Fostering emotional intelligence through a practical dictionary of english idioms based on the american television sitcom 'friends'

Abstract

In the Colombian educational context, teachers have to consider in their lessons the Suggested Curriculum provided by the National Ministry of Education. Under this curriculum, 11th graders are expected to achieve the B.1 English level in the descriptors of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for languages). Consequently, this case study focuses on fostering the mediation descriptors which involved the development of 11th graders’ emotional intelligence level with the creation of an adapted material for this purpose. According to the research diagnosis stage, neither enough practices nor vocabulary for the development of emotional intelligence are addressed, in the regular English classes. Therefore, based on the theories of constructivism, meaningful learning, and task-based learning, the purpose of this research is to provide a suitable material to enhance emotional intelligence and to teach idiomatic expressions within 11th graders classes, enabling them to talk about their emotions by incorporating informal expressions. Conforming to specialized lexicography, this is a qualitative case study that focuses on elaborating a dictionary of idiomatic expressions taken from the sitcom Friends in order to categorize them and provide Task-Based suggested teaching strategies and one 60-minute lesson plan for teachers to put into practice the product of this research in11th graders English classes. This proposal sought to point at the importance of the inclusion of informal and daily life vocabulary such as Idiomatic Expressions among the English teaching materials and the relevance of encouraging the construction of emotional intelligence skills among 11th graders through the insertion of this vocabulary.