Dissertation analysis of phraseological content in English teaching: materials and teachers’ attitudes

ENGLISH ALIVE! 3 
 
 
 
 
BRIDGES I
 

As these figures reveal, none of these two books consider proverbs an important part 
of the teaching of the English language. Bridges I inserts two of them incidentally in the 
idiom-teaching exercises but they are not explained at all. English Alive 3, for its part, does 
not include any proverb or make any reference to this category. Therefore, at the moment, 
proverbs seem not to be given even a relative importance. 
Finally, concerning social routine formulae: 
ENGLISH ALIVE! 3 
 
 
 
 
BRIDGES I  
ROUTINE 
FORMULA 
NUMBER 
FOCUS 
SKILL 
ROUTINE 
FORMULA 
NUMBER 
FOCUS 
SKILL 
Communicative 
54 
Writing 16 
Communicative 
65 
Writing 13 
Linguistic 21 
Reading 14 
Linguistic 19 
Reading 7 
75 
Other 0 
Listening 
26 
84 
Other
0 
Listening 
20  
Speaking 0 
Speaking 
27 
Other 19 
Other
17 
 
We obtain very similar results for these two books. Both of them offer most of their 
social routine formulae in communicative exercises and quite spread over the four skills, 
although it is for us strange to mention that English Alive 3 does not contain any routine 
formulae in speaking activities, what may be considered their fundamental function in 
communication. 
The results of this investigation show that, in general, phraseology is part of the EFL 
teaching in the Region of Murcia. However, most of the categories we are dealing with seem 
to take up a small part of the teaching and of the textbooks, especially proverbs.