(Material and Course Design) Webinar Library
I am a plastic model: Teaching Through Metaphor
The study of metaphor in linguistics began as part of the so-called cognitive revolution of the 80's and was marked by the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors we live by. Since that time, the essential role of metaphor in human communication has become more and more evident. However, the idea that metaphor is the foundation of human communicative ability, fundamental to human language ability has yet to reach the EFL classroom and for EFL teaching, metaphor has been generally limited to classes for advanced learners as a final, decorative addition. Rather than treating metaphor as an advanced topic, the accessibility argued for by Cognitive Linguistics researchers means that language learners need not be proficient in order to use metaphor, and even students at lower levels should be able to use metaphor to develop their communicative abilities. In this practical workshop the presenter will give a simple introduction to theories of metaphor, before demonstrating some simple yet effective metaphor-based classroom activities, including activities such as having student use and create visual metaphors, eliciting metaphor in writing, and the use of self-reflections to help learners improve their communication skills while better understanding themselves and the language learning process.
About Joseph Tomei
Joseph Tomei is a professor in the Faculty of British and American Studies at Kumamoto Gakuen University, having just completed the 2019-2020 school year as visiting professor at Daejeon University. He has taught EFL in France, Spain, and Japan at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. In addition to his interest in computer-mediated communication, he also is interested in the application of functional/typological grammar to language teaching, practical activities in the language classroom, and writing instruction, and his recently completed doctorate from the University of Birmingham is on the use of metaphor by EFL writers.
