Incorporating Metaphor Instruction in ESP Classrooms and Its Effect on the Tunisian Learners’ Metaphorical Competence

Abstract

This study examines the effect of using metaphor as a teaching tool in ESP courses, namely; the business English course to enhance learners’ metaphorical proficiency. To this end, this research used a control and an experimental group. The former did not receive a treatment effect which consisted of the incorporation of metaphor instruction during the ESP course. The experimental group, however, was exposed to explicit metaphorical instruction during the course. The main findings show that learners develop better metaphorical competence after the incorporation of conceptual metaphor courses and extra activities and exercises dealing with metaphor use and production. Besides, learners show better skills in extracting metaphorical utterances from business English texts. They understand metaphors easier and more quickly and most importantly they were more proficient when it comes to producing metaphors during their PowerPoint project.