Методика преподавания языка | Филологический аспект: Методика преподавания языка и литературы Методика преподавания языка и литературы Июнь 2020 - Июль 2020, № 2 (5)

Обучение английским идиомам на старшей ступени вуза

Ярыгина Ольга Николаевна
старший преподаватель кафедры английского языка и методики преподавания, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет, Россия, г. Белгород, yarygina@bsu.edu.ru
Бабанина Ольга Николаевна
ассистент кафедры английского языка и методики преподавания, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет, Россия, г. Белгород, babanina@bsu.edu.ru

Аннотация: В данной статье представлен практический опыт применения наиболее эффективных техник обучения английским идиомам на старшей ступени обучения студентов вуза. Подчеркивается значимость работы как в креативном формате (сторителлинг и билингвальные сценки), так и анализа оригинальной литературы с целью освоения индивидуально-авторских фразеологизмов в авторском дискурсе англоязычных писателей.
Ключевые слова: идиома, фразеомастерская английского языка, авторский дискурс, Джулиан Барнс

Yarygina Olga Nikolaevna
Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and Teaching Methodology, Belgorod National Research University, Russia, Belgorod, yarygina@bsu.edu.ru
Babanina Olga Nikolaevna
Assistant Professor at the Department of English and Teaching Methodology, Belgorod National Research University, Russia, Belgorod, babanina@bsu.edu.ru

Abstract: The paper highlights the significance of teaching English idioms to senior students as the core component of their cultural and linguistic education. Sharing the practical experience of teaching English idioms, the authors underline both the creative format of students’ acquisition of idioms (storytelling and bilingual fairy tales performances) and the profound way of analysing original literature with an emphasis on Julian Barnes’s idioms.
Keywords: English idiom, English Idioms Workshops, mind mapping, storytelling, teaching, author’s discourse, Julian Barnes

Every language is unique and culturally-specific. To master a foreign language means to master its culture. It is widely known that idioms represent the most colourful, still complex heritage of any language. Using idioms in everyday speech equips students with a large and effective vocabulary to sound like a native speaker.

To help students do so, as well as to increase engagement with senior students, in 2014, a free English Club called English Idioms Workshops “In the Land of Mastered Idioms” (Yarygina O.N.©) was founded at Belgorod National Research University. Being extra-curriculum monthly English get-togethers, the outcomes of the workshops have proved to increase students’ motivation and engagement in learning English idioms in a more creative and profound way. Here’s the list of suggested student-centred activities:

• Literal and Metaphorical Context-based Activities

To ‘feel’ the idiom, students are taught to differentiate literal and metaphorical meanings. A great number of contexts are suggested to them in order to define whether the idioms contained in them are literally or metaphorically used (Cf. I’ve got uncle at sea. / I’m all at sea.). Feeling the discrepancy in the literal and metaphorical usage of idioms, students learn how to better and deeper analyse any literal discourse which is very helpful while reading the original literature.

• Matching, Mind mapping and Storytelling

To make it easier to memorize any list of new vocabulary, one should pick out any topic of idioms (“Memory Idioms”, for instance) and create a mind map around it with the most frequently used memory idioms (for example, commit sth to memory, bear/keep sth in mind, it slips my mind, etc. [1]), do the matching activity (idiom- definition) and then make up a group story using all of them. Telling a story can help students understand and remember the meaning behind the words. Doing it in a fun and low-stressed way doubles the success of learning. Furthermore, “anyone who works hard at enriching his vocabulary has every chance to achieve higher grades and results in acquiring English. The students with better vocabulary repertoire, undoubtedly, produce a better quality of writing and speaking” [2].

• Bilingual Fairy Tales Performances

For ESL students it is always beneficial to get the notion of English idioms through the comparison with the native language ones. In this regard, bilingual fairy tales contribute greatly to master the idiomatic language [3]. The teaching process turns out to be a real creative workshop. Here, the teacher functions as a director first and then as the audience whereas the students have the green light to realize their acting talent on stage, and the idiom learning process becomes a part of their own drama experience, group collaboration.

“The Roll” / «Колобок», staged and performed in 2016, Belgorod National Research University

“The Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood” / «Волк и Красная Шапочка» (contemporary version), staged and performed in 2017, Belgorod National Research University

• Reading and Analyzing Original Literature (group work)

A true thought-provoking and rewarding activity to introduce English idioms is to provide them in the authentic literary context.

The study of Konopatskaya et al. helped their MA students to consolidate new idioms through humorous texts. As the authors put it, they have much evidence to suggest that MA students benefit from activities aimed at learning idioms through anecdotes and humoresques [4].

As for the way of acquiring new idioms we suggest here, it is connected with focusing on English literary extracts. Thus, within English Idioms Workshops, BSU students were offered to analyse some illustrative passages taken from Julian Barnes’s “England, England”. In these classes, ESL learners get, on the one hand, the original idiom environment and, on the other one, perceive a writer’s individual codes which reflect the writer’s conception of reality and help students get the notion of functions of the idioms occurred in the discourse [5].

In conclusion, it should be noted that acquiring a new language is more than learning its grammar and vocabulary. There is a need for cultural literacy in language teaching because learners come across “significant hardship” in communicating meaning to native speakers as a result of being unexposed to cultural elements of the L2 society [6]. The experience of running the BSU English Club “English Idioms Workshops: In the Land of Mastered Idioms” allows us to come to the conclusion that it meets these needs of the contemporary language learning process. Correspondingly, all the teaching techniques (matching, mind mapping, storytelling, bilingual fairy tales) suggested in the article under study proved to contribute significantly to BSU senior students’ cultural awareness as well as to motivate them to boost up both their general English idioms vocabulary and perceive various types of registered and individual author’s idioms. All this facilitates the communicative process and helps overcome the language barrier to reach a new level of communication.

1. McСarthy M., O’Dell F. English Idioms in Use. Intermediate, fourth edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 190p.
2. Syunina A. S., Yarmakeev I. E., Pimenova T. S. & Abdrafikova A. R. Killing more than two birds with one stone: Teaching topical vocabulary through idioms. Cypriot Journal of Educational Science. No. 13(4). 2018. P. 604-612.
3. Kuz’min S.S. Idiomatic Translation from Russian into English (theory and practice). 3rd edition, revised. Мoscow: Flinta : Nauka Publishing House, 2006. 312 p.
4. Konopatskaya A., Yarmakeev I., Pimenova T. & Abdrafikova A. Teaching idiomatic English in esp. class, Revista QUID (Especial Issue), 2017. P. 1783-1788.
5. Yarygina O.N. Processual Idioms as Reflection of Julian Barnes’s Discourse // Philological Aspect: International Journal of Research and Practice. 2017. No.7. P. 107-113. Available at: http://scipress.ru/philology/?p=0000 (Accessed: 21.03.2020)
6. Rizq W. M. Teaching English Idioms to L2 Learners: ESL Teachers’ Perspective. (A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of St. Cloud State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts - English: English as a second language), 2015. Available at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/19 (Accessed: 14.04.2020)