The present study investigated the effect of context on the strategies the EFL learners utilized to process idioms. To do so, ten Iranian intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to two groups who then attended a think-aloud session. The 5 subjects in the first group were exposed to an animated cartoon including 23 unfamiliar idioms while their counterparts in the second group were exposed to the written version of the same material. The subjects of the two groups were asked to verbally report their thought processes when trying to define the unfamiliar idioms. The data thus gathered form the small sample revealed 8 major strategies which were then used to prepare a questionnaire to be administered to a larger sample. The new sample included 60 subjects randomly assigned to two groups of 30.The first group as in the think-aloud session was exposed to the animated cartoon while the other read the respective script. The subjects in both groups were asked to check the strategies they resorted to when guessing the meaning of unfamiliar idioms. The results of the study showed both inter and intra-group differences confirming the effect of context on the strategies applied in processing unfamiliar idioms.

Idioms, forms of figurative language, are used pervasively in both spoken and written discourse. However, mainly due to their figurative nature, they are often considered difficult to learn. The present study tried to first of all briefly investigate the language learners' attitudes toward learning L2 idioms. It then compared the effect of written vs. video-graphic contexts on the language learners' long-term and short-term retention of idioms. To know about the language learners' attitudes to learning English idioms and their relevant experiences, a questionnaire was administered to a group of Iranian EFL learners. The results of the questionnaire proved their highly positive view toward learning idioms and their need for helpful and facilitating learning strategies. At the second stage of the study, two similar groups of intermediate EFL learners were exposed to unfamiliar idioms through a story in written and video-graphic contexts. The subjects were also given the definitions on a separate sheet to check. The subjects' long-term and short-term retention were then tested and compared. The results of the study showed no significant difference between the International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2012 www.macrothink.org/ijl 53 performances of the two groups regarding their short term retention, while with respect to long-term retention; the animation group i.e. the one exposed to the video-graphic context significantly outperformed the text group. The results of the study also support the dual coding theory which emphasizes the role of mental imagery in retention.