Idiomatic expressions in English from a learner perspective: a case study on the role of social media in teaching idiomatic language

Today, it is well known that English culture has great power to influence the rest of the world, partly due to the fact that English is the international language par excellence. Technological progress, moreover, makes it increasingly easy to be exposed to the various uses of the language. Although English language teaching and learning techniques have been extensively investigated in research on English as a Foreign Language (EFL), little consideration has been given to the evolution of the role of English idiomatic expressions in influencing the educational level of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. This research, therefore, intends to examine the complexity of studying and processing idiomatic expressions, paying attention to the benefits they can bring to ESL learners’ communicative competence when integrated into their scholastic curriculum. This qualitative and descriptive investigation aims at case study methodology to explore the extent to which learners of English can understand and use these expressions correctly in situations that offer the possibility to do so. The results suggest that ESL learners who have access to the Web are inevitably exposed to new methods of learning figurative expressions. However, these result to remain extremely challenging to interpret. This might lead to a reconsideration of certain aspects of traditional teaching methods of many educational systems.