By the emergence of new approaches to teach a second language, finding a good method to teach IDIOMs has been the main concern of some researchers (e.g., Elena & Moreno, 2001; Cook, Fazly, & Stevenson, 2007). To the researcher›s best knowledge; few studies have been conducted to examine the effect of different methods of teaching IDIOMs to EFL learners. As a result, this study was designed to investigate the effect of teaching the etymology of IDIOMs and using movie clips containing IDIOMs, as two methods of teaching, on the quality of L2 learners› IDIOM learning. Serving this purpose, teaching IDIOMs through their etymologies and movie clips and also learners› attitudes towards using such methods (through using questionnaires) were taken into consideration. After administering a standard language proficiency test (OPT), 90 intermediate, out of a pile of 154 L2 learners, were selected and assigned to three groups randomly, two experimental (one etymology and one movie clip group) and one control group. All the groups were given two IDIOM multiple-choice tests, one as the pre-test and the other one Received 10 August 2011 Approved 14 September 2011102 Iranian Journal Of as the post-test. In one experimental group (A), IDIOMs were taught together with their etymologies and in the other experimental group (B), the same IDIOMs were taught by displaying movie clips containing the IDIOMs, while the control group (C) followed the traditional class activities using synonyms and antonyms. The results of one-way ANOVA and post hoc tests revealed that the participants in etymology and movie clip groups had better performance in post-test than in pre-test. Moreover, the results of Chi-square revealed that, on the whole, L2 learners had positive attitudes towards using etymology and movie clips in IDIOM learning.

In this research, the ability of five Persian-speaking Alzheimer's patients in processing 30 familiar, transparent, non-ambiguous IDIOMs with 10 control subjects who were matched with Alzheimer's patients with respect to age and education has been investigated via oral explanation and force choice tasks. Furthermore, subjects' linguistic abilities were assessed using lexical comprehension and semantic fluency tasks and their executive system ability was investigated through stroop color and clock drawing tasks. The results show patients' deficit in IDIOM comprehension. The weak performance of patients in cognitive and semantic fluency tasks and the relation between cognitive, executive, and IDIOM comprehension tasks highlight that a set of semantic, executive and cognitive variables affect patients' performance in IDIOM comprehension. Subjects' tendency in interpreting literal meaning of IDIOM is in accord with those models of IDIOM processing as IDIOM List Hypothesis of Borbrow and Bell ( 1973) or The Configuration Hypothesis of Cacciari and Tabossi (1988) which emphasized on the initial processing of IDIOMs.

IDIOMatic expressions are defined as linguistic structures, which, in contrast with ordinary sentences, can not be interpreted via meaning amalgamation of their constituents. This study aims at surveying the most important psycholinguistic models proposed in the study of IDIOM comprehension. Furthermore, the significant characteristics of these approaches have been discussed. The common feature of the traditional approaches is their emphasis on the literal meaning processing, that is, these approaches are either adherents of serial meaning processing, i.e., they would assert that literal meaning processing takes place before figurative meaning processing, or they are interested on the parallel meaning processing. However, the common ground of the novel approaches is that they emphasize on the important role of the contextual features in accelerating IDIOM comprehension. At the end, the notable graded salience hypothesis has been criticized, and the possibility of posing a unified theoretical framework in IDIOM comprehension has been investigated.

One of the reasons of literary expression and miracles of Quran are its exalted meanings and artistic concepts in the form of rhetoric. Aesthetic beauty of the holy Quran, whether from the point of view of definitions or and structures are its wonderful and admirable verses. Their expression, interpretations and the application of rhetorical and literal aspects give this divine book a refreshing and specialized outlook. Also, IDIOMs are one of the literary genres as well as elegant aspect. Expression of complex and hidden facts apparently make the divine verses complex and vague but audiences with their own help and talent as well as wit try to discover and understand those hidden concepts.

In this paper, the writer first explains the meaning of the Persian IDIOM az čāle be čāh oftādan - functionally equivalent to the English IDIOM "to fall out of the frying pan into the fire" - and then examines its equivalents in the Versified Dictionary of Persian Proverbs and Their English Equivalents. The writer also examines the IDIOMs similar to this IDIOM in various dialects spoken in Fārs province as well as in Arabic and other European languages.

Employing a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the efficacy of humorous IDIOM video clips on the achievement of Iranian undergraduate students studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Forty humorous video clips from the English IDIOM Series called "The Teacher" from the BBC website were used to teach 120 IDIOMs to 61 undergraduate students at the University of Bojnord (UB). A 40-item IDIOM pretest was given to the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG) while an independent-samples t-test was used to compare the means of these two groups based on posttest scores. A 15-item attitudinal questionnaire captured participants’ attitudes toward learning English IDIOMs through video clips. The results indicate that there was a significant difference between the EG and CG mean scores: humorous video clips do facilitate EFL learners’ IDIOMs achievement and learners exhibit a positive attitude toward their application in the classroom.

Social networking service platforms and social media have generated a significant amount of discussion and debate regarding their use in second or foreign language learning. However, leveraging digital tools with pedagogical constructs to enhance accessibility and engagement in teaching and learning English IDIOMatics has not received equal attention. Consequently, discovering new modes of learning in the formulation and implementation of English IDIOMatics instruction in the modern digital age is a must. This study investigated Chinese EFL learners’ development of IDIOMatic competence. It examined English vivid phrasal (VP) IDIOM learning in classrooms supporting WeChat use vis-à-vis the classrooms supporting traditional modes of language instruction without WeChat. It also explored the extent to which WeChat-enhanced instruction can affect learners’ motivation, attitude, collaboration, and experience. The participants of this study were 55 first-year English major students who took part in an intensive, eight-week IDIOM-training module. A pre-/post-test and a questionnaire were used to uncover how a WeChat-driven learning environment can mediate the way students acquired Post-Lexical Level (PLL) VP IDIOMs and what their general perceptions towards using WeChat in the IDIOM-oriented activities were. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in achievement between the WeChat-enhanced group and the traditional face-to-face group. Analysis of data further revealed that peer interactions supported by WeChat are likely to be essential learning constructs in furthering IDIOMatic competence development.

This study aimed to investigate how Iranian EFL learners performed in producing sentences containing IDIOMs and whether they had any problems in producing such sentences. This query, subsequently, raised the question of whether IDIOMs influenced the participants’ grammaticality judgment on IDIOM-containing sentences. For this purpose, firstly, the writings of 24 learners were investigated for a period of one term and the problematic features of IDIOMs were detected; proportionately, grammatical errors outnumbered the others. Secondly, 35 participants were tested on a 40-item grammaticality judgment test containing 10 items for each sentence type – with-IDIOM grammatical, with-IDIOM ungrammatical, without IDIOM grammatical, and without-IDIOM ungrammatical sentences. Comparing the mean scores and the results of the paired-samples t tests indicated that IDIOMaticity might influence the grammaticality judgment of EFL learners. Some implications of the research results are provided at the end.

Different techniques and methods have been offered to improve the learning of IDIOMs. The goal of the study was to compare the possible effects of Mnemonic keyword method, storytelling, and semantic organization on Second Language (L2) IDIOM learning. To this end, 90 male students with the age range of 16 to 18 in Shahid Beheshti high school in Avaj, Iran were selected through convenience sampling based on availability. To homogenize the participants, a version of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used. Another pretest was used to minimize the effect of the students' prior knowledge of IDIOMs. Then, the students were divided into three equal groups, and each group was randomly assigned to a different treatment condition. At the end of the treatment, which lasted for 10 one- hour sessions, three posttests were used to compare the effects of the three different methods. Three separate one- way ANOVA procedures were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the group taught through the keyword method outperformed the other two groups in L2 IDIOM comprehension, production, and retention. Also, the participants of the storytelling group had better performance in L2 IDIOM comprehension, production and retention than those in the semantic organization group. These findings may have implications for learners, teachers and material designers.