The primary objective of this research is twofold: first, to elucidate the explicit teaching of phrasal verb constructions within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, with a specific focus on the metaphorical aspects of particle usage, and second, to examine the correlation between such explicit instruction in phrasal verbs and the gains in implicit knowledge of these verb forms. This study employed a within-group pretest/posttest design as part of an experimental investigation involving 60 Turkish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners who were students at the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) at a state university in Turkey. The research was analyzed across three dimensions: the achievement and retention of both receptive and productive knowledge of phrasal verbs, subconscious recognition and processing of lexical items, and the processing of phrasal verb meanings in a semantic context. To assess the first dimension, a multiple-choice test to gauge the students' ...

Teachers who have the difficult task of teaching their students all the wonderful intricacies of phrasal verbs know how hard it is to place the correct emphasis on these verbs using traditional and often inadequate grammar techniques. The cognitive approach in linguistics, more particularly the Conceptual Metaphor Awareness method (CMA), besides addressing many language issues in general, represents a new viewpoint for teachers and researchers alike, by introducing conceptual metaphors as tools in language acquisition. This paper presents a study conducted in an elementary school in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where two groups of students learned phrasal verbs through two different input constructions: the first (control) group learned a specific set of phrasal verbs via traditional focus on verbs themselves, while the experimental group was offered a set of carefully constructed conceptual metaphors presented through concepts within these verbs. Results received from both groups showed that the students in the experimental group developed a significantly higher understanding of the cognitive dimension of the verbs and were able to use the verbs accurately stored in their mental lexicon. By focusing on the cognitive concepts behind the phrasal verbs and using such methods as TPR (Total Physical Response), the study proposes a possible shift in EFL learning towards a more cognitive approach.

This study examined the effect of conceptual metaphors on learning idioms by L2 learners. Seventy juniors participated in this study. They were grouped into two: Group 1 as the experimental group and Group 2 as the control group. Group 1 (n = 40) learned the idioms by conceptual metaphors and Group 2 (n = 30) by traditional methods. The participants were given a pretest in order to check the comprehension and production of idioms, metaphors, and conceptual metaphors. After the pretest, the idioms were instructed to both groups. The first group received conceptual metaphor instruction and the second group the traditional methods. The idiom instruction lasted for one semester. Then, the posttest was given to the participants. Result showed that conceptual metaphors had a significant effect on learning idioms by the L2 participants (Group 1). Results also pointed to the fact that the effect of conceptual metaphors on learning idioms was more than that of traditional methods. Group 2 could learn idioms, but failed to draw the meaning of idioms because their metaphorical awareness had not developed.

Abstract—This study investigates the metaphor’s central position in the memorization, retention and prediction of the meaning of phrasal verbs. To this end, 45 Iranian EFL learners from Chabahar Maritime University were divided into three groups. In control group, the phrasal verbs were presented with their Farsi (students' mother tongue) equivalents and students were asked to memorize them on their own as it is the traditional method of teaching phrasal verbs. Experimental group I received the phrasal verbs in the context of a sentence, and students were asked to make new sentences with them in the class. And the experimental group II received the orientational metaphors underlying the meaning of the particles of phrasal verbs. All the three groups took three tests in which the correct particles of the phrasal verbs had to be provided. The first test, carried out just two hours after the instructions, dealt with the taught phrasal verbs. The same test was conducted five weeks later to measure the long term retention of phrasal verbs' meaning. But the third test dealt with 20 untaught phrasal verbs which had the same particles as the taught ones. One-way ANOVA results revealed that the difference between the groups’ performances on the immediate test was not statistically significant, while the efficiency of metaphorical conceptualization, and sentential contextualization on the delayed test, and untaught test was considerable. There was a slight difference between the two experimental groups, but it was not statistically significant. The study ends with some suggestions for the teaching of phrasal verbs and the possible factors contributing to their difficulty.