Developing productive metaphoric competence through a frame-inspired task-based teaching model

Abstract

The paper reports preliminary findings from applying a frame-inspired task-based approach to metaphor teaching in an EFL classroom. The teaching model used combines Frame Semantics, a cognitive linguistic theory that takes a usage-based view of meaning, with Task-Based Language Teaching, which emphasizes second/foreign language learning through interactionally authentic language use. In this paper we examine students’ productions in terms of the amount, type and function of metaphor use with a view to identifying the stages the students went through in developing their metaphoric competence in L2 writing. We illustrate how their metaphor awareness skills seem to develop along a continuum from non-deliberate isolated figurative instances to deliberate extended metaphor used as a conceptual and discursive framework for their writing. We thus provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of the proposed frame-inspired task-based approach to metaphor teaching.