Teaching Idioms to Older Students With Language Disorders

Figurative language is part of everyday communication at school, in friendships, online chats and part-time work. Idioms such as “spill the beans”, “take a rain check” and “throw someone under the bus” carry meanings that cannot be predicted from the individual words. For older students with language disorders, familiar vocabulary may hide persistent difficulty with conventionality, inference and pragmatic meaning.

Years 7 to 12 students generally expect direct, age-respectful teaching rather than childlike picture-card activities. They also need repeated opportunities to connect new language with real conversations, classroom instructions and social media exchanges. Effective instruction therefore combines explicit teaching of non-literal language with carefully supported practice in the contexts where students actually need to understand and use idiomatic expressions.

Why Idioms Need Explicit Teaching

An idiom is a conventional expression whose overall meaning is fixed, although its parts may be misleading. “Break the ice” does not involve literal ice, and “piece of cake” does not refer to dessert. This gap between literal and figurative meanings is a central teaching target. Showing that an expression is illogical helps older students attend to its conventional meaning.

Students may fail for several reasons. They may know each word but not the phrase, lack the life experience needed to interpret the metaphor, or miss pragmatic and discourse cues such as tone, facial expression and context. Processing the sentence may also use resources needed for the conversation itself. A student who says “I’m not sure what that means” may need metalinguistic teaching, whereas another may understand the idea but need help selecting an appropriate response.

The goal is not to make every student sound like a colloquial speaker. It is to increase access to academic language, peer relationships and community participation. Strong instruction targets receptive understanding first, then supports expressive use without pressuring students to perform slang they have not chosen. This distinction keeps intervention respectful and avoids confusing a communication difference with a deficit.

Assess the Source of the Difficulty

Begin with a brief, informal language sample rather than relying only on a standardised test. Ask students to define familiar idioms literally, explain their intended meanings and use them in short scenarios. Record errors by type: missing phrase knowledge, weak semantic inference, limited background knowledge, difficulty interpreting context or inappropriate social use. This profile determines whether direct vocabulary teaching is enough or broader semantic and pragmatic work is needed.

Dynamic assessment is particularly useful because it shows how much support improves performance. Offer a visual, gesture, multiple-choice clue or sentence completion, then reduce support and check whether the student can generalise. A table with three columns—student explanation, support provided and response after support—can turn a fun activity into useful clinical data without turning the conversation into a test.

Multilingual learners need careful separation of language difference from disorder. More than 300 languages are used in Australian homes, so multilingual classrooms are common in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. When English is an additional language, an interpreter may be needed for reliable assessment and meaningful access to instructions. Guidance on working with interpreters can support appropriate preparation and communication during evaluations.

Build Knowledge Before Practice

Teach each idiom in three layers: its literal components, its conventional meaning and the situations in which it is usually used. For “take a rain check”, students might first identify a rain check in a social setting, then explain that it means postponing a plan, and finally practise accepting an invitation without making a firm commitment. The sequence prevents memorisation from replacing understanding.

Australian English offers useful, current examples, but regional and social variation should be discussed openly. “Throw a shrimp” is strongly associated with Queensland, while “shoot through” can mean leaving quickly in some Australian communities. Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney students may encounter different expressions and different attitudes toward them. Ask students which phrases their families use, mark examples as broad, regional or informal, and teach the listener’s perspective as well as the speaker’s intention.

Some idioms also depend on a cultural schema. For metaphors involving odds, stakes or chance, literal background knowledge may be missing. A factual resource such as casino strategy explained can support vocabulary such as “house edge” and “high stakes”, although safer non-gambling contexts can provide the same language. Pair each metaphor with an everyday scenario, such as a sporting result, a quiz or a competition among friends.

Make Learning Interactive and Multimodal

Make meaning visible and let students move it. A quick sketch can represent the literal scene behind an idiom; a gesture can capture its action; a role-play can show when it is friendly, rude or urgent. Keep examples age-appropriate and connected to current interests. Older students often respond better when an idiom is treated as a meaningful social tool rather than a bizarre string of words.

The setup described in using a serial console offers a useful analogy: two participants need a shared protocol, clear timing and a way to confirm that each message was received. Speech-language sessions can use the same principle with simple signals such as “show me another way”, “repeat that” and “I mean that literally”. Teach these repair phrases alongside the idiom, then rehearse them when the student is confused or needs extra processing time.

Use retrieval before showing the answer. Ask which phrase fits a described situation, then invite the student to justify the choice. Feedback should be specific: identify the clue that supports the meaning rather than simply marking the response wrong. Short, spaced reviews across different days strengthen retention and prevent a well-practised classroom response from masking difficulty in spontaneous conversation.

A Practical Teaching Sequence

A focused session might contain one or two targets, a clear context and a bridge to real use. Begin by checking whether the student recognises the expression, teach or refine its meaning, model an appropriate example, and then vary the people, place and purpose. Fifteen deliberate minutes may be more productive than a long worksheet filled with similar items.

Choose targets that appear in the student’s current world and can be practised safely. Record the exact phrase, literal components, conventional meaning, example context, level of support and successful response. This keeps instruction organised and makes it easier to decide when to add another target or change the support.

• Select high-utility idioms that appear in classroom instructions, peer conversation or community activities.
• Teach the meaning, components, register and appropriate use before asking a student to produce the phrase independently.
• Require contextual reasoning by asking what happened, how the speaker feels and why the phrase fits.
• Mix recognition, explanation and spontaneous use during short, spaced reviews across different days.
• Track generalisation with teachers, family members and peers instead of measuring only classroom performance.

Review the data after each trial rather than only at the end of a term. If recognition improves but explanations remain vague, return to components and semantic links. If explanations are accurate but use is inconsistent, rehearse conversational repair and peer interaction. A flexible sequence responds to the student’s profile instead of following a fixed script for every learner.

Carry Learning Into Everyday Life

Generalisation is the real test. Arrange brief checks in classrooms, hallways, sports rooms, school buses and community settings, with the student still controlling how much personal information they share. Australian settings offer natural themes: tram travel in Melbourne, train travel in Sydney, bus journeys in Brisbane, school footy, a barbecue or a familiar catchphrase from a television programme. Practice should be enjoyable, voluntary where possible and connected to genuine communication needs.

Collaboration makes this more sustainable. Share the target meaning and selected classroom examples with teachers, support staff and, where relevant, an allied health team. In Australia, a student may receive school-based speech-language support while also accessing an NDIS plan, so clear documentation helps prevent duplicated or conflicting strategies. If an ABA team is involved, agree on the wording of visual prompts and reinforce the same pragmatic goal across approaches.

Choose one idiom, locate a natural classroom moment for it, and prepare one sentence frame, visual cue and conversational repair phrase. Check it across two settings, record what the student understands and says, and add another target only when the first is becoming accessible. Explore the Let’s Talk Speech Therapy shop for printable speech therapy resources, then turn the selected material into a brief weekly practice routine.