Search
A helpful book that explores research and tips on effectively teaching idioms to students
Cat Got Your Tongue asks and answers the question of why idioms are so hard for students to learn and instructors to teach. In other words, why are we often left “tongue-tied” in our classrooms?
The book takes a look at learning and teaching idioms from two perspectives. First, it provides a survey of recent work on learning and teaching idioms from diverse perspectives in the linguistics and education research literature. The authors focus on various definitions of idioms from theoretical to pedagogical and discuss how different definitions and conceptions of idioms lead to different teaching practices and curriculum.
In the second part of the book, the authors take a close look effective classroom practices from around the world. Specifically, they present the results of survey and interview studies of English language teachers and students and present the most effective lessons that instructors have created to address the needs of learners in their specific settings. Teaching idioms is often an aspect of vocabulary learning and reading instruction that teachers fear and even avoid. Anyone seeking insights from recent research studies as well as some specific tips and lesson ideas will find this resource useful.
Cat Got Your Tongue is available for purchase from the TESOL website or through other new and used booksellers. It is also available for check out from the Hunter College Library. A sample chapter is available on the TESOL website.
Idioms and idiomatic language are some of the most interesting and creative vocabulary terms to learn in any language, but – as summarized in Chapter 2 of Cat Got Your Tongue – linguists and educators have offered a variety of definitions for idioms over the years. In short, idioms are terms and phrases that are “semantically opaque” in that their meanings are neither transparent nor literal interpretations.
For example, “keep your eye on the ball” does not literally mean to put the ball in your eye. In chapter 2, the authors describe a variety of aspects of idioms including:
1) non-compositionality or transparency as illustrated in “keep your eye on the ball”;
2) fixed and formulaic expressions that learners remember as whole phrases not as individual parts, i.e. “What’s up?”;
3) core idioms and metaphors such as “Light Is Knowledge” that provide the basis for idioms such as “to see the light” and “it dawned on me”;
4) pragmatic and discourse meanings that idioms provide such as the use of the idioms “by the way” and “on the contrary.”
Idioms and idiomatic language are some of the most interesting and creative vocabulary terms to learn in any language, but – as summarized in Chapter 2 of Cat Got Your Tongue – linguists and educators have offered a variety of definitions for idioms over the years. In short, idioms are terms and phrases that are “semantically opaque” in that their meanings are neither transparent nor literal interpretations.
For example, “keep your eye on the ball” does not literally mean to put the ball in your eye. In chapter 2, the authors describe a variety of aspects of idioms including:
1) non-compositionality or transparency as illustrated in “keep your eye on the ball”;
2) fixed and formulaic expressions that learners remember as whole phrases not as individual parts, i.e. “What’s up?”;
3) core idioms and metaphors such as “Light Is Knowledge” that provide the basis for idioms such as “to see the light” and “it dawned on me”;
4) pragmatic and discourse meanings that idioms provide such as the use of the idioms “by the way” and “on the contrary.”