A Shot in the Arm: The Role of Podcast and Flipped Classroom Approach in Improving Iranian L2 Learners’ Idiomatic Expressions

Motivated by the beneficial results of the studies on podcast and the flipped classroom, the current study aimed to investigate the role of podcasts and the flipped classroom in improving L2 learners’ knowledge of idiomatic expressions. To this end, 109 pre-intermediate and intermediate students from three English undergraduate classes volunteered to participate in this study. The classes were randomly assigned as two experimental and a control group and received 10 treatment sessions. The flipped group (experimental 1), received the flipped instruction (including podcast) for learning idiomatic expressions, and the podcast-only group (experimental 2) received the podcast-only instruction. The control group received the traditional instruction for learning idiomatic expressions. The results of the analyses indicated that the flipped group outperformed the podcast-only and the control group both on the receptive and productive knowledge of idiomatic expressions. Also the level of proficiency of the learners had a mediating effect on the role of podcasts and flipped classroom in improving learners’ knowledge of idiomatic expressions. The study also brought about a number of potential implications for learners, teacher-educators, pre-service teachers, syllabus designers, and stakeholders.

Keywords:

flipped classroom , idiomatic expressions , MALL , online learning , podcast