Hello and welcome to the first ‘Idiom of the Week’; for those who do not know what Idioms are; they are phrases which people use in the everyday speech which does not make sense literally but we all understand the mean. Clever right?

This week’s Idiom is “Raining cats and dogs”:

The meaning of ‘raining cats and dogs’ is raining very heavily. I would use this idiom when describing the weather. Elicit and repetition is always the best course of action when starting out with new vocabulary. Many people remember it because it’s such an odd expression and one which can conjure up quite entertaining images; can you imagine cats and dogs falling from the sky like in the image above? “It’s raining cats and dogs” is a perfect example of an idiom (that is one of the many reasons why I chose it to be the first one) and we have to remember not to take the sentence literally. The words in the sentence do not match up with the meaning of the sentence.

There is a joke that you could use when teaching this idiom:

Person A: It’s raining cats and dogs

Person B: Be careful you don’t step in a Poodle.

This joke could also be used when teaching Puns.

‘Raining cats and dogs’ is one of my all time favourite idioms; I use it a lot. I love the imagery it gives to us. Until next week; enjoy! If there is an idiom that you think should be featured as my ‘Idiom of the Week’ please let me know!