The Contribution of Movie Clips to Idiom Learning Improvement of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

Learning idioms in a foreign language in which there are numerous problems in exposing the learners to authentic situations has faced many pedagogical difficulties. Many researchers (Gibbs, 1992: Honeck, 1997: Simpson & Mendi, 2003) have tried to know more about the process of idiom learning and the effect of mother tongue on understanding idioms, because idioms are among the difficult areas of learning a foreign or second language. This study was an attempt to examine the impact of applying movie clips including idioms on the quality of idiom learning. To this end, 100 gifted high school students, aged between 16 and 18 were selected. Then, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to select 60 intermediate students. Due to the matched-pair technique, they were divided into two equal experimental and control groups. In order to find out whether the students have any prior knowledge about the new idioms, a pre-test including an idiom multiple choice test was used. The control group was taught 30 idioms conventionally using synonyms and antonyms. The experimental group received the treatment and the idioms were taught using movie clips. After 10 weeks an idiom multiple choice test based on the materials taught was administered to both groups. Then, 60 students and 10 high school English teachers completed an attitudinal questionnaire reflecting their attitudes towards learning idioms through the suggested way. The statistical analyses of the collected data showed that there was a significant difference between the obtained means of the two groups, meaning that, the experimental group outperformed the control one. Therefore, teachers, students, test makers, test designers, and materials developers should consider the effectiveness of using movie clips and films in L2 idiom learning/teaching.