Idioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others. The paper concentrates on idioms as a learning-translation problem; it makes no claim to be comprehensive or academically rigorous. Leech (1989) defines an idiom as follows: “An idiom is a group of two or more words which we have to treat as a unit in learning a language. We cannot arrive at the meaning of the idiom just by adding together the meanings of the words inside it. E.g.John and Mary usedto be hardup (='They had very little money'.)”(P.186) To be more exact, an idiom is a sequence of words which is semantically and syntactically restricted, so that they function as a single unit. From a semantic point of view, the meanings of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meanings of the idiomatic expression as a whole. Thus, fly off the handle, which means lose one's temper, cannot be understood in terms of the meanings of fly, off, or handle. The idiom phrase hot air, which means empty or boastful talk, is neither hot nor air; with hot air we are dealing with a set phrase where the meaning cannot be suggested on the basis of the two constituent words. The idiomatic meaning of spill the beans in So who spilt the beans (=told the secret) about her affair with David? has nothing to do with beans or with spilling in its literal sense. The foreign-language learner is left trying to figure out where and how the beans were spilt. From a syntactic viewpoint, the constituent parts of an idiom often do not permit the usual variability they display in other contexts. The point to be emphasized here is this: most idioms do not lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers; they are invariable and must be learned as wholes, but concord ofnumber, person and gender in the idiom phrase is still necessary, i.e. the verbs must be put into the correct form, and pronouns must agree with their antecedents: I don't give a hoot for her opinion! 2 • She doesn't give a hoot for my opinion! etc.)║He won, but only by the skin of his teeth2• She won, but only by the skin of her teeth• Iwon, but only by the skin ofmy teeth,I had to run for the train, and caught it by the skin of myteeth, etc.║He kept pullingmy arm, throwing me off my balance 2 • She kept pulling his arm, throwing him off his balance • We kept pullingher arm, throwingher offher balance, etc.2 The present paper is divided into five parts, as follows: Part I: An Overview; PART II: Learner’s Difficulties with Idioms; PART III: Some Pedagogical recommendations and Suggestions about Idioms; Part IV: Activities to Practice Idiomatic Expressions; Part V: Summary and Conclusion.
The research aims to identify the impact of using the electronic participatory learning strategy according to internet programs in learning some basic basketball skills for middle first graders according to the curricular course, and the sample of research was selected in the deliberate way of students The first stage of intermediate school.As for the problem of research, the researchers said that there is a weakness in the levels of school students in terms of teaching basketball skills, which prompted the researchers to create appropriate solutions by using a participatory learning strategy.The researchers imposed statistically significant differences between pre and post-test tests, in favor of the post tests individually and in favor of
... Show MoreIn this paper we have studied the optical properties of CuBr thin
films. Different sample thicknesses have been prepared by using thermal evaporation technique with 14.4 runlsec as the average deposition rate and 1 00°C as the substrate temperature.
Abstract: The research covered five chapters: So, the first chapter definition of the research is from the introduction to the research and its importance, as the importance of the research lies in an expression of the reality of e-learning as it is one of the new patterns of the educational process and its role in enhancing communication and interconnectedness between the learners from the students ’point of view Physical Education and Sports Sciences for Girls, University of Baghdad, as for the problem The research was, and through the researcher’s acquaintance with many previous studies, references and sources, and being a student at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences - University of
... Show MoreThe aim of this research is to study the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the temperature and precipitation patterns in Baghdad city. Data of the monthly means of the NAO index,the monthlymeans of temperature, and the monthly total of precipitation were analyzed for the period 1900-2008. Non-parametric tests were used to investigate the correlations between these variables. The time series of temperature and precipitation showed no trends. The results indicated that is a slight correlation between the NAO and temperature and precipitation suggesting that NAO has no major effects on the temperature and precipitation patterns in Baghdad city.
The aim of this study is to compare the effects of three methods: problem-based learning (PBL), PBL with lecture method, and conventional teaching on the understanding of thermodynamics, group work and self-directed learning skills among physics undergraduates. The actual sample size comprises of 122 students, who were selected randomly from the Physics Department, College of Education in Iraq, for academic year 2011-2012. In this study, the pre and posttest were done and the instruments were administered to the students for data collection. Inferential statistics were employed to analyze data. The independent variables were the PBL, the PBL with lecture method, and the conventional teaching. Dependent variables of statistical analysis were
... Show MoreThe research aims to get acquainted with the evaluation of the reality of the application of the curriculum axis from among the eight Iraqi academic accreditation standards in a sample of governmental and private universities and colleges in Iraq and to identify the main and secondary reasons for it as well as to provide proposed mechanisms and procedures to help reduce gaps, If the research problem is represented in the weak availability of the requirements of the curriculum axis in universities and colleges (the study sample) due to the weak documentation and successful implementation of them and interest in them is still below the level of ambition, In order to arrive at scientific facts, the researchers adopted the comparativ
... Show MoreGlobally, the COVID-19 pandemic’s development has presented significant societal and economic challenges. The carriers of COVID-19 transmission have also been identified as asymptomatic infected people. Yet, most epidemic models do not consider their impact when accounting for the disease’s indirect transmission. This study suggested and investigated a mathematical model replicating the spread of coronavirus disease among asymptomatic infected people. A study was conducted on every aspect of the system’s solution. The equilibrium points and the basic reproduction number were computed. The endemic equilibrium point and the disease-free equilibrium point had both undergone local stability analyses. A geometric technique was used
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