The effect of teaching idioms on text comprehension in Italian translation classes

Although the idioms having an important role in the vocabulary of a language cause troubles both for the foreign language learners and translators, sufficient importance has not been given to teaching them up to now. That is why, the aim of this study is to define the effect of teaching idioms on written textual comprehension in Italian translation classes especially by focusing on teaching them. The research study, which has been conducted according to the pretest-posttest single group design, has been carried out on the seniors following Italian Translation classes at the Western Languages and Literatures Department of Yıldız Technical University. In this study, the measuring instruments-which are used for reading comprehension skills and whose validity and reliability tests having been prepared by the researchers and experts have been completed-have been applied twice, before and right after the performance.As the result of the study it has been proven that teaching idioms has effects on the development of the skills in written textual comprehension, defining and understanding the metaphoric meaning in the written texts, and on the description of the main character. It has been proven that the idioms which do not have verbs and which are given in a context have a positive effect on the students? remembering the idioms. By taking the results of the research into consideration, proposals are offered for future studies to the researchers.Key words: teaching idioms, foreign language education, translation training, reading comprehension.