Dog-Related Idioms in the ESL Classroom

Dogs figure prominently in English language idioms. There are dozens of dog-related idioms out there, and English as a Second Language students are bound to hear some or read some from time to time. Given the amount of times that these idioms are used in daily language, it's a good idea for students to be able to recognize them when they hear them or read them and have a good understanding of what the most popular ones mean.

Teaching these idioms could take up a couple of lessons, or you could perhaps pick a few that strike your fancy and stick with those. This could be a fun lesson, and it could even make up part of an animal-inspired idiom unit. The possibilities are really pretty limitless as to where you could take learning these dog-related idioms. Let your imagination and your classes' abilities and interests guide you.

Some of the dog-related vocabulary and idioms out there are:

bark up the wrong tree
dog eat dog
work like a dog
His bark is worse than his bite.
gone to the dogs
That dog won't hunt.
in the dog house
dog tired
sick as a dog
two (or three) dog night
dog days of summer
If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
call off the dogs
mean as a junkyard dog
let sleeping dogs lie
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
top dog
dogged me (past tense verb)

To teach some of these idioms, you could write a short narrative using all or some of them. Split the class into small groups and have them read the narrative together. Have the students underline or highlight the dog-related idioms they find. Then, students can write down some guesses as to what they think each might mean, based on the context of the surrounding parts of the narrative. This could be turned into a game where the team that guesses the most idiom meanings correctly is awarded the most points. You could even offer ice cream as the reward to the winning team (or the whole class!) if you're teaching "in the dog days of summer."

Another option is to find songs that use some of these phrases in them. Students could listen to the song, and then try to guess the meaning of the dog-related idiom in the song based on a printed copy they would have of the song. Two that come to mind are Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad LeRoy Brown" for "meaner than a junkyard dog," and "It's Been a Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles for "working like a dog." Be careful with "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" if you decide to use that one in class. It does use a swear word or two, and its content is a bit violent. Make sure it's appropriate for your class before you have them listen to it or read the lyrics. You can find video clips of performances of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" here and here (with lyrics on the screen), and "It's Been a Hard Day's Night" here. and students could listen to the songs that way, or maybe watch the clip if you have access to the Internet and a projector in your classroom.