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Teaching Slang and Idioms can be super fun and entertaining, because as a teacher we can be very creative with the manners we teach this lesson. I feel like it’s a good way to help English learners with fluency in English, specially because when we speak casually, people who are fluent in English use a lot of slang and idioms to talk. Also, in popular music such as Hip-Hop music, in TV shows, movies, a lot of slang and Idioms are used. This is why it’s useful to teach slang and idioms so that the learners also understand how to keep up with a casual conversation. However when teaching slang and Idioms the lessons will be influenced by the teachers hometown, meaning that slang and idioms are not all the same for Canadian English speaker, American English speakers and UK English speakers but as a teacher we can still research some common slang used in different countries and compare some slang that has the same meaning, For example “Bruh”and “Bruv” to say my brother, my friend, one used in America, one used in London. Also, I feel like while teaching slang and idioms, it’s also important to talk about the culture in which they exist. Therefore, to teach American slang and idioms I believe it would be useful the talk about American culture and subculture. Furthermore, even though we can teach slang to any level to introduce them to informal speaking and fluency when they talk, I think it is more suitable for more advanced students because we can go more in depth with the expressions, their meaning and context. Let’s say I decide to teach slang from North America to intermediate or more advanced students I will start by asking the students to talk about what they know about the popular culture and subculture in North America. In the Engage phase I would ask the students if they know any slang or idioms and start from what they know and make a list on the board and brainstorm to get them talking, then from the list they made on the board I could add some more. During the Study phase I would explain more what slang and idioms are and make a little list of some common expressions, and then I could find a video with examples of idioms and slang from American TV shows so they are able to also visualize the context in which these phrases can be used, then they could discuss in small groups what they think those phrases mean based on what they saw in the video. I could also show them another video and ask them to listen for what they think are idioms or slang and make them write it down when they think they found them. Then I would give them a sheet with the answers and go through the definitions with them. Moreover, the list of slang and idioms is long thus, I would have to be careful not to overload them with definitions in one class. During the Activate phase of the lesson I could make them write a really short story with slang and idioms that they’ve learned and then in groups of two, one after the other they could read each other’s short story and where one person has to translate the equivalent of the other person’s story with the formal way. For example one person writes and then reads something like this “ I when to the supermarket and it was nice, it was really quiet there was not a lot people in the super market, everything I bought was only 15 dollars, then I went back home and I went to sleep as soon as I arrived” the other person would translate and say: “ I when to the supermarket, it was cool the supermarket was dead, everything I bought was only 15 box, then I went back home and crashed as soon as I arrived”. After this, depending on the group size we can switch groups so that every student has a chance to work with one another. Maybe have the students perform in front of the class. To conclude, there is a lot of resources on the internet that gives different lists of idioms with their definitions, or online quizz with gap-filling form that could be used to help the students practice. Furthermore, we can find urban dictionaries online that gives definitions and contexts of slang words. To help with teaching a lesson about slang and idioms I made a list of those online resources: https://www.urbandictionary.com/ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/slang/american-slang-dictionary.html https://www.englishclub.com/ref/Slang/American/ https://www.thoughtco.com/idioms-and-expressions-in-context-1210332 https://www.thoughtco.com/idiomatic-phrases-quiz-esl-4074704?quizResult=39df4479 https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-idioms/ https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/language-lab/15-common-english-idioms-and-phrases/ https://www.umass.edu/ipo/sites/default/files/slang.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vse1whECAcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypZkqMvj0v8&t=26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGFqqHk5ic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPaZiSqaOtE&t=674s http://www.idiomsite.com/ https://www.smart-words.org/quotes-sayings/idioms-meaning.html
