Norwegian students' comprehension of idioms in English

Abstract

A quantitative experimental study was conducted with two Norwegian high school classes with a total of forty-six 16 years old students as participants. The participants were divided into two groups identical to their original school classes, one that would function as the experiment group and the other as the control group. The proficiency level and idiom comprehension level of both groups were tested before the experiment group received systematic instruction and practice on the topic idioms twice a week for a month. A week after the instruction part in the experiment group was completed, both groups were tested a second time. The study was designed to investigate if systematic instruction would have a positive effect on the students’ comprehension of idioms in their second language, English. And secondly, to explore if the systematic instruction provided would have a positive effect on the students' overall proficiency in their second language. The results showed that instruction does have a positive effect on one’s comprehension of idioms. The experiment group achieved significantly better scores on the second idiom comprehension questionnaire than the control group. In terms of effect on the students' overall proficiency, the results are inconclusive.