The Effect Of Etymological Elaboration Strategy On The Efl Learners' Comprehension Of English Idioms

Résumé: The current study aims at investigating the effect of adopting the etymological elaboration strategy on promoting EFL learners' comprehension of english idioms. For the purpose of examining the hypotheses raised, an experimental study is conducted in which we have chosen two homogeneous groups (an experimental and a control group) from the whole population made of first year LMD students at Larbi Ben M'Hidi university, Oum-El-Bouaghi. For the requirements of the experimental study, a pre-test was designed in a multiple-choice format to determine the participants' current level and to find out the difficult types of idioms that cause problems at the level of comprehending and using them. After, an english idiom unit was developed and taught over six successive sessions in the treatment period. While subjects from the experimental group received etymological-enhanced instructions with providing extensive cultural and contextual background knowledge about idioms with exercises, the control group received instructions through rote learning methods (provided with the figurative meaning of each idiom directly). After the treatment period, a post-test was administered (the same as the pre-test) to test the effectiveness of adopting etymological elaboration strategy to teaching english idioms. We used two different forms of tests in order to analyze data obtained from the post-test namely: paired-samples and independent-samples t-test. Results show that adopting the etymological elaboration strategy has a significant effect on EFL learners' comprehension and correct use of english idioms.

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