presentation and Bibliography

Idioms…are you up to the challenge ?
Renzo Tejada


What’s an Idiom?

• An expression which uses language in a non-literal, metaphorical way.

• An integral part of the English lexicon, like “fish and chips”, like “cookies and milk”.

• It’s something which adds “spice” to the language.

• It’s what makes the difference between a student of English and a speaker of the language.


Types of idioms

• Binomial (word and word) Rough and ready

• Trinomial (word, word and word) Cool, calm and collected

• Simile (as adj. as / like + noun) As dry as a bone / To have a memory like a sieve

• Compound A bone of contention

• Prepositional phrase In the blink of an eye

• Whole clause or sentence To cut a long story short

Which activities can we use ?

• Matching idioms to pictures
To arouse interest and activate the students’ visual memory

• Matching idioms to definitions
To present definitions and work with students’ memory

• Unscramble the idioms
To reinforce the idioms’ structure (Prepositions, particles,etc)

• Sentence completion
To show the idioms in context and present their usage.

• Responding to different situations
To get students to produce and understand the use of the idioms

• Crosswords
To consolidate the structure of the idioms presented

Reference

For idioms under definitions and more ideas, go to

www.renzotejada.blogspot.com

Bibliography


• “Idioms Organiser”, Jon Wright, 1999

• “Help with Idioms” , Jane Applebee and Anton Rush, 1992

• “English Idioms in Use”, Michael McCarthy and Felicity O’Dell, 2002
• “Making Sense of Idioms”, Jake Allsop and Louise Woods, 1990

• “Red Herrings”, Michael Berman, 1996

• “Timesaver Phrasal Verbs and Idioms” , Mary Glasgow Magazines – Scholastic Inc., 2002



Webbliography


• English Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions.
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/


• The Idiom Connection
http://www.idiomconnection.com/


• Funbrain’s.com Idioms games (for children)
http://www.funbrain.com/idioms/


• Self-Study Idiom Quizzes
http://a4esl.org/q/h/idioms.html


• Pocket English Idioms
http://www.goenglish.com/IdiomsIndex.asp