Categorization and teaching idiomatic expressions through mnemonics

Abstract

The main aim of the following graduation project is to create an illustrative booklet with the most common English idiomatic expressions with their exact equivalent in Spanish. The booklet is intended to help English learners understand, use, and apply idioms in an appropriate context since their use will make learners sound more natural, in other words, more like a native speaker. The idioms used for the creation of the booklet were obtained from a survey that was administered to a group of expats living in Cuenca. To carry out this survey, the researcher worked with a check list, categorization chart, and an open question, resulting in a sizeable list of idioms. After analyzing the results, it was possible for the researcher to determinate the most common English idioms which were later categorized according to their form and meaning based on their equivalents in Spanish. Finally, visual imagery, namely, illustrations that belong to mnemonics take an important role within the booklet, which will be used with the help of teachers at all times