Enhancing the Italian Learners' Comprehension Competence in Turkish Proverbs and Idioms

Abstract

Problem Statement: Foreign language learners who do not naturally come from the tradition of the language they are learning have naturally difficulties in comprehending Turkish proverbs and idioms. Comprehension problems of the Italian learners of Turkish can be various.
Purpose of Study: This study aims at presenting some suggested teaching methods for Turkish proverbs and idioms through some semantically identical Italian proverbs and idioms in order to solve the comprehension problems of Italian learners of Turkish arised from lack of grammatical, strategic, communicative and pragmatic competence.
Method: This study uses content analysis to explore whether proverbs have a significant effect on language learning. In order to do so, the author uses Turkish proverbs to find their equivalents in Italian.
Findings: In light of the comparison between Turkish and Italian proverbs, one can easily see that the proverbs have a bearing effect on language learning and teaching.
Conclusion and Recommendations: This study will contribute to the understanding of the importance of the use of proverbs in foreign language teaching/learning. We should give importance to idioms and proverbs in foreign language teaching, since they are important part of the culture without which learning a foreign language is not possible. However, the foreign language learners have difficulties in understanding idioms and proverbs.