Animal Idioms and their Use in Foreign Language Lessons

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,7, University of Erfurt, language: English, abstract: Idioms are quite pleasant and fascinating linguistic phenomena to me. I connect idioms to a creative and competent use of language. Therefore, I can still remember the first idiom I learnt at school: It's raining cats and dogs. At that time, it was just a funny gimmick during the English lesson. Today the study of English opens new vistas to this. Why isn't it raining fish? Or one could as: Why isn't it raining cats and dogs in Germany, but 'Bindfäden' (twines)? In this presentation I want to engage in the field of idiomatic expressions containing animal names. As this group is unmanageably wide, I will concentrate on phraseological units that are connected to cats and dogs. After having given a short general linguistic overview of the field concerning idioms, I will concentrate on the possibilities of using idioms in primary class. I will not only give arguments for it but also present material one could use in class.