Proverbs and Sayings in the Lesson

Eva Homolov, Slovakia

Eva Homolov is a teacher trainer at the Department of English and American Studies,
Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Bansk Bystrica, Slovakia. She is interested in
teachers and learners roles and using authentic materials in ELT. She has written two
monographs on roles and one on ways of using job advertisements in developing language
skills.
E-mail: homolova@fhv.umb.sk

Menu

Introduction
Background
Proverbs and saying as examples of authentic texts
Classroom tasks
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Throughout last decades of English language teaching, a recurring issue has been how to
include culture into foreign language teaching as language and culture are interwoven and
communication across cultures cannot be successful without being culturally aware of the
target language community. Thus teaching a foreign language cannot be successful without
developing learners cultural awareness. One possible approach suggested by experts (Grundy
1994, Dornyei 2001, Sowden 2007) is making use of authentic texts.

Authentic materials provide effective resources for teaching a foreign language as they offer
the opportunity to expose learners to texts produced for real life and out-of classroom context.
By authentic materials we understand texts with real language, produced by real speakers or
written for a real audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort.
If teachers use authentic texts sensibly they provide learners with secure bridges into the real
world of language and culture. In other words one way how it is possible to reach
communicative goals in teaching and learning languages is to base classroom activities on
authentic texts as often as possible. Thus an insight into culture through understanding of
mentality and habits of neighbor countries is nowadays seen as part of communicative
competence.

Proverbs and sayings as examples of authentic texts

Authentic texts always bring the target language culture into the classroom and give learners
insights into behavior of people in the foreign culture in an increasingly unified and
multicultural society. So by communicative competence in this context we do not understand
a culture element of factual information (facts about literature, art, history etc.) but its
widened aspect of how people think, react, behave, what their priorities are, habits, norm and
so on.
There exist many examples of authentic texts that can be successfully used in the lesson e.g.
newspaper articles, short stories, poems, restaurant menus, advertisements, various leaflets,
brochures, tickets, announcements, manuals etc.
In this article I want to focus on, lets say, one of the shortest examples of authentic texts
proverbs and sayings. They are authentic texts and though their vocabulary and grammar are
not simplified for learners level, they are more or less accessible for classroom use; they are
usually very short and use simple language. Another characteristic is an ability to focus on a
specific instance of culture and common sense in the form of pieces of advice.

A proverb is a short and simple sentence well - known and repeated by the members of the
target language community. It is usually a universal truth, based on common sense or
experience of people.
Examples:
You cannot teach old dog new tricks.
Learn wisdom by follies of others.
Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.
A saying is a witty and bright sentence of truth or wisdom.
Bad news travels fast.
There is no place like home
All roads lead to Rome.

What applies to authentic texts in general is appropriate to proverbs and sayings too and there
are a number of positive reasons for an inclusion of them in the lesson plans:

meaning has priority over language

has its specific length
learners are more or less familiar with the text type from their mother tongue/culture
learners can easily predict kind of information it contains
it brings reality and culture into the classroom
it can be used as a springboard for other useful and interesting activities such as role play,
project, discussion games and so on.

Typical stylistic features of proverbs are alliteration, parallelism, rhyme and ellipsis (Arora,
1984) which can cause initial misunderstanding. However the teacher can benefit from
negative features as learners cannot often understand the main message of it at first sight
mostly in cases when the English proverb contains words which are not used for the same
message in the Slovak equivalent. Here the way how the teacher works with it is more
important than the content of the text.

Classroom tasks

When we decide to make use of proverbs and sayings in the lesson we have to consider its
aim. The teacher should not forced learners to memorize them, although it often happens that
many learners remember them without any effort.
Proverbs and sayings can be used in any all stages of the lesson as warm up activities, for
presenting and practicing lexical items and grammar structures/functions, practicing
pronunciation, stimuli for a discussion/debate, topic for project work or essay writing and we
should not forget building cultural awareness. As these texts are short, funny and they often
rhyme they can make learning process stimulating and more effective.

We should not ignore a chance to develop learners creativity by using proverbs and sayings,
as learners can make use of their artistic skill e.g. drawing, using computer programs and
projects around proverbs and sayings. Another benefit is that the teacher can cater for learners
with different learning styles as many activities can be prepared on cards/ slips of paper,
learners can draw or mime the meaning etc.

Identify and write

Aim Reading and controlled writing

Material A handout with one or more proverbs written as one word

Learners have to divide one long word composed of words in
Procedure a proverb and write it.

Myhouseismycastle.
Examples
Dontjudgeabookbyitscover.

Helaughsbestwholaughslast.

Read and draw

Aim Reading, vocabulary, drawing
Material A list of several proverbs/sayings
Procedure Learners copy the proverbs and instead of writing all words,
they draw meaning of deleted ones.
Example As you make your_______ (bed) so you must lie on it.
The way to a mans _______ (heart) is through his stomach.
You cannot teach old ______ (dogs) new tricks.

Read and link

Aim Reading comprehension, introduction to the topic of the
lesson - traveling
Material A table with divided proverbs/sayings see the table below
Procedure Learners have to read the texts of proverbs and link separated
parts. See examples.

When in Rome do as the Romans do.

Every country has its customs.
Bad news travels fast.
There is no like home.
All roads lead to Rome.

Read, translate and write

Aim Reading comprehension, translation, comparison od proverbs and
sayings
Procedure Learners translate and write second part of the text. Compare the
English proverb and Slovak one.
Material A list of proverbs/sayings with the second part in the mother tongue.
e.g.
A tree is known _______________(by its fruit)
Far from eye _________________(far from heart)
Actions speak ________________(louder than words)

Read and match

Aim Reading comprehension
Procedure Learners read proverbs and match them with their meaning
Material A list with several proverbs and their literal meaning. See below.

Time is money. Real friendship lasts forever.

A friend in need is a friend indeed. Time is valuable and should not be wasted.
Money is the root of all evil. When you do not meet someone for a long time
youll forget about him/her.
Far from eye, far from heart. Money can cause serious problems in ones life.

Read, mime and guess

Aim Reading, developing creativity
Procedure Learners read list of several proverbs, choose one, mime it to the
partnet and s/he has to guess it.
Material List of proverbs meaning of which can be conveyed by miming:
You cannot eat your cake and have it.
Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Conclusion

To conclude, carefully chosen proverbs can be used with learners from pre- intermediate level
up. Proverbs and saying whose content relates to cultural development and awareness have
potential to become a useful motivational device. In general, proverbs and sayings bring
motivation through a context. Nevertheless in using this specific type of the text it should be
also the teacher who strengthens motivation through approaches and tasks.

Being an efficient user of a foreign language requires not only the ability to receive and
produce the message in the foreign language but also being culturally aware.
References

Lindstromberg, S. (ed.): The Recipe Book. Longman.1990. ISBN 0 582 03764 6

Grundy, P.: Newspapers. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1994 ISBN 0 19 437192 1

Arora, S. The Perception of Proverbiality,1984

Javorcikov, J. 2004. Cultural Aspects of Literary Texts in Teaching Realia. In: Is Creativity
the Key to Success in an EFL Classroom? Conference proceedings. Bansk Bystrica : Matej
Bel University Faculty of Humanities, 2004, pp. 77 81.

Sowden,C. Culture and the good teacher in the English Language Classroom. In ELT Journal,
2007 vol. 61/4 pp. 304-310

tulajterov, A The Place of Translation in English Language Teaching. In : HLT Magazine,

ro. 8, dec./2008 http:// www.hltmag.co.uk
Dornyei, Z. Teaching and researching Motivation. Harlow : Pearson Education Limited, 2001.
ISBN 978 0 582 38238 1

The Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course can be viewed here.

The Teaching Advanced Students course can be viewed here.