The Contribution of Metaphor to University Students’ Explicit Knowledge About ELT Methodology

What is it about?

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between metaphor and a group of English students’ awareness of and engagement with various ELT methodology issues (feedback, induction, error, etc.). The study, conducted among 27 EFL students of English philology, was based on the triangular approach intended to yield both quantitative and qualitative data from a questionnaire and an argumentative paragraph. The analysis of obtained results reveals ontological correspondence between the concrete source domains from which the respondents derived their comments and the abstract target domains referring to various ELT concepts that they tried to explore and understand. An overall conclusion is that the conceptual and linguistic layers of metaphor can be viewed as a constructive tool for transforming language students’ implicit beliefs and assumptions into the explicit and thus more meaningfully as well as effectively exploited system of knowledge about L2 pedagogy ideas and principles.

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