Animal Idioms and their Use in Foreign Language Lessons

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy Literature Studies grade: 17 University of Erfurt language: English abstract: Idioms are quite pleasant and fascinating linguistic phenomena to me. I connect idioms to a creative and competent use of language. Therefore I can still remember the first idiom I learnt at school: It's raining cats and dogs. At that time it was just a funny gimmick during the English lesson. Today the study of English opens new vistas to this. Why isn't it raining fish? Or one could as: Why isn't it raining cats and dogs in Germany but Bindfäden (twines)?In this presentation I want to engage in the field of idiomatic expressions containing animal names. As this group is unmanageably wide I will concentrate on phraseological units that are connected to cats and dogs. After having given a short general linguistic overview of the field concerning idioms I will concentrate on the possibilities of using idioms in primary class. I will not only give arguments for it but also present material one could use in class.