ABSTRACT
Chinese idioms, or Cheng yu as they are commonly known, have emerged and evolved as a prominent feature of the Chinese language over thousands of years. This chapter presents the results of two surveys designed to examine the importance and frequency of Chengyu in Chinese people's everyday language use, and the perceptions of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers concerning the teaching and acquisition of Chengyu. In relation to teaching and acquiring Chengyu from the perspective of teachers, the research results have highlighted that more teachers categorise Chengyu as a luxury, not because they do not recognise their importance, but due to a range of other competing priorities which restrict the teaching time they would like to allocate to teaching Chengyu. However, further research on the actual efficacy of the combination of classroom teaching with recursive follow-up practice for Chengyu acquisition is needed.
