Chapter Presentation Meeting
Date & Time: 2:00 ~ 5:00 pm, Saturday, September 21, 2019
Location: Gorilla Brewery and Community Center, Gwangan, Busan
Metaphor in the Writing curriculum
Joseph Tomei, Kumamoto Gakuen University/Daejeon University
In Cognitive Linguistics, metaphor is argued to underpin human language ability, not only helping us to communicate, but organizing thought processes. However, for EFL teaching, metaphor is consigned to classes for advanced learners to ‘dress up’ their English. Rather than treating metaphor as an advanced topic only available to high-level students, accessibility to metaphor means that learners need not be advanced in English in order to use metaphor, and students at any level should be able to use metaphor to develop writing skills and communicative ability. This presentation will outline a 15-week English composition course for Japanese university students based on metaphor. After briefly reviewing metaphor research, the presentation demonstrates some simple yet effective metaphor-based classroom activities. In order to help learners improve their writing and their ability to communicate while better understanding themselves and the language learning process, metaphors provide a way to challenge and interest students.
Joseph Tomei is a professor in the Faculty of British and American Studies at Kumamoto Gakuen University. He has taught EFL in France, Spain, and Japan at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. In addition to his interest in computer-mediated communication, he also is interested in the application of functional/typological grammar to language teaching, practical activities in the language classroom, and writing instruction, and his doctorate is on the use of metaphor by EFL writers.
