Gender, English Language Proficiency, and Corpus-Based Teaching of Metaphorical Expressions in the EFL Context of Iran

ABSTRACT: Learning metaphorical expressions is one of the momentous challenges among Iranian EFL learners, as there is a lack of knowledge in the literature concerning corpus-based approach towards teaching in an Iranian EFL context. Sixty participants were classified in 2 groups of intermediate and advanced learners based on the results of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) prior to the course. Two lists of 50 metaphorical expressions were developed by the researchers, one based on the frequent English metaphors used in 2 contexts that were randomly chosen from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), whereas the other included the same expressions along with their definitions. Investigating the interdependence of gender and level of English language proficiency with the repercussions of using corpus-based materials on the learning of metaphorical expressions among the Iranian EFL learners, we came up with interesting, thought-provoking and insightful results which help EFL instructors and course designers to provide the learners with the most pertinent contents for teaching metaphorical expressions and pave the way for further investigations.