On Teaching Approaches of Teaching English Idioms

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校园英语 / 高等教育
On Teaching Approaches of Teaching English Idioms
北华大学师范分院/富丽丽
【Abstract】language is the most useful device of people’s communication. As the essence of language, idioms reflect culture,history and religious belief. Though we learn English idioms most oftenly, idioms still become one of the most difficult areas of foreign language learning for a non-native English speaker. Thus, trying to learn them well have a prefound influence on Chinese students’foreign language learning.
【Key words】significance; hypotheses; teaching approaches
I. The Significance of Learning English Idioms
Tthere were a lot of English idioms exsiting in political debates, records of psychoanalysis, fiction esp. in America’s oral English. Idioms provide users with ready-made phrases that express clear agreed meaning.They are not only related to culture, but also reflect some cultural origins. To learn English idioms is benefitial for student’s knowing western culture, religious beliefs, history and so on .
II. Four Hypotheses of Comprehension of English idioms
There are four hypotheses of comprehension of English idioms, which are quite accepted by people.
2.1 idiomatist hypothesis
When learners meet idioms, they think about literal meaning first. Until they found that meaning is not fit for the context, they search for rhetorical meaning of idioms in their memory. We can take this as an example, “ Walls have ears.” When learners see this idiom, they will firstly understand it just according to its literal meaning. And then, they will ask themselves: “ Do walls have ears?”Because of negative answer, they start to search its rhetorical meaning which means bewaring of eavesdroppers.
2.2 Lexical reprsentation
In this hypothesis, idioms are regarded as longer words and stored like any other words in learners’ memory. When they see idioms again, literal meaning and rhetorical meaning are appeared simultaneously to wait for being chosen.
2.3 Direct access hypothesis
Learners directly use rhetorical meaning of idioms with ignorance of literal meaning of English idioms. Most of native speakers can use it.
2.4 Composition model
When learners esp.native speakers see idioms, they firstly think whether these linked words form a meaningful phrases, then futher analyze it.They omit steps of analyzing vocabularies, syntax and semanteme. They more easily understand idioms which literal meanings are similar to their rhetorical meanings than those are quite different.
III. Teaching approaches of teaching English idioms
3.1 Teaching by association
People use information to form images that can adapt to the expressed context and then store them. Information associated with each other is remembered together. if learners recall two or much more images from their memory, they can purposely choose some of them to create a new one. When students remember English idioms that unsimilar to Chinese ones ,they tend to focus on English image and follow the model like this, the English name of English image-the Chinese name of English image-the Chinese name of Chinese image. Hense, teachers can help students use the way to learn idioms, that is, the more associated words we remember, the much more chance to get what we want.
3.2 Teaching by learning rhetoric
Many English idioms have rhetorical meaning. They can be divided into three types, phonetic rhetoric,vocabulary rhetoric and grammatical rhetoric. Rhetoric has close relation to English idioms. To learn rhetoric by means of classification must help learn English idioms. The process of classifying is also a process of learning rhetoric, which are mutual benefit.
3.3 Penetration into western culture
Every language is part of a culture or custom.To learn English idioms must have a knowledge of its culture and custom. Not understanding the cultural association will result in misunderstanding. Thus, teachers should help students widen students’knowledge of western culture, helping them understand the origins of English idioms, the formative characteristics of them and so on. In any case penetration into culture can’t be ignored.
English idioms are wildly used in oral English, lecture, and all kinds of written materials. Teaching English idioms becomes crucial to foreign language teaching practice. Rich and coloful as it may be, it also results in puzzle and confusion. There are many factors that are influential in teaching English idioms, and teachers should pay attention to these obstacles and dealing with them.
Reference:
[1]Chen shifa,A Preliminary exploration on the Memory Model of English Idioms,foreign language education,Qu fu,2001.
[2]常晨光,戴凡.语篇中的英语习语[J].外语教学.广州,2003.
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