Teach English in Weizhou Zhen - Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou —

In my experience as a ELS teacher, one-to-one or for small groups of students, I have been concerned about the way English is taught in Italy into the process of learning idioms and how italians understimate it as not an important part of their learning process. That is, at my advice, very invalidating, because the italian language push you to translate word by word, and with this mechanism, idioms are hard to get and can be confusing. For me, in my lessons, the integration of idioms is a very important part in the teaching process of English. I widely believe that idioms help teachers and students to promote an innovative environment of communication and has a great influence in the learning process of a foreign language, because it could be one of the ways to give students better conditions to improve communicative skill in the daily context. Moreover, the common use of idioms in daily speech for English speakers has brought a necessity in the teaching field to implement the use of this tool in order to help students be competitive, increase their vocabulary and the informal way to speak in English. I realized it more clearely when two of my students who have the chance to travel abroad, have concluded that learning idioms is one of the most important issues in English. When these students were in UK they experienced many difficulties even if they were able to speak English because they did not understand the meaning of many idioms that native speakers use in their daily conversation. It’s for that, based on the above statements and my experience travelling overseas, I always remember to my new students that it is vey important to know that native speakers of a language use idioms all the time (like italians does!), and that they will be often embarrassed and frustrated if they cannot understand the idiom a person is using. For thay a strong knowledge of idioms will help students be better speakers. The high number of idioms and their high frequency in discourse make them an important aspect of vocabulary. Finally, since idiomatic expressions are so frequently encountered in both spoken and written discourse, this issue requires special attention in language programs where the purpose is to help students improve their communicative skill. An exemple of that is this experience I had: at the beginning of one of my one-to-one course, the student did not know how to understand and use idioms correctly in his process of learning English as foreign language. Also, he was not aware of the importance and advantages of idioms. In a few words, he was not ready to use idioms. He even not considerated to put them in our program. But after I develop several workshops, it was clear that the use of idioms helped him learn new vocabulary, improve his communicative skill based on the use of idioms in his spoken/written English. He was motivated in classes, also he felt happy because was finally able to make dialogues, make sentences and understand texts with idioms. And so, working with idioms with him has been difficult, but this issue become a challenge for me and him because I did not have an authentic context to support the educational process, so I got him involved in the real world, watching movies, listening songs, reading books. At the end of our english learning plan, he went overseas and text me that “when people learn English idioms, you take English out of textbook and get involved into the real world. Everybody is able to speak English but it is the idioms in the language that give it a natural, conversational, and creative feel.” And I really belive in that. Because my english at the beginning was just a “school english” with a lot of grammar and no conversation, was make me unable to speak fluently. For the se reasons mentioned above, learning idiomatic expressions is a very necessary and important part of the language learning process; likewise, the English language can be considered as being made up of two components: textbooks and natural English. The textbook form of English is composed using proper English vocabulary, while strictly adhering to the rules of English grammar. The sentences in textbook English are necessarily grammatically correct and complete in all respects. The natural form of English, on the other hand, allows liberal use of slang, jargon, phrases and idioms, lending a colorful hue to the language. Natural English is spoken at an informal level, and if the words do not make much sense literally, but when used in the idiomatic sense create a magical effect in the language. Idioms make the English language sound very warm, informal, easy-going, interesting and creative. And about this, I use to introduce also some slang in some learning activity and when the student level allow it, because, also if slang is only for a verbal comunication, there is nothing in the definition of slang which renders slang absolutely separate from idiom and the two can even overlap. I would say, as well, that there is no rule as to how old a slang has to be in order for it to be considered an idiom. So, what was still slang during the 1990’s, for example, could be idiom today. There is also no rule that idioms are informal. Idioms can be informal, formal, OR slang. If an idiom is still young enough to be considered slang by many people hearing it, it is hard to tell the difference. So, while not all slang is idiom, not all idiom is different than slang. Idioms change rapidly compared to other words. They typically serve social cohesiveness functions within groups. Young people may not use the idiom “Its raining cats and dogs” while people of earlier generations may not say, “hold on”. Typical lists of idioms used by speech and language pathologists don’t begin to scratch the surface of the amount of idioms actually used in everyday language. For that I usually take the freedom of teach a combination of both to make sure that all the different shades of verbal English are fullfilled. I hope in my job to give always much more tool to my students to enjoy the real life experience to speak a fluent english without feeling...a fish out of the water as we say in Italian! References Campbell, J. (1968). A short guide to action research. Corelli, L. (2005). Idioms: Piece of Cake or Hard Nut to Crack? Flowler, H. Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Gillett, A. (2004). Speak English like an American. Learn the idioms and expressions that will help you speak like a native. Language Success Press. Niergarth, E. (2007). The Idiom book 1010 idioms.