Do all students understand the same message? High school teachers' use of non-literal expressions

Studies about neuro-typical, second language (L2) learners’ understanding of non-literal (e.g., metaphoric) expressions and its relationship to academic tasks are numerous. However, there are few studies (Kerber & Grunwell, 1997; Littlemore, Chen, Koester & Barnden, 2011, Lazar, Warr-Leeper, Nicholson, & Johnson, 1989) about the awareness that teachers have of their use of figurative language / non-literal expressions and the potentially problematic nature of their use of these expressions. Parallel findings are seen in the field of autism research where much of the literature on autism has highlighted the tendency for students who have been given a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (AS), a high functioning variant of autism, to take non-literal expressions literally. A primary aim of this study was therefore to explore to what extent (if at all) mainstream high-school teachers’ use of non-literal language poses obstacles for comprehension with AS-students in their classroom settings. A secondary aim of this study was to explore teachers’ awareness and knowledge about their non-literal language use with AS-students. Nine teachers and eighteen students from the same year group were participants, of which nine students had a diagnosis of AS and nine were neuro-typical students (NS). The participants were students and teachers from high-schools in Wellington, New Zealand who all spoke English as their first language (L1). A sample of episodes of the teachers’ in-class use of non-literal language, representing a range of established expressions (for example, idioms) as well as episodes of more ‘creative’ non-literal use of language (including irony), were selected to serve as prompts in interviews with the teachers. These episodes served to elicit the teachers’ reflections on the reasons for why they resorted to those figures of speech. They also served as prompts in stimulated recall interviews with the AS-students and their neuro-typical peers, where these participants were asked to give their interpretations of their teachers’ utterances. Overall, the results from this task suggested that the AS-students found it harder than their neuro-typical peers to recognize their teachers’ intended meanings. This finding, however, needs to be interpreted with caution, because the AS-students also seemed less inclined to offer the kind of explanations (for example, paraphrasing what the teacher had said) that provide clear evidence of comprehension. Interestingly, most of the AS-students demonstrated metacognitive strategies in the detection of their teachers’ creative use of metaphor and their teachers’ use of irony. However, this alone did not always result in a correct interpretation. When shown the instances of non-literal utterances they had used in class, most of the teachers reported motives for using these, but these were predominantly motives that emerged during real-time classroom interaction. Most of the teachers expressed surprise at the extent to which they (the teachers) used non-literal language in interactions with their students. Strategies to support student interpretation of figurative language are addressed together with recommendations for further research. It is intended that this study will be of interest to teachers and clinicians who support students with a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome.