The preferences of english teachers regarding the teaching of idiomatic expressions in Chilean classrooms in the province of Concepción

Abstract

Idiomatic expressions, or commonly known as idioms, represent a significant part of the English language; however, little is known about them in the Chilean educational context, how they are used, what their meaning and cultural significance. As English teachers, it is important to provide students with every aspect of this language that they are going to be exposed to. In this case, the aspect that we will be covering is the figurative language, which comprises a set of different literary devices, in which the culture of a country can be represented. Yağiz & Izadpanah, (2013) state that “Language and culture are closely connected to each other. Language embodies and transfers culture. Varieties in language use within culture create different views” (p. 957). The previous statement implies that idiomatic expressions enrich a language and help learners understand the way people think in other cultures. Furthermore, it can be suggested that usually the teaching of idiomatic expressions goes unnoticed for different reasons such as the focus on grammar or the memorization of words in the classrooms (Yilorm, 2016), leaving students with a void in regard to this significant topic. To support this argument, Boers, Demelecheer and Eyckmans (2004) expressed that for a long time the teaching of idioms was neglected for three main reasons: the first one suggests that language was particularly focused on grammar, the second reason suggests that idiomatic expressions served as ornamental stuff for the language and the last one suggests that the meaning of idioms is predictable, thus, learners would not have problems understanding them. However, given recent studies such as the “Necessity of idiomatic expressions to English Language learners” by Rana Abid (2016) have shown that idioms or idiomatic expressions have an important role in the language and also a complex use, we have concluded that its teaching should be part of the content in a significant way. As stated before, idiomatic expressions are figurative features of the language and according to Boers, Demecheleer and Eyckmans (2004) “if metaphor is so pervasive in everyday language, then language learners will inevitably be bombarded with figurative expressions throughout their learning process, and they will need to build a large repertoire of figurative expressions for active usage. ”(p.376). In other words, it has been stated that these expressions are highly important for learners given that we as speakers use metaphors in our everyday speech in whatever language we are using.