A Proposed Framework for Teaching English Idiomatic Expressions Appearing in Friends to English Language Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose a structured framework for selecting and teaching English idiomatic expressions to English language learners. The framework is intended to organize authentic audiovisual input into level-appropriate instructional materials rather than to test or demonstrate instructional effectiveness. To provide contextualized and engaging input for English language learners, the American sitcom Friends, which was popular globally, was used as educational material. Since idiomatic language is formed and used based on Western history, culture, and social background, sitcoms containing everyday Anglo-American culture and sentiments can be suitable materials for the teaching and learning of English idiomatic expressions. By analyzing the transcripts and video recordings of Friends, 277 significant vocabularies and multi-word units were extracted from the television narrative based on spoken language actually used in real conversational contexts. Among these, 124 idiomatic expressions were extracted after excluding overlapping expressions, slang, and highly specialized jargon. Expressions occurring two or more times were retained for frequency-based analysis. Based on constituent-vocabulary difficulty and semantic transparency, 42 expressions were selected and organized into elementary, intermediate, and advanced tiers. Proposed instructional applications were then developed for each level. These applications are suggestions for classroom use and were not empirically tested in the present study.