Challenges and Strategies in Understanding English Idioms: English as a Foreign Language Students’ Perception

This research aimed to find out the challenges in understanding English idioms based on the EFL students' perception and the strategies implemented in understanding English idioms. Based on the research question, this research used qualitative approach to find out and explore the more detailed information about the topic. The researcher also used the descriptive qualitative research to investigates the participants' experience. There were eight English Language Education Department students from one Islamic Private University in Yogyakarta chosen as research participants. The researcher used the interview to collect the data as the instrument of this research. In this research, the researcher found four findings related to difficulties in understanding English idioms based on EFL students' perception. The findings are difficulty in understanding the different meaning of expression from meaning of each word; difficulty caused by the scarcity of students found and use the English idioms; difficulty caused by the lack of discussion of idioms in classrooms; and difficulty in distinguish between idioms and ordinary English phrases. While, in the second research question the researcher found four findings about strategies implemented by EFL students' in understanding English idioms: First was understanding English idioms through context; searching the idioms meaning using the internet; connecting the meanings with the Bahasa Indonesia; and asking others about the meaning of idioms. In general finding the difficulties faced by students is the difference in the meaning of idioms with the meaning of each word. This difficulty is also caused by the scarcity of the use of English idioms in students' daily lives and the lack of learning that teaches about English idioms. The strategy used in solving some of these problems is to use several sources close to students, such as interpreting through context, connecting with their L1, asking to others to find answers on the internet.