Etymological Elaboration versus Written Context : A study of the effects of two elaboration techniques on idiom retention in a foreign language

Abstract: The premise that idioms are an important feature in second language learning and teaching is what underpinned the present study. The aim is to investigate what teaching method is the most effective for idiom retention; etymological elaboration or context elaboration. It is a small scale study run focusing on two groups of 9th grade students were approximately 80% of the students had Swedish as their mother tongue, whilst the remaining 20% had other languages. One group of 18 students where taught 15 opaque idioms. The idioms were presented with their etymology. The preference group consisted of 19 students and the same idioms were presented to this group in context. A pre-test was given to both groups in order to establish what idioms they already knew. A post-test was run immediately after the ecture, where the idioms were presented either in context or with their etymology, in order to determine the methods’ effect on immediate retention. After three weeks, a second post-test was run in order to discover the degree to which the idioms had reached the students’ longterm memory and compare the two teaching techniques accordingly. A questionnaire was also conducted in order to gauge out the students’ idiom awareness and to what degree they believed that the teaching method helped them to remember the idioms. The results of the study show that both teaching techniques are beneficial on idiom retention. Context elaboration, however, turned out to be most effective on immediate- and long-term retention.