Impact of L2 Film Instruction and English Idiom Etymology on Iranian EFL learners’ Idiom Learning

Subject Areas : Research in English Language Pedagogy

Firooz Reisi Gahroei ¹ , Omid Tabatabaei ²

1 - Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch
2 - Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch

Received: 2012-08-10 Accepted : 2013-02-14 Published : 2013-02-14

Keywords: Idioms, figurative language, Etymology, Movie clips, Fixed Expressions, Idiomaticity,

Abstract :

By the emergence of new approaches to teach a second language, finding a good method to teach idioms has been the main concern of some researchers (e.g., Elena & Moreno, 2001 Cook, Fazly, & Stevenson, 2007). To the researcher›s best knowledge few studies have been conducted to examine the effect of different methods of teaching idioms to EFL learners. As a result, this study was designed to investigate the effect of teaching the etymology of idioms and using movie clips containing idioms, as two methods of teaching, on the quality of L2 learners› idiom learning. Serving this purpose, teaching idioms through their etymologies and movie clips and also learners› attitudes toward s using such methods (through using questionnaires) were taken into consideration. After administering a standard language proficiency test (OPT), 90 intermediate, out of a pile of 154 L2 learners, were selected and assigned to three groups randomly, two experimental (one etymology and one movie clip group) and one control group. All the groups were given two idiom multiple-choice tests, one as the pre-test and the other one as the post-test. In one experimental group (A), idioms were taught together with their etymologies and in the other experimental group (B), the same idioms were taught by displaying movie clips containing the idioms, while the control group (C) followed the traditional class activities using synonyms and antonyms. The results of one-way ANOVA and post hoc tests revealed that the participants in etymology and movie clip groups had better performance in post-test than in pretest. Moreover, the results of Chi-square revealed that, on the whole, L2 learners had positive attitudes towards using etymology and movie clips in idiom learning.

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