Future of Teaching Phraseological Units on Higher Education Level: Taming the Tongue or Raising Motivation of Students?

Eager interest of teaching phraseological units is still high, though English language tries to adapt new reality, be more simply to communicate without complex constructive sentences or combined and too long words. In the article, at the beginning, there is given brief literature review of the history of phraseology both in Georgian and in English language, later there are discussed the views of the various Georgian scientists as well as foreign scientists. After reviewing the literature, there is presented a small case study conducted at Akaki Tsereteli State University (Kutaisi, Georgia) in spring, 2023. It was done by anonymous questionnaire and the researcher gathered both qualitative and quantitative data and analyzed them. Based on the research, the researcher outlined main challenges of teaching phraseological units, such as difference between culture, translation problems and lack of motivation from students to study new phraseological units. The researcher analyzed the results in details and stated that despite the fact that English level which defines students’ motivation to study phraseology, there are some modern tools which encourage teachers to raise students’ motivation and not making learning process taming the tongue. In particular, these can be achieved through modern ways, using mobile and its applications in classroom and teaching process. This article might be interesting for the participants of the research, other teachers at the institution and all the stakeholders who work on phraseology.


Introduction
The article deals with one of the main branches of English languagephraseology and its units which are integral part of curriculums, syllabuses and textbooks on higher education level, at universities. There were written various books and done researchers on this issue though the as the researcher claims and later presented case study shows, the learners still struggle with teaching phraseological units and there should be found better and more effective ways to teach phraseology. The novelty of this article is that the researcher presents small case study based on which was analyzed the challenges lectures face and are given some concrete recommendations how to deal with them.

Literature Review
In English language the history of phraseological units relates to Smith L. (1923Smith L. ( -1925 who is considered to be the founder of English phraseology. Smith, who tried to reveal the etymological basis of idiomatic expressions and presented various semanatic and formed diverse groups of different semantic fields. In the same period P. Vizetelly (1923) in the ″History of English Idiomatic research″, presented in detailed the concept of idiom. After this U. McMordie (1935) wrote about phraseology but not as the branch of science though gave the broad description of the idiom. The last deep research on this issues belongs to dissertation of S. Z. Riehamann (2001) ″Constructional Approach to Idioms and Word Formation″ (Stanford University).
As for the history of phraseology in Georgian language appeared in 1950s and supposedly by the influence of Russian language phraseology. There were distinguished two kind of terms -″Phraseology″ and ″Idiomatic″. In Georgian Definitive Dictionary 'Idiom' (in Greek idioma) is ''A peculiar expression of a particular language, which usually does not translate literally into another language'', and 2. It is so called 'Kilokav' (dialect) (Chikovani 1950). Later on this issue work the following scientists like Takaishvili A. (1961) who publish book named ″Issues of Georgian Phraseology″ followed by Ghlonti Al. (1971) and Fochkhua B. (1974). During last two decades there is increased interest in the research of phraseology and it units (Mghebrishvili T. (1990), Lobjanidze I. (2012). Chankvetadze A. (2016), Kudukhashvili L. (2021) and so on).
Phraseological units are considered to be integral part of written and spoken language and there are various definitions which emphasize its multiple functions and meanings in the language. The most common explanation is that phraseological units are being made up of at least two words which reflect culture and a national mentality of a definite nation (Zerkina N. and Kostina N. (2015). If you want to understand phraseological units, you should be aware of its language culture and nation it belongs to. Often, there is misunderstanding of their meanings or incorrectly used due to users are not well aware their cultural code and reality where they are used. Cultural difference plays important role in the branch of phraseology. Moreover, phraseological units are considered to have connotations related to emotions and appraisals (Zerkina N. 2015). Alongside with the inner nature of phraseological units, phraseological units claimed to be ″Translator's false friends″ (Subbotina V. 2013) and often make troubles for translators and scientists to find exact translation or equivalents. To sum up, phraseological units are very complex linguistic configurations which can be described as complex symbols with specific formal, semantic, pragmatic and social-linguistic characteristics (Langlotz A. 2006).
Why do we teach phraseological units? One of the best answers to this question is that phraseology is a key factor in improving learner's reading and listening comprehension, alongside fluency and accuracy in production (Meunier F. and Granger S. (2008). For more detail understanding of the importance to teach phraseological units is advised to have a look at Fedulenkova T. (2013) article -″English phraseological units and their constant functions″ where about twenty constant functions of English phraseological units have been described, like the nominative function of phraseological units, the neutrally-nominal function, nominal function, Cognitive function and so on.
It is stated that studying phraseological units is a source of some confusion in second language acquisition. There are serval reasons why it is thought to be. At first, it is hard learn phraseological units as it is connected with many lingual and extra lingual aspects -logical and psychological, historical and philosophical. (Zerkina N. and Kosyina N. 2015); students who study them or have to study as they are given in textbooks prefer to use general equivalent verbs of these phrases as they are easy to remember and later easy to use. Moreover, phraseological units can create false associations during the translation process due to the reason of their similarity with free collocations (Subbotina V. 2013). In most cases, students translate phraseological units into their language and this translation leads to other troubles which is another ″headache″ for them. In addition, loss and change of stylistic or connotation functions of phraseological units can be the result of misinterpretation of idiom or the whole expression in the target language (Subbotina V. 2013). In short, these are few challenges students face during the studying process of phraseological units.

Materials and Methods
The researcher would like to discuss the case study conducted at Akaki Tsereteli State University in Kutaisi, Georgia. This research was the case study within the lectures of Akaki Tsereteli State University (Kutaisi, Georgia) where the researcher works. The history of Akaki Tsereteli State University started nine decades ago (it was founded in 1933) and now, it is a higher educational institution in Georgia distinguished with its excellent traditions, which has found a decent place in the cultural-intellectual and moral upbringing of generations. It has more than 12 000 students including international students who study in 9 faculties in various campuses. As for the lecturers, who filled the questionnaire (see Appendix) work at Language Learning Centre which is a supporting structural learning unit of the university administration. The aim of the center is to coordinate the teaching of foreign languages at university level to ensure the adaptation of foreign language module in accordance with modern requirements in academic and professional programmes, to attract competitive staff, to reinforce profit-oriented business activities within the framework of the university funding, as well as for any interested physical or legal entity. Its services are equally focused on all faculties of the university and generally, on shared university interests. The Language Centre (now the Language Learning Centre) was established in 2011 on the basis of the reorganization of the Faculty of Humanities to enhance and coordinate foreign language teaching at university. Currently, 10 teachers, 22 invited contractors, and 45 hourly-paid specialists (only in English language direction, in addition there are Russian, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages teachers).
The researcher used both mixed methodology, quantitative and qualitative methods which was very useful and productive for the paper. The researcher sent the questionnaire to the most lecturers of Language Learning Centre through emails and as well as face-to-face (as teachers preferred themselves). The data was gathered with the help of anonymous questionnaires. In total, 48 questionnaires were sent and 42 were returned, which was a fairly positive response. Also, it has to be mentioned that most part of questionnaires had been fully completed and very little empty space where left. In addition, before case study, research was piloted and as the results of the responses it was found that there was suggestibility in some of the questions which was taken into account by the researcher.
The researcher used various strategies in the written questionnaire to elicit information form the participants. Its design ensure that participants did not need to take too much time to respond and they found it fairly straightforward to complete. The questionnaire consisted of both closed and open questions which made the results of the questionnaire more reliable and effective.
The aims of the case study were:  To identify challenges lecturers face while teaching phraseological units at universities;  To analyze frequency of using phraseological units or written and speaking tasks;  To learn about lecturers' opinions about the future of phraseological units in the 21st century.
Though, aims of the case study were achieved and the researcher gained productive and useful information from the respondents, made conclusions and some recommendations based on it, there were the following limitations of this study: The focus of the research was narrow and the study could not go into depth. The researcher might have asked not only the lecture of one particular university but other universities in the city or staff of various universities in other cities in Georgia; in addition, it would be better, after questionnaire, to interview some lecturers for more deep research. In spite of using both close and open questions and getting more reliable and valuable answers, to interview few teachers afterwards and ask in more depth what they mean in some responses or to broaden their answers might be more productive and might arise the topics or issues which the questionnaire could not cover because of its limitation (like number of questions or less of place to write more about their own ideas and so on).
To sum up, the case study was conducted at Akaki Tsereteli State University within the lectures of English language of A1, A2, B1 and B2 levels. At university students are divided according to the above mentioned levels.

Results of the Case Study
In this section of the paper is analyzed the results of the case study according to the questions which were asked in the anonymous questionnaire (See Appendix).
The first question was -″What challenges have teaching phraseological units at universities?″. The following main challenges were identified which are common within the students who study English as second language:  Less of motivation of students to learn them as they have other ways to express the same ideas (with the help of simple verbs, for example instead of using 'look for' -'search' and so on.);  Difference between culture (often cultural difference make it hard to guess the meaning of the phraseological units and often they seemed to be confused);  Students use less phraseological units in oral speeches;  For the 'fixed' structure of phraseological units, for them it is hard to remember them;  As through translating separate parts of the phraseological units it is hard to guess the meaning of it, it decreases students motivation to learn and to remember them;  For foreign students learning and using phraseological units is harder than for natives, as they use them in everyday situations and they acquire phrasal verbs naturally without any effort;  In modern world, the meaning of the phraseological units is changing.
In short, these are the challenges teachers face while teaching phraseological units at universities and it is the subject of discussion and analyzes. The first point about motivation is general challenge for students while teaching foreign languages though, the level of lack of motivation is different according to the branch of language they have to teach. Learning phraseological units and remembering fixed structures which in separate words means something different or sometimes changing of the preposition change the whole meaning of the phrase make students confusion and hard to remember; in this case students try to remember learnt simple verbs which might replace them. Moreover, natives get used to use phraseological units in every day communication or in written form and for them they are natural and integral part of the language, for foreign language learners they are new words and sometimes ″must study″ which they might study, use only when required in exercise or in individual communicative tasks, though in other cases they might avoid using them or prefer to find other ways to express what they want to speak or write. At last, language is changing every day and the meanings of the words with it and it raises another troubles for learners.
The second open question was -″What kind of exercises do students do for learning phraseological units?″. Nearly half of the teachers, 45 % of the answers were ″Gap filling and Matching'', followed by 25 % -″Making own sentences''; as it seemed these two ways are more frequently used by teachers or it might be common exercise in the textbooks teacher use to teach students; these are not new ways but as it seemed teachers might fill comfortable to use them or consider to be more productive according to their practical knowledge than other ways. Other teachers named ″Filling the missing words″ -10 %; ″Making Dialogues through phrasal verbs″ -10 %; ″Finding explanation in English or Georgian languages″ -5 %. As for finding explanation in native language it is old method of teaching but sometimes for more clarity or misunderstanding the meaning of the phraseological units by the students lead teachers to use this method. Few teacher (5 %) wrote ″others″ but have not mentioned which ones.
Third question was -″How do you see the future of phraseological units in the 21st century? e.g. Will their use become more active or vice versa?″.
More than half of them wrote that using phraseological units will become more active, as today English language tries to be simpler and leaners frequently use phrasal verbs or others units in oral speech, which simultaneously will increase their usage in written part. Though, they consider that using simple phrasal verbs will be more and more active then complex ones, like idioms consisting of more than 2 words. This questions led to the following question -″Which methods will make it easier to teach?″. The answers were the following: equal number of teachers names ″Using audio-video equipment or tasks, watching situational videos″ and ″Practical exercises″ (30 %-30 %); other named ″Doing more communicative tasks″ (22%), ″Paraphrasing″ (10%) and ″Should be asked their usage in oral or written tasks″ (8%).
Though, teachers use different tasks to practice learning phraseological units at class, they named different ways of learning them and consider more effective. In the answers of ″practical exercises″ we can think about some tasks they use such as gap filling or making dialogues but it is not clear they mean the same ways or different ones. As for ″Using audio-video equipment or tasks, watching situational videos″, teachers empathize the importance of using modern technologies in studying process and modern textbooks give a good chance and materials to do it. However, this answer led the researcher to the conclusion that modern technologies and equipment are not fully used or not properly used during the studying process and needs more development. In addition, it is interesting to name ″Paraphrasing″ by the teachers, it might mean that for more clarity it is a good way to be used, as there is cultural difference between nations and the meaning of some phraseological units needs more explanation.
At last, the researcher asked participants to express give feedback on the questionnaire or some recommendations and wishes. The questionnaire mainly was given positive feedback as it was interesting and analyzes of the results might be productive for teaching phraseological units at university. They emphasis the importance of teaching phraseological units especially in modern world and they recommend to find the right strategy how and with the help of what methods it should be studied at high education level. In addition, some lecturers state that modern ways and methods of teaching language especially using technologies will make it easier for students to study phraseological units simpler and raise their motivation using them both in speech and in written tasks.
The researcher used closed questions in the form of table to collect the information about the usage of phraseological units in written and in communicative tasks. As it was suggested during piloting the questionnaire, the level of English lecturers they teach should be mentioned to make clear and productive results. The researcher tried to present results in the tables.
The results from the lecturers (totally 17) who teach only A1 or/and A2 level students where the To sum up the table, teachers stated that students sometimes use phraseological units during writing tasks though they rarely use them during speaking tasks; it might be the results of textbooks, as in textbooks there are more exercises to practice them in written tasks, their might be in spoken though, it is checked by teachers. As for using simple and medium and high difficulty phraseological units, students feel more comfortable to use simple ones due to frequent usage in texts or simple construction; as for using previously learnt phraseological units during speaking task and writing tasks, students ″sometimes″ use them but very few use ″always″; the results of using newly learnt phraseological units were the same, though many wrote ″rarely″.
The results from the lecturers (totally 16) who teach only B1 level or other level students where the following (see Table 2). To sum up the table, the results of the questionnaire were nearly the same as from A1 and A2 levels; more students use phraseological, units in writing and speaking tasks than in A1 or A2 levels; this might be the results of higher level of knowledge of language acquisition on this level; moreover, more students use simple phraseological units during writing tasks, as for medium and high difficulty units, they named nearly all the options of the answers; as for using simple phraseological units during speaking tasks some named ″often″ and this answer was not in the A1 and A2 results; the same results was on the usage of medium and high difficulty units; more students use previously learn phraseological units during speaking tasks as well as written tasks and also they highlighted the answer ″often″. In short, the answers were different and easily predictable according to the higher level of English level and their usage of phraseological units.
The researcher tried to present results in the charts. The results from the lecturers (totally 9) who teach only B2 level or both B1 and B2 level students where the following: As for the results compared to teachers' answers of B1 level, students of B1 and B2 level of English of course have higher confidence of using phraseological units both in speaking and written tasks; in fact, they use both simple and medium and higher difficulty construction phraseological units more ″often″, ″always″ and ″sometimes″ than in other levels. To sum up the results of the questionnaire: in each level it was obvious that as high the level of English level as high usage of learnt phraseological units during written or speaking tasks; moreover, more students use phraseological units for free in their communication on a higher level than to the lowers. Though, mainly, students prefer to use equivalents of phrasal verbs than themselves phrasal units. In addition, students often prefer and use simple construction of phrasal units then complex ones, or use more commonly used phrases which might have their equivalents in Georgian or are mainly used in textbooks in each level and somehow they are more fixed in their brains than complex phrasal verbs or learnt new ones.

Discussion
As Meunier F. and Granger S. (2008:101-102) stated one of the future challenges for teachers will be ″to help learners become aware of the pervasiveness of phraseology and its potential in promoting fluency in language (e.g. storage and retrieval facilities, improved receptive and productive communicative competence)″. This means that teachers need to prove and show students the importance of phraseological units which now they do not see or analyze. Phraseological units are not just for remembering by heart and using them in the tasks during the classes or to learn them only for exams, they are more productive and useful and this nature should be shown to students by the teachers. In addition, ″Phraseology is a key factor in improving leaner's reading and listening comprehension, alongside fluency and accuracy in production. However, its role in language learning largely remains to be explored and substantiated and it should therefore not be presented as the be-all and end-all of language teaching. Teachers have to do a ″delicate balancing act…'' (Meunier F. and Granger S. (2008:106-107). Balance is required in any teaching or studying level. To concentrate only one part of the language and fix on it, making learning process boring for students and their motivation might be reduced.
Researcher claims that one of the ways to motivate students to learn phraseological units is more usage of modern technologies at universities, which was also stated in the answers of questionnaire. Nowadays, most textbooks are formed based on using technologies during classes and often classes are also equipped with appropriate equipment though not all of them. During the last decade it is obvious that a shift from traditional computer-assisted language learning (CALL) within specifically established computer labs in schools to mobile-assisted language learning (MALL or MLL). Mobile (Assisted) Language Learning (MALL) 'MALL is the use of smartphones and other mobile technologies in language learning.' (Kukulska-Hulme, 2020, p. 743). Researcher thinks that using mobile technologies might be easier and innovative, more interesting or motivating than other technologies. For students, the use of digital media for language learning can be motivating, especially if the digitally supported activities meet their needs and interests, and if they correspond to the way that they use digital communication in their daily lives. Universities need to develop appropriate policies to both support the benefits and also regulate the challenges that come with mobile technologies in educational settings. They need to be incorporated into established language teaching approaches, such as task-or project-based learning, so that they can be of maximum benefit for young language learners. In addition, education needs to prepare students for a globalised world and digital competence is part of the skill set of a twenty-first-century global citizen. This citizen needs to be able to think critically, problem-solve, communicate, collaborate, be an autonomous and lifelong learner, be creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, culturally competent, and digitally literate (Pegrum, 2019).
In this case, we have to think about the teacher's digital competence which needs to be on the suitable level to be used. There are serval competences teachers should have for this transformation, their might be the need of training but it would not take long period or financial support as it takes computer-based teaching. In short, here are teacher's digital competence they might be required to have: The researcher suggests several options how these competences can be used during the teaching process and several ways to motivate students to learn phraseological units:  Making special applications in Language learning and teaching (to improve knowledge of phraseology)  Using QR codes system in tasks during classes or on assessment level  Making video clips on using phraseological units.
In conclusion, why these above mentioned might be productive and effective in teaching phraseological units? At first it might be innovation for students; they will find it fun and often teaching in the way of 'playing' might be as motivating and interesting for students as for children at school. In addition, hardly to find a student who does not have a mobile or internet in it (it is reality/fact in Georgia), so who not give this equipment chance to be more involved in studying process and see the students its profit in different direction rather than carrying laptop with you or searching for computer equipped rooms all the time? These ways of teaching needs to be tested and the researcher will try to do it and present a new article based on this 'experiment' in the nearest future.