d.).
Traditional methods of teaching idioms focus on rote learning and
memorization. They are time- and effort-consuming, as learners picked up idioms
discretely without associations between forms and meanings (Chen & Lei, 2013).
There has been the need of a flexible and dynamic approach towards the
teaching of English idioms. This paper therefore attempts to provide a strategy for
the teaching and learning of idioms in the EFL classroom which, in turn, build up
their metaphoric competence, while making the learning experience enjoyable. It
may offer some useful guidelines to teachers of English on improvement of their
methodological strategies used for teaching idiomatic expressions.

WHAT IS AN IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION?

The word 'idiom' is a Greek term meaning 'own or 'peculiar.' An idiom is a
figurative expression that can usually be interpreted literally but that takes a non-
literal meaning when used in a specific context (Rohani & Ketabi, 2012). Idioms
are pervasive in the English language. They are used in formal style and in slang.
Idioms may appear in poetry, literature, in Shakespeare language and, even, in

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Bible. Idiom is ―a number of words which, taken together, mean something

different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand
alone.‖(McMordiew, 1983: 4). An idiomatic expression ―let the cat out of the
bag‖, for instance, is composed of several words (let/the/cat/out/of/the/bag) whose
individual meanings do not seem to contribute to the meaning of the idiom as a
whole, i.e. ―reveal a secret‖.
There are three sub-classes of idioms according to Fernando (1996: 35)
cited in Strakšiene (2009) and Shojaei (2012):
1. Pure idioms: a type of conventionalized, non literal multiword expression,
fully opaque, e.g. ―kick the bucket‖
2. Semi-idioms: having one or more literal constituents and one with non-
literal sub sense, partly opaque.
3. Literal idioms: invariable and allowing little variation, transparent or can be
interpreted on the basis of their parts.

More specifically, idioms can be broken down into several categories (Badger,
n.d.):

1. Simile idioms
These idiomatic expressions compare one object or action to another using the
words "like" or "as." For example, the expression "like two peas in a pod"
describes how two things are similar or close in nature, by comparing them to peas
which grow together in a pod. "Light as a feather" and "busy as a bee" are two
other examples of simile-based idiomatic expressions.

2. Phrasal verbs idioms

These idiomatic expressions function as verbs. They usually contain one or more
individual verbs and prepositions that, when used together in a sentence, act as a
single verb. For example, the phrasal verb "to get away with" is used to mean
"avoid punishment" as in the sentence, "She will get away with stealing that car."

3. Metaphorical idioms
The metaphorical idiom is a phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is inferred
to another, making an implicit comparison (Tang, 2007).It compares two
situations, objects or actions. However, idioms based on metaphors do not use the
words "like" or "as" to connect the two ideas. For example, a "carrot and stick
method," is used to mean a method of coercion. It compares the situation at hand
to the practice of luring stubborn horse or mule by dangling a carrot in front of
him and prodding with a stick behind.

4. Aphorisms
Aphorisms are idiomatic expressions intended to convey wisdom or morals. They
are also colloquially called "sayings," widely read books, famous speeches or other
texts. They contain profound philosophical truths in short, easy-to-remember
sentences, for example:
 Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old age regret. [Benjamin
Disraeli]

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Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, Vol. 02 No. 01, April 2017

 Life‟s Tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. [Benjamin
Franklin]
 Yesterday is but today‟s memory, and tomorrow is today‟s dream. [Khalil
Gibran]

5. Cultural and Historical Idioms

These idiomatic expressions deal with landmark events and important historical
figures. They are therefore particular to certain cultures. For example, in the United
States, "John Hancock" means to provide a signature. This expression references
one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock, whose
signature is one of the largest and most distinct on the document. Another example
is "Honest Abe." This idiom alludes to the fabled honesty of Abraham Lincoln, the
16th president of the United States.

TEACHING IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS WITH INNOVATIONS

Traditionally, the teaching of idiomatic expressions has fallen into neglect
and been conducted by presenting idiomatic expressions in isolation, as though
they were an obscurity of language. More recent materials illustrate ―figurative
usages with cartoons, group them under topics (e.g. weather, food, colors, etc), list
them in vocabulary sections, accompany them with their literal paraphrase or
insert them in random sentences as to provide contextual clues for their
interpretation. Whichever the case, nevertheless, students are not provided with
the necessary tools to come to terms with figurative usages, but rather ―they come
to think of English idioms as though they were the anomalous creations of a
whimsical people‖ (Rodriguez & Moreno, 2009).
Rodriguez and Moreno (2009) further stated that the traditional teaching of
idioms constituted rote learning and memorization. In this kind of teaching, even
though the students memorize chunks of language and practice them frequently,
the students will forget them immediately. The memorization of figurative
expressions which at first sight present a clear mismatch between form and
meaning creates a heavy learning burden on the student, which usually leads to a
lack of motivation and failure in comprehension, retention, and production of
idioms. In this regard, the role of the teacher in reducing the learning burden of
the students is essential. Instead of fostering learning idioms by heart, the teacher
should draw attention to systematic patterns which underlie such expressions.
Adequate knowledge and appropriate use of idioms in an EFL setting is an
important indicator of communicative competence of English. The comprehension
and productions of idioms is included in the figurative competence which includes
a set of abilities, such as the skill to decode the various (dominant, peripheral,
polysemous) meanings of a word, the ability to suspend a literal-referential
strategy, to produce novel figurative expressions and to construct a coherent
semantic representation related to a given figurative expression (Andreou &
Galantomos, 2008).
Thus, to create a meaningful environment for EFL learners to use idioms,
the present paper suggests some innovative teaching strategies in which the

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learners learn idioms for purposes and then use the idioms in meaningful contexts.
They are presented as follows:

Using idioms in essay writing

One of the ways to present idiomatic expressions in EFL contexts is by
integrating it into the teaching of essay writing as suggested by Chen and Lai
(2013). They integrated the teaching of metaphorical idioms into the teaching of
narrative and descriptive essay writing as illustrated below:
1. The teacher asked the students to write a three- to four-paragraph essay
describing an experience of being extremely angry.
2. After submitting the first draft, the students were introduced to the concept of
metaphors.
3. Two-page handouts were distributed in class as the teaching materials. The
content was a few idioms as examples.
4. To illustrate the concept of metaphor, a short article about issues of emotion
controls was given on the first page of the handout; the students were asked to
read over the article and to circle the idiomatic expressions used in it. Figure 1
is the sample handout.

Metaphor—Make Language Lively

Read the following article. Identify and circle metaphors used in it (including words,
phrases & idioms).

Managing the Emotions

People manage their emotions in different ways, depending on their personality and the
culture they live in. In western culture, for instance, crying is usually seen as a sign of
weakness, especially for men. Research has shown, however, that crying it out makes people
feel better. So perhaps we should encourage our children to wear their hearts on their sleeves
more often. It has become a widely accepted idea that, instead of bottling up the emotions, one
should ventilate one‘s emotions once in a while. One should blow off steam in order to avoid
sudden explosions.
However, one emotion may prove to be an exception: anger. In fact, ventilating anger is
one of the worst ways to cool down: outbursts of rage typically pump up the arousal, leaving
people feeling angrier, not less. When people blow up at the person who has provoked their
anger, their rage not only peaks during the outbursts, but the angry mood is also prolonged.
After reaching their boiling point, these people keep fuming much longer.
A far more effective way of managing anger is to simmer down first, and then, in a more
constructive manner, confront the person to settle a dispute. Imagine that someone pushes you
aside in a crowd. Your first thought may be ―How rude!‖ That reflex may then be followed by
more negative thoughts: ―He could have hurt me! I can‘t let him get away with that.‖ Then, if
someone else behind you bump into you because you have slowed down, you are apt to erupt in
rage at that person too. Now imagine a more positive line of thought toward the man who
pushed you aside: ―Maybe he had a good reason, such as an emergency.‖ Your may be cool
down by thinking like this, and could dismiss the anger with a laugh.
Figure 1. The sample handout 1 (Chen & Lai, 2013)
5. The teacher then led the students to think about general metaphoric themes of
the idiomatic expressions, and to draw linking diagrams for expressions which
belonged to the same metaphoric themes. In the meantime, the teacher

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Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, Vol. 02 No. 01, April 2017

explained to the students that the linking diagrams were the logical mappings
for the metaphors (i.e., metaphoric mappings).
6. The teacher then directed the students to complete the exercise on the second
page of the handout: to create metaphoric mappings for the idiomatic
expressions of anger. Figure 2 is the sample handout.

English has a lot of expressions to describe emotions. Take anger for example. Some of these
are very common: she‟s angry. He‟s mad at you. To make your language more varied, other
expressions can be used to specify the kind of anger.

Following are 15 expressions. Think about the corresponding characteristics and relationships
between anger and comparable concepts, and briefly write down these relationships.
Anger is fire.
If you add fuel to the fire, the fire will rise up What he said added fuel to the fire.
and become stronger  add fuel to the fire = He made an inflammatory remark.
make angry person much angrier! He was hot under the collar.
She was breathing fire.
She exploded.
Anger is the hot fluid in a container
She is all steamed up.
I am boiling with anger.
She flipped her lid.
She blew up at me.
Simmer down.
Angry people are dangerous animals.
He has a ferocious temper.
He unleashed his anger.
Don‘t snap at me.
Don‘t bite my heat off.
He was breathing fire
Figure 2. The sample handout 2 (Chen & Lai, 2013)
7. The handouts were collected back to the teacher after the students completed
the exercise.
8. In the end of the class, the students were told to revise their first draft at home,
and were encouraged to integrate as many idiomatic expressions as possible.
They submitted both the original and the revised essays a week later. The
essays were then analyzed by the teacher to investigate how the students used
idiomatic expressions.

Creating conversation using idioms

In this teaching strategy, not only the students understand the idioms; they
also learn how to use them contextually. As most idioms belong to simple
categories, e.g. idioms with time, animals, parts of body, etc. the teacher can ask
the students to have some categories and find some sample idioms under the
chosen categories. Then, they use them in simple conversations where the
meanings of the idioms are clearly understood. Here are the strategies:

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1. To introduce the idiom to give someone a hard time, for example, the
teacher may present a conversation such as this one:

Juan: Hey Sarah, you look sad. What‟s up?

Sarah: Well, I didn‟t play very well today during volleyball practice and
my teammates were not very understanding. They said I was
clumsy and had to focus more on the game. They said a 5-year old
girl played better than me.
Juan: Oh! I‟m so sorry they gave you such a hard time.

2. After introducing this conversation, the teacher can ask the students to guess
or figure out the meaning of the idiom. They may correct as necessary and
ask them to provide other examples of what it means to give someone a hard
time. Then, they can move on to another conversation for another idiom.
3. This practice may continue by having the students write conversations with
the given idioms. Firstly, the teacher can divide the class into pairs. Each
pair of students gets one or two idioms to work with. They must write a
conversation and use this idiom in it. The teacher may walk around the
classroom to assist students and check for accuracy.
4. The students may act out the conversations they have written. In this
instance, each pair stands before their classmates and acts out the
conversation they have written. This way they not only practice using the
idiom phrases, they hear other examples from classmates, other ways in
which these idioms may be included in conversation (Pesce, n.d.).

Using real life or authentic materials

Basically, anything can be used as authentic material. The sources of
authentic materials that can be used in the classroom are infinite (Berardo, 2006).
By using authentic materials, a teacher can exemplify how idioms are used in the
media, in newspaper and magazine articles, and in songs, cartoons, videos,
advertisements, etc. It is, in particular, concerned with the use of authentic texts.
In this activity, by using newspaper, for instance, students do not need to read the
entire article, just the headline and the basics. The important thing is that the
students can understand how this idiom is used in a newspaper headline. The
students need to know that there are real people out there who actually speak and
say such idioms. Afterwards, they may feel ready to start using some of these
themselves (Pesce, n.d).
To use English language newspaper in teaching idiom, a teacher may take
the following steps as suggested by Clandfield & Foord (2000).
1. Give each group of four or five students a newspaper and a piece of paper.
2. Tell the students that they have ten minutes to make a quiz based on that
section of the newspaper. The quiz deals with the idiomatic expressions the
students encounter in the newspaper.
3. In groups, the students write five questions. In the meantime, the teacher may
circulate and monitor, check the grammar and spelling in the questions and
make sure that questions are not too difficult. Figure 4 is a sample question.

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Journal of English Teaching Adi Buana, Vol. 02 No. 01, April 2017

Look at the following idioms. What do you think they mean? Check with a dictionary.

1. to face music
2. to bite the bullet
3. to take the gloves off
4. to call the shots
5. to make a killing
Figure 3. A sample question
4. When the groups are finished, they pass the paper and the questions to another
group. In this instance the teacher may set a time limit for new groups to do
the quiz. They may repeat the process if they have time. Afterwards, they may
do feedback and check the answers to the quizzes.
This activity is good to practice the reading skill of scanning for information as
well as dictionary use.
Another authentic material that may be used in this instance is the Internet
since it large amounts of varied material being easily accessible . The Internet
contains teaching materials which make it possible to teach every language skill.
In addition, it is continuously updated, more visually stimulating as well as being
interactive (Berardo, 2006). There is a wide range of websites available for
teaching idioms such as discussions, definitions, divisions of idioms into
categories, dramatization, drawing, storytelling, games, audio and video activities
etc.
One of the examples of teaching idioms using the internet is suggested by
Henry (http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-
plans/figurative-language-teaching-idioms-254.html?tab=4) as follow:
1. The teacher asks the students to go online and type this address
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/idioms/ on their
browser. They are then directed to Eye on Idioms site and click Start Here
button, and do the exercises in completing the provided sentences by choosing
the correct idiom from the list. After that, the students are asked to identify the
metaphorical meaning of the idioms, use them in a sentence to indicate their
understanding of each meaning, and print their works because the application
does not provide save button.

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Figure 4. The display of Eye on Idioms home site

Figure 5. A sample of the exercise on Eye on Idioms site

2. After completing the online activity, the students are asked to research the
origins of each idiom and type a short passage to explain how the origins of
the phrase relate to its metaphorical meaning. They may also write about their
personal experiences with each idiom and how those experiences help them to
determine its metaphorical meaning.
3. As a final project, it is suggested that students compile their printed idioms
and typed passages and bind them together to make an idiom book which can
be used as a reference for their own reading and writing in the future.

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Using exercises of problem solving

The students also need to be provided with exercises of problem solving to
help them understand the hidden meaning of the idiomatic expressions. Besides,
this strategy allows the students to use their cognitive abilities to relate and
compare the meaning of those expressions with their own native language and
culture. As suggested by Lennon (1998) in Rohani and Ketabi (2012), comparing
differences between the metaphors in the target language and the students‘ native
language are effective in learning idiomatic expressions. Moreover, she believed
that ―the students will become highly motivated to translate their language‘s
metaphors into the target language so as to share with the class their own culture
method of metaphor encoding.‖
Below is an example of problem solving exercise that may be used in the
teaching of idioms as suggested by Lennon (1998) in Figure 7.

Try to work out the meaning of these idioms. Do you have idioms in your
language which have the same meaning as some of these?
1) To be born with a silver spoon in one‘s mouth
2) To kick the bucket
3) To have a bone to pick with someone

Figure 6. A sample problem solving exercise

Making idiom posters

Concrete, student-made tools, such as idiom posters may be used to
develop the students‘ idiomatic competence (Tompkins, 2001). These posters
illustrate literal and figurative meanings of idioms as part of the instructional
process for teaching figurative language.
The sample idiom posters are presented in Figure 8 below.

Figure 7. A sample idiom poster

(http://headoverheelsforteaching.blogspot.com/2012/07/idiom-posters.html)

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These posters are colorful and self-explanatory. They show idioms, their
definitions or meanings used in a sentence, along with a picture of what they
actually mean. They help the students recall idioms.

CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, idioms, indeed, constitute a notoriously difficult area of
foreign language learning and teaching because, by definition, idioms are
conventionalized expressions whose overall meaning cannot be determined from
the meaning of their constituent parts. Moreover, they are culturally-determined.
However, objects which are more common to people‘s lives are often included
into metaphorical expressions. Understanding idioms are often problematic for
EFL learners.
To teach idiomatic expressions with innovations, a teacher may apply the
following strategies: (1) using idioms in essay writing, (2) creating conversations
using idioms, (3) using authentic materials, (4) using exercises of problem
solving, and (5) making idiom posters. These are useful ways to teach and review
idioms.

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