Amy Newberry

Demonstration Proposal

Sunshine State TESOL Conference

May 11-13, 2000

The goal of this demonstration is to give teachers of English as a Second or Foreign Language an effective new way to teach idioms in the classroom by using newspaper headlines. Idioms are a large part of the English language, especially in newspapers. Students need to know that what they are learning in their ESL classes has real world use in the students’ everyday lives. The purpose of this demonstration is so teachers can show their intermediate to advanced level students that learning idioms is pertinent to everyday usage of English.

Once teachers know how to use newspaper headlines to teach idioms, their students will become familiar with the idea of idioms in everyday life. Students will learn how to recognize and understand English idioms. Students will progress from being confused about why an idiom is not meant to be literal to making up their own idiom-based headlines and titles for their own papers and compositions.

Part of the demonstration includes the actual activity of finding idioms in newspaper headlines. The teachers in attendance of the demonstration will participate in the activity by forming groups and looking through newspapers supplied by the presenter. The teachers will present their examples of newspaper idioms to the rest of the class. The entire class will go over the idioms’ meanings both literally and idiomatically.