Upper Intermediate 3rd Edition

[Milan Skidmore]

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One of the most effective tools for helping someone understand and explain a hypothetical or an abstract, difficult reality is a metaphor (Boyd, 1993). Johnson (2013) defined a metaphor as the description of a usual linguistic event in everyday language. Speakers commonly employ metaphors to make complex experiences simple. From this point of view, Blumenberg (2020) and Johnson (2013) pointed out that metaphors shape our perceptions and comprehension in addition to making our thoughts more vivid and engaging. They elaborated on this notion by saying that metaphor plays a role in how we think, feel, decide, and act in daily life.

Traditional theoretical frameworks claim that metaphor is a verbal rather than a mental activity (Duffley, 2020). These theoretical perspectives claim that a metaphor is a creative expressive language device in which a group of words is used to refer to a separate, related subject outside the framework of their usual use (Eidevall, 2020). In a sense, the traditional concept of an original metaphor was a device for making comparisons between things (Turner and Fauconnier, 2009). The majority of scholars considered adapted metaphors to be a device for rhetorical flourish and poetic illusion (Shen, 1995). This point of view led to the majority of research studies on visual metaphors being in foreign or second languages.

Silver, Lakoff, and Johnson (1982) dispelled this notion and proposed a larger understanding of metaphor that focuses on a separation between concrete original metaphorical utterances and adapted conceptual metaphors. They demonstrated how metaphors may be created using everyday language; how they are largely conceptual; and how they exist only in our minds. In a way, metaphor serves two main purposes: it beautifies texts and illustrates the process of thinking in the human mind (Lakoff and Johnson, 2020). As noted by Lakoff and Johnson (2020), a conceptual metaphor is produced when someone compares one item to another, more specific thing.

Metaphors can be an effective tool for analyzing common human behaviors and experiences due to their roles in human cognition (Leite, 2020). Once researchers switched their attention from an external framework of educational practice to day-to-day classroom realities, metaphors started to gain relevance as a study instrument in the fields of applied linguistics and education (Sher and Feinman, 1995). Over the past few years, the non-linguistic applications of metaphors have drawn a lot of attention. For instance, metaphorical gestures and visual metaphors have received a great deal of research (Wang, 2015; Roth and Lawless, 2002).

The advent of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) has recently revolutionized the study of metaphor (Silver et al., 1982; Lakoff and Johnson, 2020). The foundation of the CMT is based on the idea that metaphor is not merely a feature of language but also an essential component of the human mind, in contrast to preceding theories of metaphorical meanings. In essence, conceptual metaphors or pre-existing metaphorical thought processes are where most metaphorical language originates (Lantolf, 2006). Accordingly, this theory holds that metaphors are crucial to not only language but also mind and how we perceive the world (Kvecses, 2011). That is, because of our premature experiences in this world, particularly from our sensorimotor and physical interactions with the concrete realities, all of our thinking and language skills have developed (Ionta et al., 2011; Schoos and Suer, 2020).

The researchers went to the dean of the college and briefed him on the goals of the current study to gain access to the participants. He granted access to the researchers to the upper-intermediate classes and for the current investigation to be conducted in the context of the English language. The researchers randomly chose a class and joined it at the scheduled time. The researchers greeted the students warmly before requesting their consent to take part in this study. The learners who consented to participate in this study signed a formal form of authorization in Arabic.

As stated above, the researchers used verbal and non-verbal metaphor-elicitation tools to collect data. The verbal tool took the form of a two-item questionnaire that asked participants to describe how they perceive L2 learning processes. The participants were asked to develop metaphors for L2 learning in general rather than detailing a specific course of study during this phase. The participants used many metaphors to communicate their opinions about studying L2.

The visual tool, specifically the adapted drawings made by the L2 students, was another metaphor-elicitation tool. The researchers were able to take into account all the possibilities available to the students in choosing the forms, colors, and layouts to show what they understood to be L2 learners thanks to the multimodal analysis of these drawings. In the written descriptions provided by the learners in the questionnaire, the metaphorical meanings represented in these images are addressed. It is important to highlight that the researchers explicitly described in Arabic what the participants were supposed to complete before the data collection phase began.

All authors made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the work. The interviews and the analysis were conducted by the first author. All authors participated in the interpretation of data. All authors drafted the work and revised it critically for important intellectual content. All authors gave final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The study was approved by the Scientific Research Ethics Committee at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University. The researchers confirm that all research procedures were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations involved in the Declaration of Helsinki.

Find a range of lesson plans to use with teenage learners at upper-intermediate level. All of our lessons are designed around themes that are engaging and relevant to secondary learners and can be used to complement your school curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways. Written by young learner experts from around the world, our lesson plans are easy to use and aim to give your students the skills and confidence they need to enjoy learning English.

This lesson plan for English language learners at CEFR B2 level looks at the key groups who took part in the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Students will practise their speaking skills through a role-play activity.

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