October 15, 2011: What I'm thinking now...(Part Two)

What I'm thinking now is the same. It has been validated and I think I have a clear vision on where I want to go with my inquiry this year. After making appointments I feel that I was able to clearly articulate what my study is and why it's important to study idioms. Idioms are a play on language that fall between basic conversational English and academic English.

Year 3: Saturday, October 15, 2011 (Part One)

What I really want to know is how I can get students to get to a point where they either recognize or use idioms. I want students to use idioms when interacting and know how to correctly use them.

This is important because my students aren't practicing their English. They don't have English at home and when they come to school they constantly revert to Spanish when speaking with their classmates. They get basic conversational how to's in ELD (English Language Development). I feel that the use of idioms are a step above that and are an important thing to teach them since they are not explicitly taught. I used idioms when speaking and I'm not sure if they always know what I'm saying. They will hear idioms as they get older and in order for them to truly get a grasp of conversational English, they need to know how to use these idioms properly.

Therefore my question at this point is, How can the study of idioms help improve my students' understanding and recognition of idiomatic phrases in conversational English?