Teaching Idiomatic English in Esp. Class

Resumen

More and more researches illustrate a great role of idioms in foreign language education. While a great deal of these researches focuses on the positive impact idioms play in learning foreign languages, there is a need for more empirical research aimed at teaching idiomatic language, which requires effective teaching techniques. The authors of this paper made an attempt to meet this challenge. In this study, the research objective defined by the authors is to prove that humorous stories (anecdotes) promote the acquisition of idioms easily and efficiently. The leading research method was a three-stage experiment. To successfully conduct the experiment, there was compiled a list of ninety frequently used English idioms. Twenty two MA students volunteered to participate in this experiment. The obtained results indicated that the linguistic phenomena are “well-digested”™ when they are presented in the appealing way in the classroom. The paper discusses issues and practices of the techniques implemented in this study for teaching idiomatic English in ESP class and offers general recommendations for foreign language educators.