The use of pictorial devices to improve

english idioms elucidation among

eﬂ seventh-grade students

https://doi.org/10.47230/unesum-ciencias.v7.n3.2023.50-59

Revista UNESUM-Ciencias

Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí

ISSN-e: 2602-8166

El uso de dispositivos pictóricos para mejorar la elucidación

de modismos en inglés entre estudiantes de séptimo grado

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias

UNIVERSIDAD ESTATAL DEL SUR DE MANABÍ

Volumen: 7

Número: 3

Año: 2023

Paginación: 50-59

URL: https://revistas.unesum.edu.ec/index.php/unesumciencias/article/view/755

*Correspondencia autor: pcalderon@utm.edu.ec

Recibido: 23-10-2023 Aceptado: 22-11-2023 Publicado: 05-12-2023

Patricio Calderón

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3376-8984

Carlos Humberto Chancay Cedeño

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9505-2791

1. Maestrante de la Maestría en Pedagogía de los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros Mención Enseñanza del Inglés de la Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Ecua-

dor; Docente de la Unidad de Educación General Básica “Francisco Pacheco”; Portoviejo, Ecuador.

2. Magíster en Pedagogía; Doctor Dentro del Programa de Doctorado en Educación; Licenciado en Ciencias de la Educación Especialidad Inglés; Docente del

Departamento de Pedagogía de los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros; Universidad Técnica de Manabí; Portoviejo, Ecuador.

ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL

ABSTRACT

Idioms are considered one of the most complex aspects students of English as a Foreign Language must face

on their road to mastering it, and although the literature about the pedagogical principles to teach idioms is

not abundant, known studies made about the didactical aspects of idioms teaching, point in the direction of

using imagery or visual aids as a successful way to help students to interpret them. Throughout the quantitative

method, this paper collects the results of a study made with A1-A2 level seventh-grade students that shows

how helpful in an EFL classroom the use of imagery in the process of idioms elucidation, with an improvement

rate of over ﬁfty per cent when an idioms interpretation test is accompanied with visual aids in opposition to a

test with no visual aids at all.

Palabras clave: Idiomatic elucidation, imagery, elementary school, visual aids, learning strategies.

RESÚMEN

Las expresiones idiomáticas son consideradas uno de los aspectos más complejos que los estudiantes de in-

glés como lengua extranjera deben encarar en su camino para dominarlo y aunque la literatura acerca de los

principios pedagógicos para enseñar expresiones idiomáticas no es abundante, estudios conocidos realiza-

dos en torno a los aspectos didácticos de la enseñanza de expresiones idiomáticas, apuntan en la dirección

del uso de imágenes o ayudas visuales como una manera exitosa de ayudar a los estudiantes a interpretarlos.

A través del método cuantitativo, este artículo recoge los resultados de un estudio hecho con estudiantes

de séptimo grado en los niveles A1-A2 que muestra cuan provechoso es en salón de clases EFL el uso de

imágenes en el proceso de la elucidación de expresiones idiomáticas, con una tasa de mejora de por encima

del cincuenta por ciento cuando un test de interpretación de expresiones idiomáticas está acompañado de

ayudas visuales en oposición a un test sin ninguna ayuda visual.

Keywords: Interpretación idiomática, imágenes, escuela básica, ayudas visuales, estrategias de aprendi-

zaje.

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

Introduction

English idioms, or idiomatic expressions,

have constantly challenged English as a Fo-

reign Language (EFL) and English as a Se-

cond Language (ESL) students to elucidate

their meaning. The most probable cause

lies in idioms conveying both literal and ﬁ-

gurative meanings (Fayyazi & Ashari Tabar,

2020). We can ﬁnd expressions all over the

English language usage, which is the reason

why it is so difﬁcult for non-native speakers

to master the English language in the way a

native does (Khoshnevisan, 2019).

Among all formulaic sequences inside the

English language, perhaps the most difﬁcult

to master for EFL/ESL students are idioms.

The complexity of phrases lies in their se-

mantically unpredictable (Ahmadi & Zarei,

2021), as there is no way to determine their

meaning based on their literal translation ex-

tracted from their syntactical components.

Another factor that adds complexity to the

understanding of idioms is Native Language

(L1) interference, especially when the Tar-

get Language (L2) idiom does not have an

equivalent in L1 (Cucchiarini et al., 2020).

The nature of idioms takes them apart from

other English lexical structures, demanding

even an interdisciplinary approach for their

study, taking into consideration the pers-

pective of diverse ﬁelds of knowledge such

as lexicography, computer science, neuro-

linguistics and psycholinguistics (Espinal &

Mateu, 2019).

EFL teachers cannot simply evade idioms

as they are not only an "indispensable part

of almost all the languages in the world"

(Guo, 2019, p. 145), but mastering idioms

among EFL students "demonstrates a high

level of language proﬁciency" (Guo, 2019,

p. 145), hence idioms constitute a valuable

tool to assess English high-level mastering.

Avoiding or delaying the learning of idioms

to a later stage would be counter-producti-

ve since they are "a major part of ﬁgurative

language" (Orfan, 2020, p. 2) and therefore,

they can improve EFL students' communi-

cative skills as they advance in the acquisi-

tion of English language (Orfan, 2020).

A common misconception about idioms is

they are used solely in colloquial communi-

cation. Still, studies made by Miller (2019)

have demonstrated that they are also used

in spoken and written academic English.

Said this, the importance of idioms trans-

cends the aspects of person-to-person

communication to position into the highest

spheres of scientiﬁc outreach.

Learning and using idioms is considered

by Yunus & Hmaidan (2021) the most criti-

cal barrier second language students must

overcome to become ﬂuent. Nguyen et al.

(2022) indeed ensure that only through the

learning of idioms can EFL students mas-

ter the English language in the way a na-

tive would do it. More clearly, "language

learners' ability to understand idioms is a

measure of proﬁciency" (p. 98). Idioms also

need to be taken apart from other linguistics

structures because they require explicit ins-

truction to be mastered and cannot be lear-

ned just by incidental exposition (Ramonda,

2019). From this perspective, idioms should

be taught from the ﬁrst stages of the L2 ac-

quisition. The elementary school classroom

seems the perfect scenery to introduce

idioms as direct or transversal content.

Considering all these factors, idioms are

not a conventional part of the daily life into

an EFL classroom but a topic that must be

treated with special pedagogical considera-

tions. To bridge the gap between literal and

non-literal meaning for students to interpret

idioms correctly, mnemonic is a supplemen-

tary tool (Ahmadi et al., 2020b).

There seems to be a dearth of empirical

research regarding the effect of mnemo-

nic devices on idiom learning (Ahmadi et

al., 2020a). It probably results from idioms

being neglected in EFL contexts for a long

time (Ahmadi et al., 2020b). As idioms are

an essential part of any EFL teaching and

English acquisition processes, the present

research consigned to this paper attempts

Chancay Cedeño, C.H., Calderón, P.

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

to demonstrate how important may be for

students to successfully elucidate English

idioms' meaning using pictorial devices in

the classroom.

Although the number of studies about the

impact of using pictorial devices in teaching

L2 idioms is not scarce, it is not abundant

either. Thus, this study will add some data to

the general knowledge about the topic ga-

thered so far. The present study attempts to

discover the incidence of pictorial devices

in understanding idioms for EFL students in

7th grade.

This study only attempts to ﬁnd out what is

the level of idioms elucidation when pictorial

devices are used. According to Cucchiarini

et al. (2020), "pictorial elucidation contribu-

ted to better retention of idiom meanings,

but did not help recollect their exact linguis-

tic forms", so the focus of the present work is

only limited to measuring the level of picto-

rial elucidation of idioms but not the level of

linguistic form recollection. Ramonda (2019)

also supports this idea as he says that the

use of pictures may "divide the learners' at-

tention between the visual and verbal input"

(p. 5). New research could be done to esta-

blish the level of idioms' linguistic form reco-

llection after students have elucidated their

meanings. Students could, at some point af-

ter the day they answered the tests, see the

pictures again and probably could remem-

ber the linguistic form of the idiom in the L1

but probably will not be able to recall the

linguistic structure of the idiom in L2.

This research uses a no experimental

approach as it tries to determine the beha-

viour of the dependent variable (improving

idioms elucidation) after the population of

this study has been exposed to the inde-

pendent variable (using pictorial devices in

the teaching of idioms).

Methodology

This paper aims to determine whether

using imagery may improve the ability of

seventh-grade students to interpret English

idioms correctly. This research resorts to the

quantitative method. Thus, data collection

will be done through two tests with contras-

ting results. The test will measure sample

students' ability to interpret some curated

English idioms correctly. Both tests are the

same, but the ﬁrst will require students to

interpret idioms without visual aids. In con-

trast, the second test will be accompanied

by imagery that explains the meaning of the

idioms sample students tried to solve in the

ﬁrst test with no aids.

7th-grade students formed the population for

this research from Centro Escolar Pacheco,

a public education institution in Portoviejo,

Ecuador. The total population of 7th-grade

students (distributed into three classrooms

or "parallels") is roughly 75, and a sample

of 25 students was selected to conduct the

research. The average age of the children

was eleven years, and their English level,

according to the placement test, was A1/

A2 (elementary). The sample was selected

considering their academic records and

previous performance in their EFL classes.

The placement test helped the authors of

this paper to determine the sample's suita-

bility properly.

Two instruments were used, and in the ﬁrst

stage, students from the sample responded

to a multiple-choice ﬁfteen-question test.

Every question required the student to elu-

cidate the meaning of one idiom by picking

its purpose from ﬁve different options. Once

the students had ﬁnished the ﬁrst test, they

received the same test again. Still, this time,

every question came accompanied by a

picture that described the meaning of the

idiom, and the student had to pick the mea-

ning again from four options available, "I ig-

nore it" the ﬁfth option in case the student did

not have the slightest idea what the idiom's

meaning was. Both tests were contrasted to

determine the level of improvement from the

ﬁrst test with no pictures to the second test

accompanied by pictures.

ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL: THE USE OF PICTORIAL DEVICES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH IDIOMS

ELUCIDATION AMONG EFL SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENTS

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

As children formed the population, the sam-

ple students' legal representatives signed

an informed consent document to appro-

ve their kids' participation in this research.

Twenty-ﬁve students from the seventh gra-

de were taken into a classroom and placed

with enough separation from each other to

ensure no cooperation. To develop the ﬁrst

test, students had two minutes per question;

thus, the total time to answer the test was

thirty minutes. Students could ask ques-

tions to solve doubts as long as the doubts

were related to the meaning of the choices

for every multiple-choice question so they

could make an informed decision when they

picked one of the choices. Once the ﬁrst test

was retired from the desks, students had a

ﬁfteen-minute rest before repeating the test.

The second time the students made the trial,

they received a second sheet containing a

picture that accompanied every question

and was selected to explain the idiom's me-

aning. Students had the same time as the

previous test to answer all questions. Once

students ended the tests, the answers were

contrasted to determine the level of correct-

ness in the ﬁrst test in relation to the second

one in which the pictures were used.

Results

As theoretical support for the review of

study results

L2 idiomatic expressions constantly cha-

llenge EFL students, and such a task will

signiﬁcantly challenge low-level ones. When

EFL students face idioms for the ﬁrst time,

they could be perplexed as they have to elu-

cidate idioms such as "wipe the ﬂoor with

someone" based on interpreting its consti-

tutive parts (Ahmadi et al., 2020a). It is here

where the difﬁculty of idiom arrangements

lies.

Since idioms are part of the daily life of na-

tive English speakers, as they use them

with no effort and mostly subconsciously,

they should be introduced systematically to

non-native English speakers (Ahmadi & Za-

rei, 2021).

Most teachers will probably go for explicit

and direct interpretation of idioms to share

their meaning with their students as it is con-

sidered a better strategy for learning idio-

matic expressions (Ahmadi et al., 2020b).

However, if chosen carefully in language

learning, pictures could be successfully

used as cognitive devices to clarify idioms

interpretation (Ahmadi et al., 2020b).

In the understanding of idioms via the an-

choring of new concepts to existing ones,

Ahmadi et al. (2020b) believe that the use

of "images and pictures can foster 'meanin-

gful learning' [that] play an undeniable role

in this cognitive process". This author also

advocates using ﬁlms and movie clips to

beneﬁt EFL learning processes (Ahmadi et

al., 2020b); thus, statical or in-motion ima-

gery remains a solid tool for improving L2

learning.

Ahmadi et al. (2020a, 2020b, 2021) have

studied extensively the application of mne-

monic devices based on pictorial repre-

sentations to the learning of idioms among

English students, Ahmadi & Zarei (2021)

declare: "Imageability plays a fundamental

role in the semantic processing of idioms"

(p. 292). Idiom comprehension is reinforced

by using visual mnemonics, mainly because

visual and verbal paths activate the dual co-

ding system (Ahmadi & Zarei, 2021).

Although it is recommended to emphasize

strategical teaching of idioms in EFL class-

rooms, teachers should pay more attention to

idioms in L2 that do not have an equivalent in

L1 and vice versa (Cucchiarini et al., 2020)

since they represent an extra level of cha-

llenge for EFL students. Although idioms are

often non-transparent (van Dijk et al., 2022),

that is, their meaning is not equivalent to their

direct translation, imageability (mental gra-

phical representation) facilitates idioms com-

prehension (Senaldi & Titone, 2022), despite

their non-transparent nature. Thus, we con-

clude pictorial representation of idioms coun-

ters one of the main difﬁculties EFL students

face in their correct interpretation.

Chancay Cedeño, C.H., Calderón, P.

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

Fayyazi & Ashari Tabar (2020), for their part,

also advocate for the use of pictures in the

teaching of idioms as they can trigger ima-

gery recalling and, hence, input remembe-

ring. Fayyazi & Ashari Tabar (2020) are so

conﬁdent in their ﬁndings that they suggest

EFL teaching material creators make their

products (such as textbooks or ﬂashcards)

heavily based on the use of pictorial repre-

sentations for the teaching of idioms (p. 29).

A study published by Nguyen et al. (2022)

mentions twenty-two different strategies for

the teaching of idioms, naming "using pictu-

res" (p. 109) as one of them. Hamdan & Sma-

di (2021) also developed studies to determi-

ne the level of idioms' meaning elucidation

using pictorial devices. Although their focus

was on Arabic idioms to be translated into

English, we see that using images improves

chances for foreign language students to

interpret idioms' meaning correctly. Ham-

dan & Smadi (2021) demonstrated in their

studies with children that they were better

at matching pictures with idioms' non-literal

interpretation than verbally explaining them.

Wiliński (2022) cites an experiment made

by Szczepaniak & Lew, who found out that

the presence of pictorial representations to

accompany idioms entries in dictionaries

"have a signiﬁcant effect" (p. 117) in the la-

ter recalling of the idiomatic form. Wiliński

(2022) also conducted his research on the

topic, and he concluded that using pictorial

elucidation as a strategy to study idioms is

"an effective method" (p. 125).

Zarei (2020) also worked on L2 idiom com-

prehension by the contrast of four different

techniques, ﬁnding that "visualization was

signiﬁcantly more effective…on L2 idiom

production" (p. 217). Ramonda (2019) has

done extensive research on the use of pic-

tures to help EFL students elucidate Engli-

sh idioms' meaning, and his ﬁndings reveal

that the use of images "generally promoted

the meaning recall" (p. 26) of idioms by pro-

viding learners an alternative input channel

other than plain reading and translating.

Alrajhi, A. S. (2020) researched the effect of

the conjunction of graphics and text throu-

gh infographics to teach L2 idioms and

consistently found that this strategy is "hi-

ghly effective for learning idioms" (p. 325),

showing that when it comes to the teaching

of idioms, text results into a more successful

transmission of information when accompa-

nied with an image.

A study cited by Orfan (2020), whose data

was collected from 80 EFL students, found

that pictorial elucidation in tandem with ety-

mological elucidation "was the most effec-

tive strategy in helping students to learn

idioms" (p. 4). Although etymological eluci-

dation is not the focus of this paper, picto-

rial elucidation is, and we realize this device

is effective for idioms teaching for itself or

even may serve to strengthen alternative

methods EFL teachers could be inclined to

use in teaching idioms. Nolas et al. (2018)

studied the evocation of childhood idioms

through photography related to situations

that are part of children's lives.

Some authors like Edyanto et al. (2021) have

explored multimedia in teaching idioms fur-

ther by researching the effects of Augmen-

ted Reality (AR) in the learning process.

Samburskiy (2020) contributed to this topic

following the opposite route to the present

paper and asked the participants in his

research to determine "if the idioms could

be easily associated with an image", with a

positive outcome (p. 193), that is, students

were able to create for the idioms they were

exposed to, a mental image that could exp-

lain their meaning.

Several studies have explored new devices

to help EFL students, meaning elucidation

for idioms, even though idioms remain a re-

latively unexplored part of English Langua-

ge Teaching (ELT) knowledge.

Quantitative study results

The results from the ﬁrst test (with no visual

aids) show that sample students correctly

ﬁgured out the meaning of 3.84 idioms on

ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL: THE USE OF PICTORIAL DEVICES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH IDIOMS

ELUCIDATION AMONG EFL SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENTS

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

average out of 15, which represents 25,60%

of idiom elucidation correctness. On the

other hand, the second test (with visual

aids) resulted in 11,8 correct answers out of

15, which represents 78,67% correctness,

which is 53,07% more than the previous

test. The results suggest that the use of pic-

torial devices helps increase students' suc-

cess rate for English idioms interpretation by

53,07 per cent. The evidence demonstrates

that images are relevant tools for students to

interpret idioms correctly.

Table 1. Idioms elucidation success rate using images

First test Success percentage Second test Success percentage

Student 01 2 out of 15 13,33 12 out of 15 80,00

Student 02 3 out of 15 20,00 11 out of 15 73,33

Student 03 2 out of 15 13,33 10 out of 15 66,67

Student 04 1 out of 15 6,67 12 out of 15 80,00

Student 05 4 out of 15 26,67 15 out of 15 100,00

Student 06 3 out of 15 20,00 12 out of 15 80,00

Student 07 5 out of 15 33,33 15 out of 15 100,00

Student 08 4 out of 15 26,67 13 out of 15 86,67

Student 09 0 out of 15 0,00 8 out of 15 53,33

Student 10 7 out of 15 46,67 7 out of 15 46,67

Student 11 6 out of 15 40,00 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 12 3 out of 15 20,00 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 13 2 out of 15 13,33 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 14 1 out of 15 6,67 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 15 3 out of 15 20,00 9 out of 15 60,00

Student 16 2 out of 15 13,33 6 out of 15 40,00

Student 17 8 out of 15 53,33 11 out of 15 73,33

Student 18 8 out of 15 53,33 13 out of 15 86,67

Student 19 7 out of 15 46,67 12 out of 15 80,00

Student 20 5 out of 15 33,33 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 21 4 out of 15 26,67 10 out of 15 66,67

Student 22 3 out of 15 20,00 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 23 4 out of 15 26,67 12 out of 15 80,00

Student 24 7 out of 15 46,67 14 out of 15 93,33

Student 25 2 out of 15 13,33 9 out of 15 60,00

Averages 3,84 out of 15 25,60 11,8 out of 15 78,67

Chancay Cedeño, C.H., Calderón, P.

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

Discussion

The available sources regarding the pe-

dagogical strategies developed to teach

and learn idioms clearly specify directly or

indirectly that the process is better served

when visual aids are used in the classroom.

Although students tend to learn departing

from those things they know better to move

to those things they ignore, this principle

could be disrupted in the learning of idioms

as probably even though students can iden-

tify the constitutive words of an idiom and

know their meaning in a more or less sta-

ble context, the new purpose acquired now

by those exact words now being part of an

idiom, could be perplexing.

Thus, imagery rises as the cohesive factor

that puts into a new perspective the cons-

titutive parts of an idiom, in a way the stu-

dents can embrace their words beyond their

particular meaning to now acquire a distinct

semantic hue. The efﬁciency of visual aids,

be they static or in-motion, as a solid tool to

support the acquisition of a second langua-

ge has been widely tested and demonstra-

ted in recent studies by authors such as Ah-

madi et al. (2020b), Ahmadi & Zarei (2021),

Figure 1. Idioms elucidation success rate using images

Senaldi & Titone (2022), Fayyazi & Ashari

tabar (2020), Nguyen et al. (2022) among

others.

With the experiment presented in this paper,

it is also noticeable that supporting idioms

learning with pictorial devices could impro-

ve idioms elucidation even in students with

a relatively low English level. The sample

for the study object of this paper was taken

from seventh-grade students from a regu-

lar public school, so their English class was

presumably in the range of A1-A2, some-

thing that was conﬁrmed for the placement

test applied to them. The level of success

the students showed in the results with the

test accompanied with pictorial devices in

comparison to the test with no visual aids

demonstrates the use of imagery in the pro-

cess of idioms interpretation is adequate

even from the lowest levels; therefore, it is

consequently appropriate for higher levels

of English mastery.

The previous statement is relevant to clari-

fy that although instructors avoid teaching

idioms in the ﬁrst stages of the EFL/ESL ac-

quisition process, as they are considered

too complex for beginners to understand,

ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL: THE USE OF PICTORIAL DEVICES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH IDIOMS

ELUCIDATION AMONG EFL SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENTS

REVISTA UNESUM-Ciencias Volumen 7, Número 3, 2023

the evidence presented by the present study

says otherwise. Low-level students trying to

interpret idioms on their own could probably

miss in most cases. Still, as demonstrated,

the visual aids can improve their ability to

elucidate idioms from early stages by means

of which students get acquainted with them

from the beginning of the process, paving

the road to master them in later stages.

The insertion of idioms in EFL/ESL study

programs from early stages could beco-

me an innovative and revolutionary way to

engage in English acquisition due to the

ubiquitous nature of idioms and due to the

fact they have been chieﬂy considered the

pinnacle of English mastering. Why not start

mastering the pinnacle from the beginning?

Conclusions

• Pictorial devices remain unquestionably

one of the strongest pedagogical stra-

tegies to support English acquisition

and, on a more detailed level, to support

idioms interpretation.

• Idioms elucidation rate among ELF/ESL

students may improve dramatically when

visual aids are used in the process.

• Depending on the use of imagery,

idioms may be successfully incorpora-

ted into any EFL/ESL program from the

early stages of the process and not only

when students have advanced to higher

levels.

The level of retention for idioms' linguistic

form through the use of pictorial devices

would be another topic for a further research

project. Another opportunity to develop fur-

ther research about this topic is trying to

determine if images used in the teaching

of idioms should explain literal meaning or

symbolic meaning. Aydin (2019) explored

this topic, pointing out that no research had

been done before (at least to his knowled-

ge), so he considers more research should

be done on this topic "to validate further" (p.

321) his ﬁndings.

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ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL: THE USE OF PICTORIAL DEVICES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH IDIOMS

ELUCIDATION AMONG EFL SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENTS