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Advanced
A level of attainment where the learner has mastered most of the structures and functions of the language and is able to move freely through several registers - there may be a working vocabulary of in excess of 3000 words.
Aids to Teaching
(a)Visual: Blackboard, whiteboard, overhead projector, realia, posters, wallcharts, flipcharts, maps, plans, flashcards, wordcards, puppets.
(b)Electronic:Tape recorder, TV or video player, computer, CD Rom, language laboratory.
Applied Linguistics
The study of the relationship between theory and practice. The main emphasis is usually on language teaching, but can also be applied to translation, lexicology etc.
Audio-Lingual Method
Listen and speak: this method considers listening and speaking the first tasks in language learning, followed by reading and writing. There is considerable emphasis on learning sentence patterns, memorization of dialogues and extensive use of drills.
Authentic Materials
Unscripted materials or those which have not been specially written for classroom use, though they may have been edited. Examples include newspaper texts and TV broadcasts.
Auxiliary Verbs
Forms of the verbs be, do and have which are used to create the different tenses in English: am/is/are/was/were eating/ being eaten; do/does/did eat; has/have/had eaten/ been eaten.
B
Behaviourism
This is a general theory of learning developed by B F Skinner. It sees learning as the formation of habits. Environmental factors (input, teacher, classroom, etc.) are seen as more important than the student's mental, internal factors.
Bilingualism
Being able to communicate effectively in two or more languages, with more or less the same degree of proficiency.
C
CALL
Computer Assisted Language Learning.
Cloze Procedure
An exercise where every fifth word (or sixth or seventh etc) is deleted from a text. The interval between the deleted words should remain the same throughout the text. The student then supplies the missing words, often relying on contextualization for help.
Cognate
Cognates are words from different languages which are related historically, eg English bath - German bad or English yoke - Hindi yoga. Beware False Friends however.
Cognitive Code
An approach in which a conscious effort is made to understand the Learning rules when learning a new item. There is little concern with the formation of habits as in the audio-lingual and direct methods; can be seen as deductive learning. Contrasted with inductive learning.
Collocation
The tendency for words to occur regularly with others: sit/chair, house/garage.
Common Core
The central part of the course or syllabus; or the elements of a language vital to any teaching programme.
Communication Strategies
Strategies for using L2 knowledge. These are used when learners do not have the correct language for the concept they wish to express. Thus they use strategies such as paraphrasing and mime.
Communicative Language Teaching
An approach concerned with the needs of students to communicate outside the classroom; teaching techniques reflect this in the choice of language content and materials, with emphasis on role play, pair and group work etc.
Content Words
Words with a full meaning of their own; nouns, main verbs (i.e. not auxiliary or modal verbs), adjectives and many adverbs. Contrasted with structure words.
Contextualisation
Placing the target language in a realistic setting, so as to be meaningful to the student.
Cue Cards
Cards with words or pictures on them which are used to encourage student response, or pair and group work.
D
Dialect
The regional variety of a language, differing from the standard language, in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation or idiomatic usage.
Direct Method
The most common approach in TEFL, where language is taught through listening and speaking. There may be little or no explicit explanation of grammatical rules, nor translation into the mother tongue of the student - inductive learning rather than deductive.
Discourse
A unit of language greater than a sentence.
Drilling
The intensive and repetitive practice of the target language, which may be choral or individual.
E
Elementary
Students at this level may have a vocabulary of up to 1000 words and will probably be learning or practising present simple and continuous tenses, past simple and present perfect, will/shall, 'going to' futures. They should be able to hold simple conversations and survive in everyday situations.
ESL/E2L
English as a Second Language.
ESOL
English to/for Speakers of Other Languages.
ESP
English for Special Purposes; e.g. for business, science and technology, medicine etc.
Extensive Reading
Reading for general or global understanding, often of longer texts.
F
False Friends
Words accidentally similar in form, whose meaning is rather different in the two languages, e.g.English gentle - French gentil. See cognate above.
Finely-tuned Language
Language which is equivalent to the students' knowledge, which they should readily understand.
First Certificate
Cambridge First Certificate: an examination which may be taken by students of a good intermediate level.
Function Words
See Structure Words
Functional Approach
A course based on a functional approach would take as its starting point for language development, what the learner wants to do through language. Common functions include identifying oneself and giving personal facts about oneself; expressing moods and emotions.
G
General Service List
A standard list of 2000 frequently used words as compiled by Michael West. Regarded as a language core by many syllabus designers.
Grading
The order in which language items are taught. Systematic grading may reduce the difficulties of language learning by introducing the language in steps or stages.
Grammar-Translation
A method based upon memorizing the rules and logic of a language and the practice of translation. Traditionally the means by which Latin and Greek have been taught.
Grapheme
The written symbols for sounds in language; i.e. letters of the alphabet or a character in picture writing (as in Japanese kange).
I
IATEFL
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.
Immersion Method
This simulates the way in which children acquire their mother tongue. The learner is surrounded by the foreign language, with no deliberate or organised teaching programme. The learner absorbs the target language naturally without conscious effort.
Inductive Learning
Learning to apply the rules of a language by experiencing the language in use, rather than by having the rules explained or by consciously deducing the rules.
Inflection
The change in form of a word, which indicates a grammatical change: e.g. behave - behaved - behaviour – misbehave.
Intermediate
At this level a student will have a working vocabulary of between 1500 and 2000 words and should be able to cope easily in most everyday situations. There should be an ability to express needs, thoughts and feelings in a reasonably clear way.
Intensive Reading
Reading for specific understanding of information, usually of shorter texts.
Intonation
The ways in which the voice pitch rises and falls in speech.
L
L1
The mother tongue.
L2
A term used to refer to both foreign and second languages.
LAD
Language Acquisition Device; a term coined by Noam Chomsky to explain an innate psychological capacity for language acquisition.
Language Laboratory
A room equipped with headphones and booths to enable students to listen to a language teaching programme, while being monitored from a central console. Labs may be Audio-Active (AA), where students listen and respond to a tape, or Audio-Active-Comparative (AAC), where they may record their own responses and compare these with a model on the master tape.
Learning Styles
The way(s) that particular learners prefer to learn a language. Some have a preference for hearing the language (auditory learners), some for seeing it written down (visual learners), some for learning it in discrete bits (analytic learners), some for experiencing it in large chunks (global or holistic or experiential learners) and many prefer to do something physical whilst experiencing the language (kinaesthetic learners).
Lexical item
An item of vocabulary which has a single element of meaning. It may be a compound or phrase: bookcase, post office, put up with. Some single words may initiate several lexical items; e.g. letter: a letter of the alphabet / posting a letter.
Lexical Set
A group or family of words related to one another by some semantic principle: e.g. lamb, pork, chicken, beef are all different types of meat and form a lexical set.
M
Micro-teaching
A technique used on teacher training courses: a part of a lesson is taught to a small number of students. A variation of this is 'peer teaching', where the 'students' are often peers of the trainee teacher attending the same course.
Minimal Pair
A pair of items differing by one phonological feature: e.g. sit/set, ship/sheep,pen/pan, fan/pan, pan/pat etc.
Modal Verb
Verbs which express the mood of another verb: will/would; shall/should;may/might; can/could; must, ought, need, dare, used to.
Monitor
Language learners and native speakers typically try to correct any erros in what they have just said. This is referred to as 'monitoring'. The learner can monitor vocabulary, phonology, or discourse. Krashen uses 'Monitoring' to refer to the way the learner uses 'learnt' knowledge to improve naturally 'acquired' knowledge.
Morpheme
The smallest unit of language that is grammatically significant. Morphemes may be bound, i.e. they cannot exist on their own; e.g. -er, un-, -ed, mis- ; or they can be free, as is ball in football.
Morphology
The branch of linguistics which studies how words change their forms when they change grammatical function, i.e. their inflections swim -swam - swum - swimming - swimmer; cat - cats; mouse - mice; happy - happier - happily etc. See also Syntax.
N
Natural Approach
Pioneered by Krashen, this approach combines acquisition and learning as a means of facilitating language development in adults.
P
Pair Work
A process in which students work in pairs for practice or discussion.
Passive Vocabulary
The vocabulary that students are able to understand compared to that which they are able to use. Contrasted with Active Vocabulary.
Peer Group
Usually refers to people working or studying at the same level or in the same grouping; one's colleagues or fellow students.
Phatic Communion
Phrases used to convey sociability rather than meaning.
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound which causes a change of meaning:
cattle - kettle /kætl/
Phonology
The study of the sound system of a language - its phonemes, stress and intonation.
R
Realia
Objects, such as real money, utensils, etc, used by a teacher in the classroom to illustrate aspects of daily life.
Redundancy
Excessive wordiness or repetition in expression. In grammar it refers to a grammatical feature which has no functional use, such as the -s inflection for present tense third person singular.
Register
A variety of language used in a specific social setting: speaking in an informal register; writing in a scientific register.
Reinforcement
The means to give more force or effectiveness to; strengthen: The news reinforced her hopes.
Rhotic Accents
English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and non-rhotic, depending on when the sound typically represented in spelling with the letter R is pronounced. Rhotic speakers pronounce written /r/ in all positions, while non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound, and not always even then.
Rhythm
The patterned, recurring alternations of contrasting elements of sound or speech.
Role Play
A practice activity in which students adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own.
R.P.
Received Pronunciation may be referred to as the Queen's (or King's) English, on the grounds that it is spoken by the monarch. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally used by the BBC, although nowadays this is slightly misleading. Queen Elizabeth II uses a specific form of English, and the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent, nor is "Oxbridge" (the universities of Oxford and Cambridge).
Roughly-tuned Language
Language which is somewhat beyond the students' knowledge. They should absorb it through exposure.
RSA
Royal Society of Arts. An examining board which offers exams in both EFL and TEFL. It is now merged with UCLES.
S
Scanning
Going quickly over a text to find a particular piece of information.
Scheme of Work
An outline plan for a sequence of lessons, perhaps for a period of hours or for a number of weeks. It is usually within a syllabus.
Schwa
An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel.
Semantics
Semantics refers to aspects of meaning, as expressed in language or other systems of signs.
Silent Way
The Silent Way is an approach to language teaching designed to enable students to become independent, autonomous and responsible learners. It is part of a more general pedagogical approach to teaching and learning created by Caleb Gattegno. It is constructivist in nature, leading students to develop their own conceptual models of all the aspects of the language. The best way of achieving this is to help students to be experimental learners. The Silent Way facilitates this.
Simulation
Entails students representing certain aspects of behaviour or key characteristics of the language.
Situational Approach
Uses selected situations as the basis of the teaching programme; e.g. at a railway station. It is related to the audio-lingual method.
Skimming
Reading a text quickly.
Stress
Stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.
Structure
The complex set of rules underlying a language, generally the grammar of a language.
Structural Approach
An approach based on the teaching of the different areas of 'grammar' in a language; eg present simple tense, conditionals, adverbs and adjectives etc. A structural syllabus will view the language in terms of linguistic structures,of which there will be grading and sequencing; cf a functional approach.
Structure Words
Words with no lexical content, with a grammatical role in the phrase or sentence; e.g. articles, pronouns, prepositions, modal and auxiliary verbs. These are sometimes called function words.
Syllabus
An outline or a summary of the main points of a text, lecture, or course of study.
Syntax
Syntax is the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences, and which determine their relative grammaticality. The term syntax can also be used to refer to these rules themselves, as in “the syntax of a language”.
T
Target Language
This is the language that the learner is attempting to learn.
TESL
Teaching English as a Second Language.
TESOL
Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. This includes both TEFL and TESL.
TOEFL
Test of English as a Foreign Language. An American examination to test language proficiency; usually necessary in order to gain entry to university in the United States. A related exam is TOEIC, Test of English for International Communication.
TPR
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method developed by Dr. James J. Asher, a professor of psychology at San José State University, California, USA, as an aid to learning foreign languages. The method relies on the assumption that when learning a second or additional language, that language is internalized through a process of codebreaking similar to first language development and that the process allows for a long period of listening and developing comprehension prior to production. Students respond to commands that require physical movement. TPR is a key tool of the behaviourist-minded ESL/ESL teacher.
Transfer
Language transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and cross-meaning) is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have an L1 command of a language, as when translating into an L2.
U
Utterance
An utterance is a complete unit of speech in spoken language. It is generally but not always bounded by silence.
W
WH Questions
Questions starting with one of the question words: Who, What, When, Where, Why, Whose & How.
Y
YES/NO Questions
Questions starting with a modal or auxiliary verb, Does/Are/Will/Could etc. as opposed to open or WH questions starting with a WH word. They are sometimes called Polar Questions. |
