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Without Slang and Idioms
Without Slang and Idioms
by David Burke
"After writing a successful series of books on French and Spanish slang and
idioms (the Street French and Street Spanish series), it never dawned on me to
write a series of books focusing on Americanisms. After all, we don't use that much
slang...or do we?
When I was working out at the gym with a French friend of mine, Pascale, a
friend of his came up and enthusiastically inquired, "What's up?" Pascale paused a
moment, took a ste p backward and looked up, checking out the ceiling.
Realizing he didn't get it, I quickly piped up and explained, "Oh, that's slang for
'How are you?'" He looked confused, obviously not understanding how "What's
up?" could possibly have anything to do with "How are you?" But his friend didn't
stop there.
"So, Pascale, did you hear how the Italian soccer team licked the French
team?" As Pascale's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, an expression I
hadn't seen since the days of "Our Gang" comedy, I suddenly realized where he
had gone with that one and could only imagine what image his mind was conjuring
up.
It was at that moment that I realized for the first time that there was absolutely
no way a nonnative speaker of English could fully understand an American movie,
TV show, news broadcast, or even a typical conversation without help because our
language is loaded with nonstandard English, i.e., slang and idioms.
Defining Terms
Since we use both terms, slang and idioms, we ought to define them. I asked a
group of ESL teachers, "What is the difference between slang and idioms?"
Everyone had their own answer. After consulting several dictionaries, all having
slightly different takes on the definitions, I would like to propose these definitions:
SLANG: Nonstandard vocabulary of a given culture or subculture. In other
words, slang is typically a nonstandard word, not a phrase as is an idiom.
Slang would include words like pooped, to down a drink, the grind, boob-tube,
threads, bonkers, basket case, etc. Slang words may or may not have alternative
literal meanings. They may be "made up" words.
IDIOM: A phrase that is commonly understood in a given culture or subculture
to have a meaning different from its literal meaning. A good example of this is "to
bend over backwards." This phrase is commonly understood in our culture to mean
"to exert an enormous effort in order to accomplish something." The literal
meaning, however, is the physical act it describes, of which few may actually be
capable of doing!
SIDE BAR
How Do You Teach Slang and Idioms?
Throughout my 15 years of writing self-teaching books on slang and idioms and
speaking to numerous groups during lecture tours around the world, I've been able
to interview the teachers and students who have used my original books. Through
these interviews, I have been fortunate to hear from teachers first-hand which
techniques worked and which ones fe ll short.
The consensus has been the desire for a text with 1) with fewer slang terms and
idioms packed into each chapter; in other words, they want more "bite-size" chunks
of information; and 2) more classroom activities. My newest classroom edition
(Street Speak,1998) is based on hundreds of these helpful comments. This new
format is already being used at Berlitz, Duke University, Aspect International,
Boston University, EF International, ELS Language Centers, and American English
Academy, among other places.
From my experience and from my conversations with teachers, I've found the
following method to be the most effective way to teach slang and idioms.
Presentation
1. Start with a natural dialogue that contains no more than twelve slang words
and idioms. According to students, any more than that is simply too many.
2. Based on the context of each phrase, allow the students to guess what each
slang term or idiom means. For example: "It really ticks me off when you lie!" Ask
the students to guess what that could mean. Ask, "Is the speaker happy that the
other person is lying?" The students will erupt in a big "No! The speaker is angry!"
3. To really lock in the meaning, it's fun to go around the classroom and have
each student use "No, it ticks me off!" as they respond to your questions such as
"Do you like it when people borrow money from you?" "Do you like it when your
brother or sister borrows your clothes without permission?" etc.
"Real Speak"
Unanimously, teachers and students absolutely love going back through the
dialogues using common reductions. Learning the slang and idioms without this
step leaves the students at a loss when they hear native English speakers. When a
standard sentence of ten syllables is suddenly transformed into five syllables with
reductions, the students are always amazed and delighted. Since students have all
heard this type of delivery, this portion of the lesson is always met with lots of
laughs and, more importantly, an eagerness to learn this "funny" way we all speak.
After slang and idioms are presented, understood and practiced with reductions,
a variety of reinforcement activities can make the meaning stick. Whole class
activities as well as pair work can be successful for reinforcing a lesson. At my last
TESOL lecture, I had a group of 100 teachers do a pair work activity. The laughing
and tittering during this ten-minute period demonstrated the potential fun of pair
work.