engleski

Figurative language in EFL textbooks for young learners: Challenges and implications for teaching

Research has shown that awareness-raising activities in the EFL classroom, in which explicit reference is made to the motivation of figurative expressions, considerably help learners to understand and memorize them (Littlemore and Low 2006 ; Boers and Lindstromberg, 2008). However, the learning strategies aimed at developing metaphorical competence in EFL have predominantly been used with high school and university students (Irujo, 1993 ; Kövecses and Szabó, 1996 ; Boers, 2000 ; Boers and Demecheleer, 2001), whereas little attention has been paid to young learners. On the other hand, it has been shown that children develop a capacity to reason figuratively about L2 forms from an early age and are able to grasp the metaphorical extensions of the core vocabulary items (e.g. give someone a hand ; Piquer Píriz, 2008). This raises two questions: 1) what types of figurative expressions should be included in EFL textbooks for young learners, and 2) how should they be presented? The aim of this paper is examine the treatment of figurative expressions in EFL textbooks for young learners. We analysed nine EFL textbooks for primary schools which are used in Croatia. The results show that few textbooks contain figurative language. In addition, figurative expressions are introduced relatively late, at age 11-12, they are almost exclusively phrasal verbs and are not linked by a common element (e.g. a particle or meaning). We argue that figurative expressions in EFL textbooks should not be limited to phrasal verbs, but should also include idioms whose literal meanings are closely related to their figurative meanings, e.g. similes (cold as ice, strong as an ox, etc.). Furthermore, figurative expressions should be grouped together according to the source domain (e.g. animals, body parts), the target domain (e.g. emotions) or conceptual metaphor (e.g. orientational metaphors for phrasal verbs). Since children’s understanding of figurative language largely depends on the input provided by teachers (MacArthur and Piquer Píriz, 2007: 126), it is essential that primary school teachers learn to use awareness- raising strategies in the development of their own metaphorical competence.

figurative language ; EFL ; textbooks ; young learners ; awareness-raising strategies

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