YouTube Video Presentation

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Your students can make a YouTube video presentation such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_psZXyCSs
With the notes switched on, the presentation can be used for revision, and when you switch the notes off, the idioms have to be retrieved from memory. When making the presentation, students can add their favourite idioms, images and music and make their presentation stand out with various gadgets.

Photo Calendars

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Your students can make their own photo calendars. They can make calendars for each other,  for friends/ family, or to decorate the classroom. They choose 12 idioms or proverbs  as mottos (one for each month). They should have positive connotations (Everything's coming up roses, Every cloud has a silver lining, You are my ray of sunshine, I'm on cloud nine, etc.). This is the most important part of the process: students have to go through all the idioms they know and mentally sort them out to find those that they need.
This is a site where your students can create free photo calendars http://www.calendarlabs.com/photo-calendar.php.and and print them out.

Another great tool is Pho.to which offers a number of online services for photo editing, photo fun and sharing.

Silent movie

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Your students will make a short silent movie clip (1-2 minutes). They can use their mobile phones or video cameras. Ask the students to choose an idiom they'd like to make into a clip (point out that it should be a silent scene). It's fun if they can talk their family members or friends into acting the scenes for them. They post you the clips, you store them and you can later use them for various activities, such as a silent movie festival activity: the students watch the clips and vote for the best ones, which are 'awarded'.

One chapter each

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Your students are going to write a book. You don't know what it's going to be about until it's finished. This will be a long-term project; it will probably last a couple of weeks or months, depending on the number of students in your class. Each student will write one chapter. Ask one volunteer to start (it might be advantageous to be the first one but it may also be challenging). Give him or her one week to produce the first chapter. Every Monday, for example, the book will be 'handed over' to the next student who has to continue the story. The students should read the book all along the line - not only when it's their turn to write. They can discuss they book, suggest how to go on and what to improve and change next time (according to constructivists, students gain greater agency to create their own knowledge when learning and working with peers). Encourage your students to use as many idioms as possible when writing. Each chapter should be of approximately the same length (1-2 A4 pages). All chapters should be illustrated with images and the titles should also be 'idiomatic'. The last student will have to come up with a good ending of the book. Finally, you can print out the book, share it with other classes, your colleagues, on Facebook, etc.

Box

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You'll need a shoe box with a hole in the lid big enough for you to poke your hand through it. Put several laminated cards with images inside (those you prepared for Pelmanism http://idioms-elt-tips.blogspot.cz/2013/08/cards-games-pelmanism.html). The students are sitting in a circle, the box in the middle on the floor. Ask one student to fish out one card from the box. He or she starts telling a story using the idiom that the image represents. The next student does the same and continues. Ideally, each student says 4-5 sentences. You can decide how long the story will be, depending on your students' interest. You can record the activity and ask your students to make a transcript of the story.

Electronic diaries

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Ask you students to write an electronic diary for one week. They can take down as many entries as they like but one a day is the minimum. Each entry should be titled with an idiom. For example:

• Tuesday: 14:15 Over a barrel

 
I went to the supermarket to buy some bread. At the entrance there was a woman selling some cosmetics. I wanted to pass her unnoticed but she stopped me and started to explain that I need this perfume. Finally she got me over a barrel and I surrendered.

• Tuesday: 18:00 Charity begins at home

I wanted to go out with my friends but my sister said she needed some help with her homework. I wasn't very happy but I finally agreed because I know that charity begins at home.


Ask your students to store their diaries electronically so that they can add some images and share their work.

Writing - chain - synonyms

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Ask each student to write a short story (up to 120 words) using as many idioms as possible (you can set the number of idioms they should include in the story). It doesn't matter if the story is true or fictional. For example: 
 

• Yesterday, out of the blue, a black car arrived at our house. I thought it was my aunt and I was on cloud nine because she's fun and she always gets me some wonderful clothes for peanuts. But when the door opened I could hardly frame my words to say hello. I knew I was in the soup and I thought Katie, bar the door..

 
Then the students swap their stories and rewrite them, using different expressions with synonymous meaning. For example:
 

• Yesterday, suddenly, a black car arrived at our house. I thought it was my aunt and I was very happy because she's fun and she always gets me some wonderful clothes for nothing. But when the door opened I could hardly speak to say hello. I knew I was in trouble and I thought oh dear.....

Then they send this version (without the first version) to the third person who again rewrites the story using different expressions. The original author then looks at all the three versions. It will be very interesting to compare them, especially the first and the third version.

Google Translate and idiomatic language

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Google Translate can be really helpful if you know what to use it for. However, based on my teaching experience, it can also be dangerous. The truth is that students love using Google Translate. They copy and paste long passages of text and within a matter of seconds, they get what they want. Or they think they've got what they wanted. Show them how unreliable this tool can be, especially with idiomatic language. Ask each student to type in an idiom they are familiar with. When the translation pops up, you'll immediately hear a burst of laughter. Ask them to type in a complete sentence, for example: No matter how you slice it, the truth is that school violence is totally unacceptable. Eighty per cent of the sentence will be all right but the part you slice it is hilarious (at least in Czech). However, if you type in I was on cloud nine when I heard the news, the translation is perfect. This is a way of teaching your students a lesson on how unpredictable and tricky language can be for an EFL learner, especially at the early stages of learning. So, encourage your students to put their thinking caps on when using Google Translate.

Back to school

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What to do with idioms on the first days of school? The best thing is to talk about holidays. Students are full of experiences which they are eager to share. Give your students a list of idioms they have learned. Or they can use their phones or tablets and go to my blog http://visualidioms.blogspot.com/. Ask them to choose idioms that best represent their holidays. They can, for example, choose the idiom be on the expensive side http://visualidioms.blogspot.cz/2013/08/be-on-expensive-side.html because they travelled a lot and spent a lot of money on souvenirs, clothes, food, etc. Or they can choose let things slide http://visualidioms.blogspot.cz/2013/08/let-things-slide.html because they just relaxed and ignored all the things they had planned to do. Some students might have had to burn the candle at both ends http://visualidioms.blogspot.cz/2013/07/burn-candle-at-both-ends.html because they had a part-time job and got little sleep.

Students work in pairs and discuss their holidays. After some time, ask the students to change their partners. While working with the new partner, they retell what the previous one told them. In the end you can elicit the idioms mentioned during the discussions and put them on the board (or project them on the screen). It will be interesting to see which idioms were the most popular.

As a homework assignment, your students can write about their holidays and share their work via GE.TT http://www.ge.tt/.

Interviews

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Based on my experience, most students love being recorded, even though they don't admit it. Ask your students to make mini-interviews and record them. This can't be done in the class because it would be too noisy; set it as their homework assignment. An easy way of doing so is via Audacity (a free open source digital audio editor and recording computer software application, available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems). Give the students one picture with the idiom and tell them they're going to make interviews with their partners. They can use questions from the posts http://visualidioms.blogspot.com/ but they can also create their own. They send you the recordings as MP3 files. You can collect the most common errors and comment on them in the class or you can play the recording in the lesson and ask the students to give feedback themselves.

Cards Games - Pelmanism

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I recommend that you make a set of cards you can use for different games. Print out the images on an A3 or A4 sheet (each image about size 10 x10 centimetres), laminate them, and cut them up http://visualidioms.blogspot.com/
Also make cards with the idioms (the text); the word cards should be the same size as the image cards. The image cards should have a symbol on the back so that you can distinguish them from the word cards when you turn them face down.

With this set you can play Pelmanism: The cards are thoroughly mixed and spread face down on the playing surface - table or floor. The cards should not overlap, and can be arranged in a regular pattern or spread irregularly as desired. Players take turns to play. At your turn you turn face up two cards of your choice from the layout (always an image card and a word card). If they match, you take these two cards, store them in front of you, and take another turn. If they do not match, you turn them face down, without changing their position in the layout, and it is the next player's turn. To make the game more meaningful, ask your students to explain the idiom, translate it and/or make an example sentence if they want to keep the cards.

Although making the cards looks a bit time-consuming, it will pay off in the end. You can use them over and over again and if you laminate them, they'll last for long.

 

Graded readers and idiom glossaries

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Ask your students to select a graded reader. You'll need to help them choose appropriate level but they should have some choice over what they will read. The higher the level, the more idiomatic language they will find in the book. Each student should have a different book (I believe most schools have a collection of graded readers). Set the time for accomplishing the task. Ask your students to search for interesting idioms and record them as they read. Ask them to include the page number (it's good if they store the idioms electronically so that they can later organize the idioms alphabetically or upload the document if necessary). They should by now know what an idiom is but make sure all your students know what to look for. Give them plenty of examples and the definition: an idiom cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, and it's a combination of words that have a figurative meaning, which is separate from its literal definition.
After one week's time, for example, ask your students to bring their collection of idioms to the class. Each student will have created an idiom glossary for one graded reader, which will later help someone to read the book. Ideally, the idioms will be accompanied by a definition, translation (if possible), an example sentence, and images (photos or doodles). Some graded readers include glossaries so make sure your students just didn't copy them.

Graded readers can 1) be a great source of new vocabulary 2) help reading fluency development 3) be highly motivating for students because they are comprehensible.

Writing contest

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Divide the class into 4 teams. Give each team a large piece of paper and each member of each team gets a coloured pencil/pen. Prepare 24 images with idioms. Each team gets 6 images. They mustn't see them until you tell them. They put the images face down in a line. When you say NOW, the teams turn the images face up. They start writing a story using all the images in the order they've arranged (the members of the team should take turns; you'll see that they have because every member has a different pencil). When they finish, ask the teams to read each other's stories and comment on them. Give positive feedback.

Chinese whispers

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This is an activity I learned from a friend (thank you, Martin :-). Ask your students to make two lines (each line makes one team). The first student in the line faces the teacher, the next faces the back of the first one, and so on. Show the first students in the lines an image (without words) that represents an idiom they are familiar with. The other students mustn't see it. The first student whispers the idiom into the ear of the next student in the line, who sends the message to the next one and so on. When the last student in any of the two lines finally gets the message, he or she writes the answer on the board. From my experience, it's good if there is the old-fashioned two-wing board in the room because both teams get an opportunity to write the answer without the other team seeing it (and thus copying it). Alternatively, the answers can be written on an A-4 piece of paper. Give points for correct answers (even partial). The student who received the message first goes to the back of the line and becomes the 'writer' in the next round. Any of the players can change the message along the line if they find it suspicious = incorrect.

COCA

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This can be done as a revision activity or before presenting selected idioms. It should be done at a language laboratory with computers or on students' tablets. Put the following chunks on the board:
 
the bottom of
stop at
be in the
take care of
be on the
run into
 
Students go to COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and type in the phrases above. This is a great tutorial by Scott Thornbury on how to use COCA: http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/c-is-for-coca-corpus/

The task is to find some of the most frequent collocations. For example, for stop at students will get stop at + store, stop at + point, stop at nothing, etc. For the bottom of they'll get the bottom of the stairs (screen, sea, and barrel).
A) If you are doing this activity before presenting new idioms (stop at nothing and scrape the bottom of the barrel), you can direct your students to get to the words you need. To do this, you can show them the image and ask them to select the corresponding word(s) from the list of collocates. So if you need to teach scrape the bottom of the barrel, you'll just show the image of the barrel (http://visualidioms.blogspot.cz/2013/08/scrape-bottom-of-barrel.html). Working with the corpus, students will be able to see all the example sentences with the idiom and how frequent it is.
B) If you are doing this after you've presented your students with the idioms, this can be a vocabulary expansion activity: students look for more collocates of the words they already know from the idioms. They will be able to see how clearly English language is patterned.

Gallery

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Display several images representing idioms on the walls all over the classroom. Also attach some of the questions (from the posts or your own). Students walk around the room in pairs, look at the images and discuss the questions (as if they were in a gallery). When they finish, they sit down and try to recall as many questions as they remember, and take them down. They compare their answers with their partner first, then stand up and look at the original questions to find any mistakes. The questions don't have to be exactly the same as the original ones but they should make the same sense and they should be grammatically correct.

Categories

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After you've presented your students with a bunch of idioms, ask your students to sort them into categories and sub-categories. For example, they can divide the idioms into those with positive connotations and those that have negative connotations. Then they can divide them according to their relation to certain concepts (love, relationships, optimism). They can also take into account formality, whether they are used in American or British English, etc.

Rory's Story Cubes game variation

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This activity is similar to Rory's Story Cubes game. There are 9 cubes with pictures on them. You roll the cubes and create a story using all the pictures on top of the cubes. You can make your own cubes with your own images or you can simply use ordinary dice of different colours with dots on them. Each combination of colour & number will stand for one image. The students roll the dice and you'll show them the pictures (idioms) they have to use in their story. You can turn this into an ice-breaker, literacy development activity, speaking & listening skills development, creative inspiration activity, mental workout, or a problem solving activity

 This activity was inspired by  http://garethsrorystorycubes.blogspot.com/

Jigsaw puzzle

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To make a speaking activity more exciting, you can turn it into a game activity. If you go to http://www.jigsawplanet.com/ you can upload a photo/picture and which then scrambles into jigsaw pieces. You’re able to select how many pieces you would like for the puzzle. The puzzle then displays on the screen and you can use your mouse to put it together. The students can prepare jigsaw puzzles for each other from the images in this blog. They work in pairs and try to guess the idiom while putting the pieces together. Encourage the students to keep talking all along the line - also get them to think aloud. Thus they'll spontaneously practise very useful language (giving instructions, prepositions of place, etc.)

 

Making a movie

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Your students can make a story into a movie, i.e. turn the static pictures into moving pictures. All your students need is their cameras. They also have to learn how to use a suitable editing programme (for example Windows Movie Maker is very easy to learn and comes as standard with Windows). Divide the class into groups of 3-4 friends who can work together after school. Each group chooses an idiom as a title of their film. They create a short story of about 20lines. Then they take suitable pictures with their cameras to represent their lines. They import the images into the Movie Maker, align each image with the correct line, and add the title at the beginning and credits at the end. They should also add some music. Then they put the video online (to Facebook or YouTube) and share it.

 

Multiple choice quiz

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Learning experts have questioned the value of multiple-choice, arguing its passive nature of simple recognition which does not facilitate deep thinking, creativity, or agency. However, it is believed that multiple choice triggers a specific cognitive process of memory retrieval that enhances learning based on the contemplation of plausible answers, rather than a simple recognition process (Wray, 2012).

Present your students with an incomplete sentence that they need to complete by selecting the proper idiom from a menu. To help them select the correct idiom, provide a picture hint. This activity was inspired by http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/idioms/
You can use this site after your students have learned a few idioms here. Thus your students will have a clear idea of what they already know and what is still ahead of them.

References:
Wray, H. (2012). Two Cheers for Multiple Choice Tests. Retrieved July 14^th, 2013 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/multiple-choice-tests_b_1389135.html

What happened...?

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The following activity is best done after the weekend, holiday or a longer time off school. Ask you students to think of something that happened to them in that time. They choose idioms that best represent the event. For example, they might have had an argument with their parents: There is a bone of contention between me and my parents. They don't want to buy me this i-phone because it's on the expensive side....But my old phone is on its last legs. Out of the blue, it broke down). It’s good to provide your students with the list of the idioms they've learned but they can also try to recall them from memory. Students are free to use any idioms they like but they should all make sense and fit in the story.

Once upon a time

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Choose one idiom you will want your students to elaborate on (for example Every cloud has a silver lining). Display the picture to give the students some inspiration. The students' task will be to write a story of about 150 words. The story should begin...Once upon a time... The story can be true or fictional. When finished, the students work in pairs, read each other's stories and discuss them, asking additional questions. They can also guess if the story is true and say why they think so.

Sharing

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Each week, you can ask your students to look for idioms related to a particular word. Their task will be to find one idiom, accompany it by an image and share it with you and their peers. Depending on the number of your students, you can create a wonderful database of idioms. An easy way of sharing documents is GE.TT (http://www.ge.tt/). It is a simple file sharing and publishing tool for all types of materials including documents, video, music and photos. Within a matter of seconds, I uploaded and shared this image: http://www.ge.tt/#!/7o9RkXo/v/0

Word clouds

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Another great online tool I use with my learners is Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/). The way I use it draws attention to the words the idioms consist of, and it also makes students think about the grammatical structure of the phrase. Copy several idioms and paste them into Wordle. They scramble into a word cloud and your students then try to unscramble them. Some of the grammatical words may be missing.

I've scrambled 10 idioms. Can you unscramble them?

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/6926636/Idioms_scrambled

Wallpaper image

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This is one of the ways of making idioms more memorable. Ask your students to choose an idiom they have trouble learning. Get them to go to http://recitethis.com/where they can turn any quote, proverb or idiom into a poster. They then put this on the screen as a wallpaper image for a day or two. As they can see it whenever they switch on their PC or laptop, they will remember it better. Ask your students to use different templates for different idioms.



Authentic context

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The idioms will be better remembered when put in an authentic context. Idioms often appear in popular songs. Asking your students to introduce their favourite songs with idioms they've learned is a way of making learning more authentic and motivating. You can play the songs in the lesson while doing a gap-fill exercise or make a karaoke lesson.

Idioms are better remembered when accompanied by images - either static or moving ones. As a homework assignment, ask your students to watch their favourite movie, sitcom or soap opera in English (it will be easier with subtitles). Their task will be to look for idioms. They will take down as many idioms as possible but they choose one they like best (it can be something they already know or something new). They'll bring the movie to the lesson (it should be something they can find on YouTube). They'll play a short part of the movie containing the idiom, explain the meaning, put it on the board and play the part again. If necessary, they'll also explain the context. It's best if it's something memorable or funny.

Concept words

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After your students have learned a few idioms, prepare a set of cards with concept words such as: happiness, appearance, warning, barrier, limit, time, feelings, money, food, safety, trouble, etc. In the lesson, divide the students into groups of four. Pick up one card at a time and ask the teams to write down all idioms which they associate with the word on the card. Set a time limit for the task (1-2 minutes). The team with more idioms wins a point but they should be able to justify their answers if there is some disagreement.

Idioms across languages

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Some EFL teachers may feel inferior because they are non-native speakers of English. However, being a non-native speaker & teacher may be advantageous, especially when it comes to idiomatic language. You can imagine how your students feel about idioms because once you went through the same process - you were an EFL learner. Another advantage is that you can juxtapose the target language with the native language and this can be very helpful for the learner. A native speaker may no longer consciously perceive the nuances of the language. Make the learning more memorable and go into details if necessary. People all over the world have similar thoughts and ideas; they just express them in different words: in English we say be on cloud nine while in Czech we say in heaven seven.

Visualizing language features

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There are many ways to teach a language, some are more effective than others and not all of them work with all types of learners. I believe that visualising idiomatic language can help to bridge the gap between the literal and the figurative meaning. Show your students the picture first and draw their attention to the most salient aspects of it and then slowly get to the metaphor the image represents. You can later analyse the idiom and focus on grammar, words it consists of, pronunciation, connotations, the degree of formality, etc.

Collocates

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Learning idioms is a way of expanding one's vocabulary. Encourage your students to search for the most frequent collocates of the words they are trying to learn. There are many aspects to know about a word; it's important to know the words that frequently co-occur with the word the students are learning. Encourage your students to get a paper dictionary that provides them with this kind of information. There are some useful online tools such as
http://www.just-the-word.com/

Synonyms and hypernyms

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Learning idioms is a great way of expanding one's vocabulary. Encourage your students to search for synonyms and hypernyms when learning new words from the posts. Their writing and speaking will improve if they avoid using the same word over and over again. There are a lot of aspects to know about a word; being able to recognize and come up with a suitable synonym is one of them. Paper dictionaries provide learners with this type of information. See also an online tool at http://www.synonym-finder.com/

Word cards

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Encourage your students to use word cards when learning new words from the posts (and there are plenty!). Word cards are better than word lists because you can change the order of the words which you want to learn and revise. Thus you avoid the primacy and recency effect, i. e. the words at the top and the bottom of the list are better remembered than those in the middle. See an online tool for creating word cards http://quizlet.com/

Another web-based tool for making flashcards is Cram (http://www.cram.com/) Flashcards are effective because they are based on the principles of rote and memorization. You can make your own idiom flashcards (two-sided or three-sided) by copying and pasting the content of the blog http://visualidioms.blogspot.com/ (you can even add the images). Then you can share, export or print the cards. Encourage your students to make their own sets and/or help you to make the cards - thus they will retain more of the information they are studying.

Frequencies

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The frequency with which an idiom is used by native speakers is a very important criterion in the learning process. Encourage your students to look at the frequencies. The easiest way is a quick Google search. For example, the idiom paper over the cracks (http://visualidioms.blogspot.cz/2013/08/paper-over-cracks.html) gets 221, 000, 000 hits if searched on Google. It is safer to check out some corpora, though (BNC http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/or COCA http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/) or a paper dictionary (such as Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). The most frequent expressions should be given priority.

Vocaroo and MailVU

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If you want your students to practise speaking outside the class, use Vocaroo - Online voice recorder. It is very easy. You just click on the record button and start speaking. Then, you can play your recording back and listen to your voice. If you go to their website, you can save the recording, e-mail it to a friend or download it as an MP3 file. Another online voice & video recorder is MailVU.
 

A) Students can choose any post from the blog and answer the questions. They can send the recording to you or their peers. In the lesson, you can listen to the recordings together and comment on them.

B) Choose two pictures you will want you students to describe and compare.  Ask your students to make a short recording (1-2 min.) at home. The students then e-mail you the recordings as MP3 files. You collect the most common errors which you then comment on in the class. By choosing the same pictures for all the students, you can easily compare their performances and uncover the strengths and weaknesses.

Students' own images

A) As a homework assignment, ask your students to search for photos of their own that would represent an idiom they have just learned in the lesson. Alternatively, they take photos with their mobile phones and share them in the lesson. Later, you can upload the pictures and use them for various activities. Students can, for example, add captions, compare and contrast the images, vote for the best one, etc.

B) Ask your students to find a photo (in their album, PC files) they particularly like. Ask them to brainstorm some key words they associate with the image. They can make a mind map, word cards or a list, depending on their learning style preferences. They search for idioms with the words (on the internet or in their dictionaries). They select the one that best represents the image. Finally, they bring the image and their idiom to the class and share it with their mates.

Content vs. grammatical words

 



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This is a revision activity. Before the lesson, choose 12 idioms and select all the content words (nouns, adjectives and verbs) from the idioms. Write each word on a separate card. In the lesson, display several pictures on the floor. Hand out all the word cards so that each student has a few (if possible, each student has the same number of cards). Ask your students to stand up. The students place the word cards on the corresponding pictures. When they finish, let all the class (or groups, with larger classes) discuss the result. Ask them to make any changes if necessary. Finally, ask the students to say each idiom correctly (now with all the grammatical words, i.e. articles, prepositions and pronouns).

 

Memory test

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Print out about 12 pictures. Spread them on the floor face up. Give your students one minute to look at the pictures. To stop the time you can use various fun timers which will add some extra fun to the usual countdown timers. Then turn the pictures face down. Read out an idiom (written on a card) and get the students to show you where the corresponding image is. Give points for correct guesses. Always place the card on the picture when the idiom is guessed.

Presenting idioms

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1. Show your students the picture only (it's best if you can project it on the screen).
2. Get them to describe it in detail (in pairs or in groups).
3. Elicit words connected with the image and put them on the board.
4. Ask the SS if they can guess the idiom with the words they've got. Elicit answers. This stage can be fun, especially with more advanced students. They may come with sentences such as: I feel like a pair of shoes on a clothesline. :-)
5. Put the correct idiom Hang somebody out to dry on the board and discuss the literal meaning briefly.
6. Ask the SS if they can guess the figurative meaning: to punish somebody for what they did. To help the SS, give them example sentences, such as: Once I find out who's vandalized my house, I swear I'll hang them out to dry. Alternatively, you can ask questions such as: How would you feel hanging out on a clothesline? Would it be a reward or a punishment for you? Thus you'll juxtapose the literal meaning with the figurative meaning. The funny part is always with somebody as opposed to something.
7. Get your SS to discuss some questions in pairs/groups. Try to personalize the questions.
8. Have you ever hung someone out to dry for something? What did you do? Would you like to hang somebody out to dry? What for?
9. Encourage your SS to ask their own questions and share them with the class.
10. You may also want to discuss grammar, especially the irregular vs. regular form of the verb, the infinitive to-form, etc.
11. Finally, ask the SS to come up with a similar idiom in their native language. This part is very interesting and challenging.
12. As a homework assignment (or in class), the students can answer the questions in writing.