This paper investigates the use of idioms in Chinese EFL learners' spoken English by virtue of two corpora, SECCL and COLSEC. The results indicate that there is no difference in the use of idioms between English-m...This paper investigates the use of idioms in Chinese EFL learners' spoken English by virtue of two corpora, SECCL and COLSEC. The results indicate that there is no difference in the use of idioms between English-major and non-English-major learners. The learners are competent at using most of the idioms of high and high-medium frequency. However, they use nearly none of the idioms of medium and below frequency. Based on the findings, we conclude that the learners do not have a good command of the most frequently used idioms in spoken English. Suggestions on syllabus designing and classroom teaching are brought about at the end of the paper.展开更多
文摘This paper investigates the use of idioms in Chinese EFL learners' spoken English by virtue of two corpora, SECCL and COLSEC. The results indicate that there is no difference in the use of idioms between English-major and non-English-major learners. The learners are competent at using most of the idioms of high and high-medium frequency. However, they use nearly none of the idioms of medium and below frequency. Based on the findings, we conclude that the learners do not have a good command of the most frequently used idioms in spoken English. Suggestions on syllabus designing and classroom teaching are brought about at the end of the paper.