A

Accent: This word has two meanings. It usually describes how a person from a particular
region or country speaks (for example, a British accent or a French accent). It is also used
to talk about the stressed syllable(s) in a word (in other syllables what are a little louder
and pronounced a little more strongly than others). In the word “remarkable” the second
syllable is accented.

Accuracy: Accuracy means ‘saying or writing it without errors.’ It refers to the

correctness of learners' use of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Accuracy is often
compared to fluency when we talk about a learner's level of speaking or writing.

Acquisition: This term describes language being learned without conscious effort – for
example the way children learn their mother tongue. Language acquisition is often
contrasted with language learning. For some researchers, such as Krashen, language
learning happens during the formal study and internalization of rules and formulas. For
these researchers 'acquisition' is unconscious and spontaneous, and 'learning' is conscious,
developing through formal study.

Active Vocabulary: The words and phrases which a learner is able to use in speech and
writing. It is often contrasted with passive vocabulary.

Activity: In language teaching, an activity is a particular piece of work, or assignment, that

we ask students to do. There are many types of classroom activities: for example,
communicative tasks or activities that involve students’ manipulating or practicing
language such as matching, predicting, and gap-fill activities. Many teachers use “task”
and “activity” interchangeably; however, for other teachers there is a difference. Here
task is defined as one type of activity. See Task below.

AEF: The Algerian English Framework helps teachers and students know what students should be able
to do in English at each school level (middle school MS1 through secondary school SE3) in Interaction,
Interpretive Listening and Reading, Productive Writing and Speaking, and Linguistic Competency.

Affective Factors: Affective factors are emotional factors which influence learning. They
can have a negative or positive effect. Negative affective factors, such as anxiety, lack of
motivation or lack of self-confidence, act as a filter hindering a language learner’s success.
The role of affect (emotion) and affective filters in language learning are important in
second language acquisition theories.

Affective Filters: Please see Affective Factors.

Aids to Teaching: These are tools teachers use to help students learn. They can be
divided into the following two groups:
(a) Visual: blackboard, whiteboard, Smartboard, overhead projector, realia (real objects a
teacher brings into class to show students), posters, wall charts, flipcharts, maps, plans,
flashcards, word cards, puppets;
(b) Electronic: Tape recorder, TV or video player, computer, CD Rom, language
laboratory.
Appropriacy: Appropriacy refers to judgment about whether what is said or how it is said
is suitable for the context it is being used in. It is an important aspect of language but an
extremely complex one, because decisions about how to say things depend on
understanding exactly what is right for the context and the culture.

Assessment: Assessment is the measurement of a person’s ability, the amount they

have learned, and what they need more help with, and it is also measurement of the
quality or success of teaching or a course. Assessment can be informal or formal.
Informally, teachers can assess students’ knowledge and learning at all stages of a lesson
by listening as students work together or give answers to questions. This is often called
continuous assessment. Formally, teachers can assess knowledge and learning by giving a
test. Inspectors, parents and students can assess a teacher’s classes by giving positive or
critical feedback to the teacher.

Assimilation: Assimilation is when sounds change when they are used in speech. A
sound changes because of the sound(s) that comes before or after it. Sounds change so
that they more similar to other sounds. This is most noticeable when a sound at the end of
one word changes to become more similar to a sound at the beginning of the next word.
For example, “white bag”, would probably sound more like “wipe bag” because the /t/
changes to become more like the /b/. In the word ‘pretty,’ for some speakers the /t/ sound
changes to sound more like a /d/. The reason for this is the vowel sounds on either side
of /t/ are both voiced sounds and so the voiceless /t/ is said as voiced /d/.

Attitudes: Learners possess sets of beliefs about language learning, the target culture,
their culture, the teacher, the learning tasks, etc. These beliefs are referred to as attitudes.
They are one affective filter and so influence learning in a number of ways. Teachers also
have attitudes – toward themselves, what they teach, who they teach with, their students,
etc. Their attitudes affect and influence their teaching.

Audience: Written or spoken communication has an audience - the people the message
is for. In order for the message to be effective it must be written or said with the audience
in mind. The audience will particularly affect the choice of register, the level of formality of
lexis and expressions.

Audio-Lingual Method: This method, based on Behaviorism, considers listening and

speaking the first focuses in language learning, followed by reading and writing. There is
considerable emphasis on learning sentence patterns, memorization of dialogues and
extensive use of drilling so that language is memorized; initially there may be little
emphasis on speakers understanding what they are saying.

Authentic Conversation: Authentic conversation is the kind of real conversation that

speakers have outside the language classroom. It is important that conversations students
have in class are as authentic as possible.

Authentic Language: Authentic language is the language really used by native and
proficient speakers of a language in real-life contexts; it is not artificial or contrived for
purposes of learning grammatical forms or vocabulary.

Authentic Materials: Authentic materials are unscripted materials or those which have
not been specially written for use in a language classroom, though they may have been
edited; examples include articles from a newspaper or magazine, programs or broadcasts
from TV or radio, films or videos, songs, literature, blogs and chatroom interactions, etc.

Authentic Task: A task which involves learners in using language in a way that replicates
its use in the 'real world' outside the language classroom. Examples of authentic tasks
include answering a letter addressed to the learner, arguing a particular point of view, or
comparing various holiday brochures in order to decide where to go for a holiday. In
contrast, filling in blanks, changing verbs from the simple past to the simple present and
completing substitution tables are not authentic tasks. See Pedagogic Task.

Authentic Text: A text which is not written or spoken for language teaching purposes. A
newspaper article, a rock song, a novel, a radio interview and a traditional fairy tale are
examples of authentic texts. A story written to exemplify the use of reported speech, a
dialogue scripted to exemplify ways of inviting and a linguistically-simplified version of a
novel are not authentic texts. See Simplified Texts and Text.
Automaticity: Automaticity refers to a person’s ability to do things without needing to
think about them. It is usually the result of learning, repetition and practice.

Autonomy: Autonomy refers to a learner’s ability to take control of his or her own
learning, and to learn independently or in collaboration with others. An autonomous
learner takes more responsibility for learning and is likely to be more effective than a
learner who is dependent on the teacher. Learner training in the classroom encourages
autonomy and is an important element of language teaching.
Auxiliary Verbs: The auxiliary verbs in English are be, do and have. Different forms of
these verbs are used to create different tenses, questions and negatives in English:
am/is/are/was/ were (not) eating/ being eaten; do/does/did (not) eat; has/have/had (not)
eaten/been eaten.

Awareness-raising: The purpose of awareness-raising activities is to make learners

more aware of language and so improve their understanding. Awareness-raising activities
do not involve learners in using the language themselves but draws learners’ attention to
it. They are often the first stage of learning new language.

B
Behaviorist: Behaviorism is a learning theory that views learning as the formation of
habits. A behaviorist perspective on language acquisition suggests that it is very
important that students get lots of repetitive, productive practice with new grammar or
lexis so that they acquire the ‘habit’ of producing the structures and/or lexis. Because
behaviorism views language learning as habit formation, even small errors are usually
corrected immediately in case learners get into ‘bad habits’. Second Language Acquisition
research has largely disproved behaviorism as a way to explain language learning.

Behaviorist Learning Theory: This is a 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 students’ mental or internal factors.

Bodily / Kinesthetic Intelligence: Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence is one of the many

types of intelligence described in multiple intelligence theory. People with significant
bodily/kinesthetic intelligence may enjoy doing things rather than reading or hearing about
them; these learners are good at making things and at physical activities in general.

Body Language: Body language is the posture, gestures and mannerisms, and facial
expressions which a person uses when communicating with others.

Bottom-up Approach to Language Comprehension and Production: This approach

focuses on teaching the micro-skills first (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure),
before asking learners to use the language (communication). The focus is on the various
components of the language first. Students then have to fit these together in
comprehending or producing language. See Top-down Approach to Language
Comprehension and Production.

Brainstorming: Brainstorming is the productive, random generation of ideas based

around a topic. There is no editing or ordering of these ideas. They may then be used as
the basis for another activity such as writing or discussion. For example, before a
discussion about going on vacation, students can be asked to brainstorm all the places in
the world they would like to visit. It is often done as a group or whole-class activity and
individuals can also be asked to brainstorm ideas before sharing them with a partner or
group.

C
Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL): CALL incorporates the use of
computers in teaching or learning a second or foreign language. For example, students
may be asked to read a text on the computer or to write an essay on the computer utilizing
the editing and spelling and grammar check tools which facilitate writing multiple drafts
(see writing process). There are also numerous computer-based programs and activities
designed specially to support language learning on the computer.

Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT): CAT is a relatively new means of computer-based

assessment in which the difficulty of the exam tailors itself to each test taker’s level of
ability. If, for example, a test-taker performs well on an item of intermediate difficulty, that
person will then be presented with a more difficult question; if the person performs poorly,
s/he will be presented with a simpler question. As a result, different test-takers receive
quite different tests. Compared to the static tests that nearly everyone has experienced,
with the same fixed set of items administered to all test-takers, computer-adaptive tests
require fewer test items to arrive at equally accurate scores. Like any computer-based test,
adaptive tests may show test-takers results immediately after testing.

Computer Based Testing (CBT): A computer-based test (also known as Computer-

Based Assessment (CBA), e-exam, computerized testing and computer-administered
testing) is a method of administering tests in which the responses are electronically
recorded, assessed, or both. As the name implies, Computer-Based Testing makes use of a
computer or an equivalent electronic device (i.e. handheld computer). CBT systems enable
educators and trainers to author, schedule, deliver, and report on surveys, quizzes, tests
and exams.

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR): The Common European

Framework of Reference (CEFR) was developed to be a practical international tool for
setting clear standards to be attained at successive stages of language learning and for
evaluating outcomes in an internationally comparable manner. It provides the basis for the
mutual recognition of language qualifications, thus facilitating educational and
occupational mobility. It is increasingly used in the reform of national curricula and by
international consortia for the comparison of language certificates. The document
describes in detail: i) the competences necessary for communication; ii) the related
knowledge and skills; and iii) the situations and domains of communication. It defines
levels of attainment in different aspects of its descriptive scheme with illustrative
descriptors scale. To read more about it, follow this link:
http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Linguistic/CADRE_EN.asp

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: A cognate is a word in one language that is similar in form and meaning to a
word in another language because the languages are related. For example, the English
word “brother” is similar to (is a cognate of) the German word “bruder. Other words which
look similar have very different meanings and so are called “false cognates” or “false
friends.” For example, the French word “expérience” means “experiment” and not
“experience” even though it looks the same as the English word. See False Friends below.

Cognitive Code: An approach to learning based on the belief that learning is a process
which involves active mental processes and not simply the formation of habits (see
Behaviorist above). It gives importance to the learner’s active part in learning and using
language, and in particular to learning grammatical rules. The approach is different from
the habit-formation focus of the Audio-Lingual and Direct methods.

Collocating verb: Please see Collocations below.

Collocate: When words collocate, they typically are used together. An example of words
that collate with “garden” are – rose garden, herb garden, terraced garden, rock garden,
overgrown garden and the verbs we use with garden include weed a garden, plant a
garden, water a garden.

Collocations: Collocations are groups of words typically used together. With some
collocations, it can be difficult to replace one of the words with another word. These
collocations are called fixed or unique collocations. For example, “shrug your shoulders” is
a fixed collocation. It is not possible to shrug any other part of the body. Students need to
learn these collocations as a unit. However, many collocations are freer and one or more
of the words can be replaced by other words. These word combinations are useful for
students to learn. For example, when teaching the noun ‘time’, it is useful for students to
know which verbs go with ‘time’. English speakers can ‘tell the time’, ‘save time’, know
the time’, etc, but don’t usually say ‘eat time’, ‘go time’, etc. Some nouns usually go with
particular verbs. For example, the following verbs go with ‘party’: have a party, give a
party, throw a party, attend a party, etc. These verbs are called collocating verbs. More
on collocations: http://www.hum.aau.dk/~firth/collocations.htm

Competency Based Approach: The competency-based approach is based on linking

learning carried out at school to varied and relevant contexts-of-use in order to make the
learning useful and durable. The aim is for students to develop intellectual, linguistic and
problem-solving capacities in school that will enable them to tackle cognitively and
pragmatically challenging situations both in and out of school. Students will thus see
learning as being worthwhile and having relevance both for their studies and their future.
For more information on the Competency Based Approach in an Algerian context, please
look at Curriculum Support Documents for MS4 and SE1. Please click on the following
words in blue: Curriculum Support Documents for MS4 Curriculum Support Documents for
SE1

Communication Strategies: These are strategies learners used when they do not have
the correct language for the concept or meaning they wish to express. Thus they use
strategies such as paraphrase and mime. See Learning Strategies and Production
Strategies.

Communicative Competence: This refers to the ability to use language effectively for
communication. Gaining such competence involves learning not only how to form
grammatically correct sentences but also when, where and with whom it is appropriate to
use the sentences, how to participate in a conversation and how to respond.

Communicative Language Teaching: Communicative Language Teaching is an

approach concerned with the development of language speakers who have communicative
competence and so who are able to use language to communicate effectively and
appropriately, especially outside the classroom. There is an emphasis on students learning
to express different functions inviting, agreeing or disagreeing, etc), engaging in different
types of real-world tasks such as problem-solving, getting information, etc and
participating in role plays, pair and group work, etc.

Communicative: Teachers often ask questions in the classroom which they already know
the answers to. For example, a teacher might point to the clock and ask, “What time is
it?” This question is not communicative because the teacher already knows the answer. A
communicative activity is one in which one person has information that the other person
doesn’t have. They must therefore use English effectively to get this information. See also
Gap Activity.

Comprehensibility: When something is comprehensible, it means people can

understand (or comprehend it). Many factors can interfere with comprehensibility. In
speaking, background noise, non-standard, unexpected or new pronunciation or grammar,
inappropriate word choice, the way the speaker organizes what they are saying, etc. can
all make spoken texts difficult to understand. In writing, hand-writing, spelling, text
organization, non-standard grammar, or inappropriate word choice and many other factors
can interfere with comprehensibility. What someone says or writes can be described as
‘comprehensible’ or ‘incomprehensible.’

Comprehensible input and i + 1: Comprehensible input means that the student reads
or listens to English that she can understand the meaning of. This doesn’t necessarily
mean that she understands every single word perfectly. Input is usually comprehensible
when the student understands most of the words and grammar and can figure out the
meaning of the rest by interpreting the linguistic, social and physical context. According to
Krashen, learners acquire new language (words, grammatical forms, aspects of
pronunciation, etc) only when they are exposed to comprehensible input or i + 1. The i
represents input, or language, the learner has acquired and already understands and the 1
represents language that is a step beyond that level, but comprehensible in context.

Comprehensible Output: The language produced by the learner (the 'output') may be
comprehensible or incomprehensible. The efforts learners make to be comprehensible
may play a part in acquisition.

Concordances (or concordance lines): A list of authentic utterances each containing

the same focused word or phrase, e.g.:

The bus driver still didn't have any change so he made me wait.
I really don't mind which one. Any newspaper will do. I just
…know what they are saying. Any teacher will tell you that it's…

See also Authentic.

Connotation: The connotation of a word is its suggested or emotional meaning rather

than its literal meaning. Connotations can be positive, neutral or negative. For example,
‘slim’ has a positive connotation for most people, ‘thin’ is more neutral, and “skinny” is
more negative. Connotations are less fixed than literal meanings and so different people
may think words have different connotations. When learning new words, students need to
know if a word has strongly positive or negative connotations.

Constructed Response Assessment: With constructed response assessments (also

referred to as subjective assessments), the answer is not visible (as it is in a multiple
choice assessment). The test-taker must recall or construct it. Constructed response
assessments are conducive to higher level thinking skills. In the broadest sense,
constructed response assessments could refer to, for example, including essays, art
projects, reflections and personal communication.

Content words: In any sentence or phrase, there are two types of words: content words
and function words. Content words carry the main, important or new information.
Function words are the grammatical words that help to join the content words together.
Content words are usually, but not always, nouns, main verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. For
example, in the following utterance, “Can I borrow your cellphone?”, borrow and cellphone
are the content words and carry the main meaning. In fact, if a speaker says just “Borrow
cellphone”, listeners will probably understand the meaning. However, if someone says,
“Can I your?” a listener won’t understand what the speaker wants. Function words are
usually pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. For example,
can, I and your in the example above are all function words.

Context: Context has two meanings: (1) the written or spoken text that surrounds a part
of the text, and (2) the physical location, the social situation and the time in which a text is
produced or interpreted. Both kinds of context influence the meaning of a text or part of a
text.
Contextualization: Placing target language in a realistic setting, so as to be meaningful
to the student.

Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis: According to this hypothesis, L2 errors are the result
of differences between the learner's first language and the target language, and these
differences can be used to identify or predict errors that will occur.

Controlled Practice: One way to teach new language (grammar, lexis, or functional
expressions) is to clarify the meaning, form and use of it, and then to give students
opportunities to practice it in increasingly more challenging and authentic ways. At the
beginning, the teacher limits or controls the range of language that students need to use.
These are called controlled practice activities and they can be written or spoken. Oral
repetition or copying written words or sentences are the most controlled forms of practice.
However, activities where students use the same grammar, group of words, or functional
expressions to complete a task are also considered controlled practice activities. Teachers
can also talk about semi-controlled and freer practice activities, but they are not talking
about distinct categories of practice activities; they are describing a continuum between
controlled and freer practice. Semi-controlled and freer practice activities are described
elsewhere in this glossary.

Cooperative / Collaborative Group: A grouping arrangement in which positive

interdependence and shared responsibility for task completion are established among
group members. A term ‘cooperative/collaborative’ group describes a type of
organizational structure which encourages heterogeneous grouping, shared leadership,
and social skills development.

Coursebook Adaptation: See Textbook adaptation.

Coursebook: A textbook which provides the core materials for a course. It aims to
provide as much as possible in one book and is designed so that it could serve as the only
book which the learners necessarily use during a course. Such a book usually focuses on
grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, functions and the skills of reading, writing, listening
and speaking. See Supplementary Materials.

Critical Period: Some researchers believe that until the age of puberty, our brains are
better at learning language. This period of time before puberty is known as the critical
period.

Cross-Cultural Competence: A person with cross-cultural competence has the ability to

function according to the cultural rules of more than one cultural system. The person also
has the ability to respond in culturally sensitive and appropriate ways according to the
cultural demands of a given situation.

Cue Cards: Cards with words or pictures on them which are used to encourage
student response, or pair and group work.

Culture: Culture is the sum total of the ways of life of a people, including norms, learned
behavior patterns, attitudes, and artifacts. Culture also involves traditions, habits or
customs; how people behave, feel and interact; the means by which they order and
interpret the world; ways of perceiving, relating and interpreting events based on
established social norms. Culture is a system of standards for perceiving, believing,
evaluating, and acting.

Curriculum: This word is used in two different ways. A curriculum is an educational

document or program which states the goals or purpose of the program; the content,
teaching procedures and learning experiences necessary to achieve the purpose; the
assessment means for measuring the extent to which the purpose was achieved.
Curriculum is also used as a synonym for syllabus. In this sense, curriculum (or syllabus) is
a description of the specific content of a course and the order in which the contents are
covered.

D
Descriptors: Broad categories of discrete, representative behaviors that students exhibit
when they demonstrate a competence or meet an assessment standard.

Development: See Teacher development.

Dialect: The regional variety of a language, differing from the standard language in at
least one of several ways: 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; only the target language is used in class, and there is no translation
into students’ mother tongue; meanings are communicated through associating speech
forms with actions, mime, objects, situations, or gestures; and reading and writing are
taught only after speaking and listening.

Discourse: In linguistics, discourse means a unit of connected speech or writing which is

longer than a sentence.

Discourse competence: In speaking, discourse competence involves being able to put

together spoken phrases and sentences so that the speaker communicates his/her
meaning clearly to the listener(s). In writing, discourse competence involves being able to
put together written phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. to communicate the writer’s
meaning clearly to a particular audience.

Discovery activity: A discovery activity involves learners using their energy and
attention to work out, or discover, something about the language for themselves. Getting
learners to work out the rules of direct speech from examples, asking learners to
investigate when and why a character uses the modal 'must' in a story, or getting learners
to notice and explain the use of ellipsis in a recorded conversation are all examples of
discovery activities.

Drilling: Drilling involves the intensive and repetitive practice of target language. It may
be done chorally (the whole group repeating together at the same time)l or individually.
There are a variety of types of drills.

E
EFL: English as a Foreign Language. The acronym is used to refer to the field of English as
a foreign language or to courses, classes and/or programs designed for students learning
English as an additional language. It is used to refer to students who are learning English
for purposes of study, travel, work and/or personal interest reasons.

Elementary: Students at this level may have a vocabulary of up to 1000 words and
will probably be learning or practicing the present simple and present 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.

ELL: English Language Learner

Error analysis: In this procedure, samples of learner language are collected and the
errors are identified, described, and classified according to their hypothesized causes. The
errors are then evaluated for relative seriousness.
ESL: English as a Second Language. The acronym is used to refer to the field of English
as a second language or to courses, classes and/or programs designed for students
learning English as an additional language. It is used to refer to students who are learning
English because they have immigrated to an English-speaking country.

ESOL: English to/for Speakers of Other Languages

ESOL Student: These are school-age learners, studying in the medium of English, who are
identified as still in the process of acquiring English as an additional language. They may
not speak English at all, or they do not speak, understand, and write English with the same
facility as their classmates because they did not grow up speaking English or because they
spoke another language at home.

ESP: English for Special Purposes (e.g., English language used especially in the contexts
of business, science and technology, medicine etc)

Experiential: Experiential is used to describe ways of learning language by experiencing

it in use rather than by focusing conscious attention on language items and rules. Reading
a novel, listening to a song and taking part in a project are experiential ways of language
learning.

Extensive Reading: This term is used in two different ways. It can refer to reading
longer texts, often for a general understanding. It is also used to refer to the reading
students do outside of class for pleasure. It is important that students be encouraged to
read for pleasure because the reading provides them with language input and information
about the culture of the language they are learning.

F
False Friends: False friends look like cognates because they are similar in form but
different in meaning. For example the English word “gentle” looks like a cognate of the
French word “gentil” but they have different meanings. See also Cognate.

Feedback: This is the response learners get when they communicate. Feedback can
involve correction, acknowledgement, requests for clarification, backchannel cues (e.g.,
"Mmm"). Feedback plays an important role in helping learners to test their ideas about the
target language.

Field Dependence/Independence: Language learners differ in the way they perceive,

conceptualize, organize and recall information. Learners who are 'field dependents'
operate holistically: they see the field as a whole. Learners who are 'field independents'
operate analytically: they perceive the field in terms of its component parts. This
distinction helps in the understanding of how learners acquire a second language (L2).

Filter: Learners do not attend to all the input they receive. They attend to some features,
and 'filter' other features out. This often depends on affective factors such as motivation,
attitude, emotions, and anxiety.

Fluency: When we talk about ‘fluency’ we mean ‘getting the message across effectively,
with ease and without hesitation’.

Foreign Language: A foreign language is one which is not normally used for
communication in a particular society. Thus English is a foreign language in France, and
Spanish is a foreign language in Germany.

Form: Language teachers often talk about form and function. Form refers to grammar
(grammatical form), pronunciation (phonological form), and spelling (graphological form).
Grammatical form can include word order (syntax), word formation (e.g., happy, unhappy,
happiness, happily, etc), inflection (e.g., adding ‘-s’ to plural forms) or verb conjugation in
different tenses. Form can also refer to how tenses and verbs pattern. For example, the
form of the ‘be going to’ future is ‘be going to + infinitive without to’ (e.g., ‘am/’s/’re going
to have’) and one of several verb patterns used with the verb “warn” is subject + ‘warn’ +
noun/pronoun + not + infinitive (e.g., ‘She warned me not to do that.’). A grammatical
form is sometimes referred to as ‘a grammatical structure’. The phonological form of
something refers to the sounds in the utterance, how they are said and how syllables are
stressed. See also Meaning and Use.

Format: The format of a text is the physical organization of the different elements. For
example, in English letter format, the writer’s address is usually written at the top of the
letter, sometimes on the left, sometimes in the center. In other countries, the writer’s
address might be at the bottom of the letter, or sometimes written only on the envelope.

Formative Assessment: Formative assessment is either formal or informal assessment

that is carried out during a course (as opposed to at the end of a course). The aim is to
give students and teacher information about how well students are doing in the areas that
have been taught and to highlight areas students need more help or practice in. Formative
assessments may or may not be graded. See also Summative Assessment.

Form-focused Tasks: These tasks have a linguistic focus. They are intended to give
students practice in grammar, vocabulary, etc. so that students can form especially tenses,
words (spelling), phrases and sentences (word order) accurately. See Meaning-focused
Tasks.

Formulaic Speech: This consists of phrases and expressions learned as wholes and used
on particular occasions. See Patterns and Routines.

Fossilization: When an error becomes a habit of speech in a second language learner we

say the error has fossilized. It happens especially when the error does not interfere with
communication, and hence, the speaker does not get corrective feedback.

Free Writing: Students often write very slowly because they are focused on avoiding
grammar or spelling mistakes from the beginning. The technique of free writing
encourages students to get all their ideas on paper first before letting them edit their
writing. Teachers ask students to write without stopping or making corrections for a
certain period of time (e.g., three or five minutes). Even if students can’t think of what to
write, they must keep writing: Some teachers ask their students to write the last word
they wrote again and again, others ask students to write, “I don’t know”, “banana”, or any
other nonsense word. When students finish free writing, they usually read and edit their
work, adding, deleting and organizing their ideas before editing for grammar mistakes.
Sometimes teachers ask students to read their free-writing aloud to another student who
can give suggestions about what to add or include. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing for more on free writing.
Freer Practice: One way to teach new language (grammar, lexis, or functional
expressions) is to clarify it and then to give students opportunities to practice it in
increasingly more challenging and authentic ways. At the beginning, the teacher limits or
controls the range of language that students need to use. Once students have
demonstrated their ability to produce the new language with increasing accuracy, teachers
then give them more freedom to choose the lexis, grammar or functional expressions they
want to use to communicate their meaning. This is called semi-controlled practice. When
students have demonstrated that they are able to use the new language to communicate
in limited ways, teachers give them opportunities to use all the other language they know,
as well as the specific language they have been learning in the lesson. This is called freer
practice. There are not necessarily distinct categories of practice activity, but rather a
continuum between controlled and freer practice. Controlled and semi-controlled practice
activities are described at elsewhere in this glossary. See Controlled and Semi-controlled
practice activities.
Frequency: Language that learners hear and read contains a range of linguistic forms
which occur with varying frequency. Learners’ output also contains a range of linguistic
forms used with varying frequency. Some of the most frequently occurring words are: and,
was, with, I, be, on, to, and that. There is evidence to show that input frequency matches
output frequency.

Function: When teachers talk about linguistic form, they are thinking about how the
words, grammar or expressions sound, are spelled, and what parts they are made up of.
When teachers talk about linguistic function, they are thinking of the speaker’s purpose,
what the speaker wants to do or is doing with the language, what the speaker wants to
convey in choosing to use those words, expressions or that grammatical structure. For
example, the present continuous tense in English has four distinct functions: to talk about
activities in progress (e.g., “You’re reading this”); to talk about temporary habitual
activities around now (e.g., “I’m eating a lot of salads because the weather is so hot”); to
talk about planned future arrangements, (e.g., “I’m seeing the doctor tomorrow”); and to
express annoyance at someone’s habitual behavior (e.g., “He’s always tapping his fingers
on his desk.”). The function of language describes the speaker’s purpose in using it:
inviting, suggesting, advising, recounting events we’re excited about, expressing
annoyance, describing a temporary situation, etc. One function can usually be expressed
in different ways. A speaker who wants to request repetition can choose to say: “Excuse
me?”, “Pardon me?”, “Sorry?”, “Can you say that again?”, “What did you say?”, etc. The
speaker’s choice depends on who the other person is are, what their relationship is and
where they are. Each of these ways to express the function of requesting repetition is
known as a ‘functional exponent’ or sometimes, ‘functional expression,’ and learners need
to know that one form may have many different functions and one function may have
many different forms.

Functional Approach: A course based on a functional approach takes 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.

Functional Competence: Functional competence describes two things. First, it

describes a person’s ability to choose the most effective way to realize a specific function
in a particular situation. Functional competence also involves a person’s ability to
recognize, interpret and understand the speaker or writer’s intention in choosing a
particular functional expression, or exponent. For example, person A has not heard what
person B said. Person A has a number of ways to ask for repetition. The person chooses
“What did you say?” (with significant stress on the word ‘what.’). Person B understands
that person A may feel annoyed or angry because s/he misheard or misinterpreted what
was said, or person B may also realize that s/he said something inappropriate, hurtful or
controversial.

Functional expressions: A functional expression (or ‘functional exponent’) is one

possible way to realize a particular language function. For example, “I’m very sorry” and
“I do apologize” are two exponents, or functional expressions, that realize the function of
apologizing.

Function words: In any sentence or phrase, there are two types of words, content words and
function words. Content words carry the main, important or new information and function words.
Function words are the grammatical words that join the content words together. Function words are
usually pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. For example, can, I and your
in the question “Can I borrow your cellphone?” are all function words. Content words are usually, but
not always, nouns, main verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. In the above question, borrow and cellphone are
the content words and carry the main meaning. In fact, if a speaker just said “Borrow cellphone?” the
listener would probably understand the speaker’s meaning. However, if the speaker asked “Can I
your?” the listener wouldn’t understand what the speaker wanted.
G
Gap Activity: In a gap activity, students have different (pieces of) information. In order
to get all the information, they have to ask other students for what they have. After sharing
information, students all have the same information. Students have then completed the
activity or can use the complete information to do another activity. Gap activities involve
students’ interacting with each other, asking and answering questions.

Genre: A genre is a category of literary composition characterized by a particular style,

form, or content. For example, the historical novel is one genre of fiction.

General Service List: A standard list of 2000 frequently-used words as compiled by

Michael West. It is regarded as a language core by many syllabus designers.

Gesture: A gesture is a conventional sign that can be used to communicate. For

example, if a person gives the ‘thumbs up’ gesture, it usually means ‘good’ or ‘OK;
someone holding their hand up in a classroom is a gesture that usually means, “I want to
speak.”.

Grading: Grading refers to the order in which language items are taught. Grading is
usually based on moving from simple to complex; it may also be based on going from most
frequent to least frequent. Grading may reduce the difficulties of language learning
because language is introduced in steps or stages.

Grammar-Translation: A method of teaching in which students mainly study and learn

grammar rules and lists of vocabulary, and practice them by translating texts into the
language they are learning or out of that language into their mother tongue. This method
is the way especially Latin and Greek have traditionally been taught.

Grapheme: Graphemes are the written symbols for sounds in language, for example the
letters of an alphabet or characters used in picture writing (as in Japanese “kanji”).

Graphic Organizer: A graphic organizer is a visual tool to help students organize their
thinking, get new ideas, compare two or more items, visualize relationships, and/or to store
information in a way that is visually easy to understand. There are many different kinds of
graphic organizers. Here are a few of the most common:
Radial Diagram Venn
Diagram

What What What

I know I want I
to learne
know d

Organization chart K-W-L chart

To see many more kinds of graphic organizers, follow this link:

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/graphic-organizers/printable/6293.html
H

Hypothesis Formation: This refers to learners creating ideas or hypotheses about

language rules, and then testing them out. The hypotheses can be conscious or
unconscious.
I
IATEFL: International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

Idiom: An idiom is a multi-word expression, used as a unit of meaning, whose meaning

cannot be understood from its elements, for example “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “She
washed her hands of the whole affair.”

Inductive Learning: In inductive learning, learners are not taught grammar or other
language rules but discover them from their experience of using the language.

Inflection: An inflection is something added to a word, or is some other change to the

word, according to the rules of the language. For example, English plural nouns are
inflected often with –s or –es, but sometimes in other ways, eg., man-men or ox-oxen;
English verbs are inflected for the past tense by added –d or –ed but also in other ways,
e.g., fall-fell, sit-sat, etc. Inflection includes the use of prefixes (behave-misbehave) and
suffixes (behave-behavior) as well.

Inferencing: This is the means by which the learner forms hypotheses, through attending
to input, or using the situational context to interpret the input.

Input: This is the language which learners are exposed to. It can be spoken or written. It
serves as the data which the learner uses to determine the rules of the target language.

Interactionist Perspective: Some researchers suggest that conversational interaction is

essential for second language acquisition. The theory is that when learners have an
opportunity to interact with speakers, they can influence what the speaker says by getting
him/her to slow down, use simpler words, or repeat what s/he said. This modified input is
simpler to understand and is therefore more likely to be comprehensible input. If, as is
believed, comprehensible input promotes second language acquisition, input that is
modified through interaction therefore promotes acquisition.

Interactive Competency: This refers to the ability to use language orally to interact with
others in order to create social relations, express needs, understand and address needs of
others and to get things accomplished. Engaging in a discussion is an example of using
one’s interactive competence.

Interpretive Competency: This refers to the ability to understand written language

through reading or spoken language through listening and to interpret it appropriately.
Reading is the ability to understand and interpret written texts, listening is the ability to
understand and interpret oral language.

Interference: According to Behaviorist learning theory, the patterns of the learner's

mother tongue (L1) get in the way of learning the patterns of the L2. This is referred to as
“interference.”

Interlanguage: Interlanguage is the type of language produced by learners who are in

the process of learning a language. The learner's interlanguage is different from both the
L1 and the actual L2.

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. Students at
this level should be an ability to express needs, thoughts and feelings in a reasonably clear
way.

Intensive Reading: Intensive reading refers to reading shorter texts for a high level of
understanding.

Intonation: Intonation is the way that a speaker’s voice goes up or down while they
speak. It is often described as the music of speaking. Intonation can be used to indicate
three things. First, intonation indicates the speaker’s attitude and emotion. For example,
if someone is bored, their intonation is usually flat. If someone is surprised or excited,
their intonation often rises. Second, intonation indicates the grammatical function of an
utterance. For example, flat or falling intonation at the end of an utterance often indicates
a statement, and rising intonation often indicates a yes/no question or the speaker’s
uncertainty. Third, intonation helps to indicate connections between utterances. For
example, rising intonation at the end of a phrase often indicates that the speaker is going
to say more, but falling intonation at the end of a phrase often indicates that the speaker
has finished. English intonation goes up and down more than most other languages and is
different to the intonation of many other languages. For these reasons it is important to
help students notice and produce English intonation patterns.

L
L1: The learner’s first language.

L2: A term used to refer to both foreign and second languages. See Foreign Language and
Second Language.

Language Acquisition Device: Noam Chomsky, an influential linguist and researcher,

proposed that every human brain contains a language acquisition device (or LAD). This
LAD is able to hear language, analyze it, and figure out the grammatical rules.

Language awareness: Learners develop language awareness by focusing their attention

on features of language in use and making discoveries about how the language is used.
Teachers can help learners to develop this awareness by asking questions. See Discovery
Activities.

Language "Chunks": Chunks are groups of words which may be learned as a unit (e.g.,
thank you very much).

Language Data: Language data are actual instances or examples of language use which
provide information about how the language is used. A corpus can be said to consist of
language data. See Corpus.

Language Laboratory: A language lab(oratory) is a room equipped with headphones and

booths to enable students to listen to a language teaching program, 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.

Language Minority Student: A student who comes from a home in which a language
different from the dominant language in the country or culture is spoken and who is
studying in schools taught in the dominant language is called a language minority student.
In the US, 1 in 7 school children speak a language other than English at home but their
school studies are in English. These students may or may not speak English well and need
support especially to develop academic language proficiency. The same situation is found
in many countries, where students speak a language at home which is not the language of
school instruction and they must learn the additional language in order to succeed
academically.

Language Practice Activity: These are activities which involve repetition of the same
language point or skill. The purpose for language production and the language to be
produced are usually predetermined by the teacher’s task. The intention is not that
students use the language for communication but to strengthen, through successful
repetition, their ability to manipulate a particular form or function. Asking students in a
class who already know each other repeatedly to ask each other their names is a practice
activity. See Language Use Activity.
Language Proficiency: the level of competence at which an individual is able to use
language for both basic communicative tasks and academic purposes

Language Use Activity: These are activities which involve the students’ using language
to communicate. The purpose of the activity might be predetermined but the language
which is used is determined by the learners. For example, getting a new class of learners
to walk round and introduce themselves to each other is a language use activity; asking
students to complete a story is also a language use activity.

Language Variety: This is a term used to talk about the variations of a language used by
particular groups of people, including regional dialects, dialects related to specific social
groups (sociolect), or particular language used by a particular individual (idiolect). All
dialects are characterized by distinct vocabularies, pronunciation, speech patterns,
grammatical features, and so forth.

Learning: The internalization of rules and formulas which can be used to communicate in
the L2. Krashen uses this term for formal learning in the classroom.

Learning Strategies: Learning strategies are the ways learners accumulate new L2 rules
and how they automatize existing ones. The strategies can be conscious or subconscious.
These contrast with communication strategies and production strategies, which account for
how the learners use their rule systems, rather than how they acquire them. Learning
strategies may include metacognitive strategies (e.g., planning for learning, monitoring
one's own comprehension and production, evaluating one's performance); cognitive
strategies (e.g., mental or physical manipulation of the material), or social/affective
strategies (e.g., interacting with another person to assist learning, using self-talk to persist
at a difficult task until resolution).

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, holistic or experiential learners) and many prefer to
do something physical whilst experiencing the language (kinesthetic learners).

Lexical Item: An item of vocabulary which has a single element of meaning. It may be
a single word, a compound word or a multi-word phrase, for example: book, bookcase, post
office, put up with.

Lexical Chunks: Some word combinations have a meaning as a unit and none of the
words can be replaced by other words without completely changing the meaning. For
example, “by the way”, “upside down”, “a long way off”, “out of my mind”. Students need
to learn lexical chunks as a fixed combination of words or as a single lexical item.

Lexical Phrases: Lexical phrases are phrases or multi-word expressions that can vary a
little and allow some, but not all, substitutions. They are somewhere between vocabulary
and grammar. For example, “See you soon/later/tomorrow/on Monday”, “As far as I
know/can tell/understand it”, etc. Students need to learn the fixed phrase and common or
relevant substitutions.

Lexical Set: A group or family of words related to one another by some semantic
principle: e.g., lamb, goat, chicken, beef are all different types of meat and form a
lexical set.

Linguistic Competence: This broad term is used to describe the totality of an individual's
language ability. It refers to the underlying language system which can be inferred from
an individual's language performance.
Linking: In speaking, when a word ends in a consonant sound (not a consonant letter)
and the next word starts with a vowel sound (not a vowel letter), the two words ‘run
together’ or join so that they sound like one word. For example, in the phrase, “Come
on!”, the last sound of the first word is /m/, and the first sound of the next word is the
vowel sound /ɔ/. When they are spoken at natural speed, the two words are pronounced as
one word, “Come on” (/kʌmɔn/).
M
Materials: Materials are anything which is used to help to teach language learners.
Materials can be a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Rom, a video, a photocopied
handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard.

Materials Adaptation: It is important to adapt or make changes to materials in order to

improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learner. Adaptation
can include reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and/or supplementing existing material.
Most teachers adapt materials every time they use a textbook in order to maximize the
value of the book for their particular learners.

Materials Evaluation: This involves the systematic appraisal of the value of specific
materials in relation to a teacher’s objectives and to the objectives of the learners using
them. Evaluation can be pre-use and focused on predictions of potential value; it can be
during-use and focused on awareness and description of what the learners are actually
doing while the materials are being used; and it can be post-use and focused on analysis of
what happened as a result of using the materials.

Meaning: Meaning is what a speaker or writer uses language to express, convey,

communicate. Meaning is what the speaker or writer intends that his or her audience
understand. Meaning is affected by context and so while word “late” may mean ‘not
punctual,’ in another context, it may also mean that someone is dead (“the late Joe
Smith”). Meaning is essential to learning a language; current brain research indicates that
without understanding what new language means, students cannot learn or use it. See
also Form and Use.

Meaning-focused Tasks: These tasks focus on communication of meaning. Meaning-

focused tasks do not provide focus on individual linguistic components; rather they engage
students in communication. According to the meaning-focused approach, involvement in
communicative tasks is all that is necessary to develop competence in a second language.
See Form-focused Tasks.

Metalinguistic awareness: This is awareness of the forms, structures and other aspects
of a language system and how they work together. It can be awareness of, for example,
the fact that there are different kinds of words - verbs, adjectives and nouns – and how
they are used.

Meta-language and Metalinguistic: Meta-language is the words and terminology used

to talk about language, and metalinguistic is the related adjective. Meta-language is used
to discuss, describe or analyze a particular language or languages in general. For
example, the sentence: “In English /b/ and /p/ are both bi-labial plosives, but one phoneme
is voiced and the other unvoiced” includes the meta-language: bi-labial, plosive, phoneme,
voiced, unvoiced. Words such as noun, preposition, adjective, past simple, auxiliary verb,
etc. are all metalinguistic terms.

Macro-functions: Linguistic functions are the things done with language. These
purposes can be divided into large categories, or macro-functions, for example, to transmit
information or to build social relationships

Micro-functions: Linguistic functions are the things done with language, such as
complain or persuade. Each of these functions can be divided into smaller categories, or
micro-functions, for example, persuading a friend, persuading a colleague, persuading an
employee, etc.

Micro-teaching: This is a technique used on teacher training courses in which a part of a

lesson is taught to a small number of students. A variation of this is “peer teaching” in
which the 'students' are often peers of the trainee teacher attending the same course.

Microskills: In language teaching, there are usually four skills: reading, writing, speaking
and listening. Each one of these skills is made up of many other skills, or microskills. For
example, the skill of reading involves recognizing the function of a text, recognizing the
function of parts of a text, inferring the writers’ attitude from the text, or inferring the
meaning of unknown words from context. Although students may use microskills in their
first language, they don’t necessarily transfer automatically to English and therefore
students need practice.

Mime: Mime is ‘silent acting’ or acting without words or speaking.

Mindmap: A mindmap is a diagram used to organize words, information and ideas. Here
is an example: Students can used mindmaps to record lexis, or get and organize ideas
before speaking or writing. They are a kind of graphic organizer.

Minimal Pair: A minimal pair is two words which differ from each other in only one sound.
For example, sit/set, ship/sheep, pen/pan, fan/pan, pan/pat, drew/threw are all minimal
pairs.

Modal Verb: Modal verbs express the speaker’s opinion or attitude about the action of the
verb. In English there are 9 modal verbs: will, would, shall, should, may, might, can,
could, must. (Some people include the following in this category: ought to, need to, dare
to and used to because they function in a similar way to modal verbs).

Model: When teaching new lexis or grammar, students need to hear the language point
said – or modeled – before they try to say it themselves. When asking students to do a
particular activity, students need to see and hear a clear example, or model, of what they
will do in the activity.

Modeling: Modeling means showing students or giving students an example of exactly

what the teacher wants them to do. For example, if students are going to do a written
grammar practice activity, then rather than explaining what to do, the teacher shows them
what to do. The teacher can do this by writing an example on the board and the class
doing it together. In preparation for doing a speaking activity, it is usually much more
effective for the teacher to act out both student roles, standing in two different places, or
changing voice to show the difference between the two roles. Before students start the
activity, the teacher needs to make sure students have understood what to do. The
teacher can ask short simple questions to make sure of students’ understanding.

Monitor: Language learners and native speakers typically listen to themselves and try to
self-correct any errors 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: A morpheme is the smallest single unit of language that has meaning. For
example, the word ‘pigeons’ has two morphemes, ‘pigeon’ and ‘-s’. The morpheme
‘pigeon’ means a medium-sized bird often found in cities and sometimes raised for food or
racing. The morpheme ‘s’ indicates plural. Some morphemes, like ‘pigeon’, can stand
alone. These are called ‘free morphemes’. Other morphemes, like ‘s’, ‘-ed’ or ‘-ing’,
cannot stand alone and must always be attached to a word. These are called ‘bound
morphemes’.
Morphology: Morphology is the study of the structure of individual words and patterns of
word formation. For example, the word ‘unhappiness’ is formed of three parts: un-
(meaning not), -happi- (modified from the word ‘happy), and –ness (a suffix that changes
an adjective into a noun). The word, ‘employ’ can be modified in the following ways:
employs, employing, employed, employer, employee, unemployed, employment,
unemployment. Native speakers of a language know how words are formed and what
modifications are possible and can also use this morphological knowledge to create new
words. It is important to help students increase their knowledge of word formation. See
also Syntax.

Motivation: These are the factors that determine and influence a person’s desire to do
something. 'Instrumental' motivation occurs when the learner's goal is functional (e.g. to
get a job or pass an examination); 'integrative' motivation occurs when the learner wishes
to identify with the culture of the L2 group. “Task" motivation is the interest a learners feel
while performing different learning tasks.
Multi-media Materials: Materials can make use of a number of different media. Often
such materials are available on a CD-Rom, which incorporates use of print, graphics, video
and sound. Usually multi-media materials are interactive and enable the learner to receive
feedback on the written or spoken language which they produce.

N
Natural Approach: Pioneered by Krashen, this approach combines acquisition and
learning as a means of facilitating language development in adults. The approach
emphasizes natural communication rather than formal grammar study, informal acquisition
of language rules, and tolerance for learners’ errors.

Natural Order Hypothesis: Most second language acquisition researchers agree that
there is a predictable order in which first and second language learners acquire particular
aspects of language. This is known as the natural order hypothesis. Please note: research
evidence suggests that the order in which children learn the rules, forms and items in their
first language is not the same as the order in which students learn the rules, forms and
items of the language they study in school.

Needs analysis: Needs analysis is an activity or series of activities teachers give

students to do in order to find out what the students’ learning needs are. A good
understanding of learner needs can contribute to successful course planning.

Negotiation of Meaning: When learners interact with native speakers or other learners,
they often have problems in communicating. In order for their communication to be
successful, students need to be able to indicate understanding, lack of understanding and
desire for the conversation to continue or not. They also need to be able to help each
other express ideas and, when necessary, to make corrections to what was said and how
something was said. These aspects of what speakers do during a successful conversation
is called 'negotiation of meaning.’

Non-verbal Communication: Paralinguistic and non-linguistic messages can be

transmitted in conjunction with language or without the aid of language during
communication. Paralinguistic mechanisms include intonation, stress, rate of speech, and
pauses or hesitations; non-linguistic behaviors include gestures, facial expressions, and
body language.

Norm-referenced test: A norm-referenced test measures a candidate's mark against

what other people are achieving in the same test. It can be compared with a criterion-
referenced test, which measures a candidate's mark against a series of criteria and
produces a description of level based on those criteria. Norm-referenced tests are useful
for indicating the level of an individual learner in comparison with others.

Noticing hypothesis: The noticing hypothesis suggests that language learners must first
notice, or pay attention to, language forms before they can acquire them. This attention to
linguistic form could happen accidentally, or because a textbook or person points it out.

Noticing: When learners "notice" language, they pay special attention to its meaning,
form, and use. Noticing is regarded as an important part of the process of learning new
language and will only occur when the learner is ready to take on the new language. It can
occur for different reasons: learners may notice their errors in their production; they may
simply be intrigued or interested in something new they hear or see; or they may need
language they do not yet have in order to communicate, notice the "gap" in their
knowledge and so notice the language others’ use to communicate the same meaning.

P
PDP: PDP is a framework which teachers use to plan and teach reading and listening
lessons or parts of lessons which have reading or listening in them. The letters stand for:
Pre-During-Post. In the Pre- stage, students talk about the topic or situation in the text
they will be working with. They may contribute what their own experience or knowledge of
the topic/situation is, they may speculate and make guesses about what they will hear or
read, and they learn key lexis that will help them both understand the text and do
activities while and after they listen. During the listening or reading stage, students do
tasks that deepen their understanding of the text. Each activity is given before students
engage with the text so that they develop reading and listening abilities rather than test
their memory of the text. Activities generally progress from understanding generally to
understanding detail. During this stage, students can also explicitly work on reading and
listening skills rather than only on comprehending the text. In the Post stage, students
can use the text as a model for writing or speaking (a roleplay, for example) they will do;
focus on specific language used in the text; or use and build on the text content in a
discussion or project of some kind. See PDP Framework under Frameworks.

PPP: This is an approach to planning for and teaching language items. It follows a
sequence of presentation of the item, practice of the item and the production of the item.
This is the approach currently followed by most commercially-produced textbooks and has
the advantage of apparent systematicity and economy. However, it is based on the "linear"
and "behaviorist" view of language learning, which researchers have shown to be
incorrect. This approach ignores the cyclic nature of learning, and treats learning as a
series of "knowable facts". See Language Practice; SLA; Language Use.

PPU: Like PDP and PPP, PPU is a framework which teachers can use to plan and teach.
The focus of a PPU lesson is on speaking and during the lesson, the students learn
grammatical structures, lexis, pronunciation and/or functional exponents. During the
Present stage, students become familiar with the context and the meaning, form and use
of language items being covered is made clear. During this stage, students may also focus
on speaking skills such as interrupting, asking for clarification, showing interest, etc.
Students then have opportunities to practice the language or speaking skills. The purpose
of these activities is to help students become more accurate with the language and skills,
and the activities move along the continuum from controlled to semi-controlled. In the Use
stage, students use the language and/or skills to complete a communicative task – in other
words, students participate in an activity similar to one they might do outside class and in
an activity that requires real communication. See PPU Framework under Frameworks.

Pair Work: A process in which students work in pairs for practice or discussion.

Paralinguistics: Paralinguistics are the aspects of spoken communication that do not

involve words. These may add emphasis or shades of meaning to what people say and
include verbal aspects such as stress, intonation, speed of delivery, etc and non-verbal
ones such as gesture, facial expression and body language. Some definitions limit this to
verbal communication that is not words.

Part of Speech: The words of a language can be divided into types or classes of words
according to their function. We call each of these types of word a ‘part of speech.’ Here
are the eight basic parts of speech in English, each with a couple of examples:
Noun e.g., egg, work, happiness, girl Adjective e.g., big, small,
interesting
Verb e.g., sit, drink, like Conjunction e.g., and, but, so
Adverb e.g., slowly, quickly, fast Preposition e.g., to, from, above,
below
Pronoun e.g., I, me, my, he, him, his Interjection e.g., Oh! Ouch! Hi!
We can divide these basic categories into sub-categories. For example, in the case of
pronouns, there are subject pronouns (e.g., I, you, it, she, we, they), object pronouns (e.g.,
me, you, him, her, it, us, them), and possessive pronouns (e.g., my, your, his, her, its, our,
their). There are main verbs, auxiliary verbs (have, be and do) and model verbs.
Determiners such as articles (a, an, the) and demonstratives (this, that, etc) are
sometimes considered types of adjectives and sometimes categorized separately. More
on parts of speech: http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary.html.
Passive Vocabulary: The vocabulary that students are able to understand but not
necessarily able to use. See Active Vocabulary.

Patterns: These are a type of formulaic speech. Unlike formulaic speech, which consists
of phrases and expression learned as wholes and used on particular occasions (e.g., How
are you? In my opinion, With best wishes, You must be joking), patterns have open slots.
For example, “Can I have a .......?” is a pattern which can be completed in a number of
different ways: Can I have an orange? Can I have a pen? Can I have a break? See
Routines and Formulaic Speech.

Pedagogic Task: In pedagogic tasks, learners are required to do things which it is

extremely unlikely they would be called upon to do outside of the classroom. Completing
one half of a dialogue, filling in the blanks in a story and working out the meaning of ten
nonsense words from clues in a text are examples of pedagogic tasks. See Real-world
Tasks.

Peer Assessment: Students may be asked to listen to a peer or read through a peer’s
written work and give that person feedback. It is essential to limit what students give
feedback to peers on and it is important to give them language with which to give and
receive the feedback. In teacher training, peers may be asked to give feedback to each
other on lessons they teach, presentations they give, materials they produce, etc. Again, it
is helpful to help training teachers with language they can use to give and receive
feedback.

Peer Correction: Peer correction is a classroom technique where learners correct each
other, rather than the teacher giving the correction.

Peer Reading: Peer-reading involves asking students to read each other’s writing. It is a
useful teaching technique because students can get ideas about content, lexis, or
grammar from reading each other’s work, and can often see mistakes that the writer has
missed.

Performance-based Assessment: Performance-based assessment focuses on

achievement. This type of assessment is based on free-form responses to standard
questions scored by human markers on a standards-based scale. A well-defined task is
identified and students are asked to create, produce, or do something, often in settings
that involve real-world application of knowledge and skills. Proficiency is demonstrated by
providing an extended response and responses can be in the form of a painting, portfolio,
paper, or exhibition, or it may consist of a performance, such as a speech, athletic skill,
musical recital, or reading.

Performance Standards: These are statements that refer to how well students are
meeting a content standard. The standards specify the quality and effect of student
performance at various levels of competency (benchmarks) in the subject matter. In
addition, they specify how students must demonstrate their knowledge and skills and can
be used to show student progress toward meeting a standard.

Personalized: ‘Personalized’ activities are activities in which students talk about

themselves, things or people they know or care about, or ask questions that they
personally want to know the answer to.

Personalization: Personalization happens when activities allow students to use language

to express their own ideas, feelings, preferences and opinions. Personalization is an
important part of the communicative approach since it involves true communication, as
learners communicate real information about themselves.

Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound which causes a change of meaning
and the basic units with which spoken language is produced. For example, if the ‘u’ sound
in ‘cut’ is changed to an ‘a’ sound, the word changes to ‘cat’ – a word with completely
different meaning. Phonemes are not the same as letters; they are sounds. For example,
the letter ‘e’ can represent different phonemes. Compare the pronunciation of ‘e’ in these
words: ‘bed’, ‘river’, ‘be’.

Plosive: A plosive is a kind of consonant that is produced by stopping the flow of air at
some point and suddenly releasing it. In English, the /d/ in ‘dinner’ is a plosive. Plosives
can be voiced or unvoiced. The /d/ in ‘dinner’ is a voiced plosive and the /t/ in ‘tea’ is an
unvoiced plosive. Plosives are sometimes called ‘stops’ because the air stops at some
point and then is released.

Post Observation Feedback: This is feedback which inspectors, peers and teacher
trainers give on lessons they have observed. The feedback is usually both oral and
written.

Poster: Posters in language classrooms are usually big pieces of paper that are used to
illustrate important concepts, display students’ thinking or ideas, or to decorate the room.
Posters can be professionally printed or created by the teacher or students. Posters are
good for reminding students of new vocabulary with labeled pictures, and can also be used
to remind students of useful expressions, grammar or classroom rules, or homework
assignments.

Pre-listening: Pre-listening activities are things learners do before a listening activity in

order to prepare for listening. These activities have various purposes, including pre-
teaching or activating vocabulary, predicting content, generating interest and checking
understanding of task.

Pre-teaching: Pre-teaching involves teaching the language learners will need to do an

activity before they are asked to do it.

Prediction: In a prediction activity, learners use their knowledge and experience of a topic
or situation, or they use ‘clues’ such as a group of words or a picture, to guess what a
listening or reading text will be about. The guesses they generate provide them with a
reason to listen or read, as they confirm or reject their predictions.

Prescriptive Grammar: A prescriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on

how people think language should be used. In a prescriptive grammar there is right and
wrong language. It can be compared with a descriptive grammar, which is a set of rules
based on how language is actually used.

Prior Knowledge: Prior knowledge is the knowledge learners already have before they
meet new information. A learner's understanding of a text can be improved by activating
their prior knowledge before they read the text, and developing this habit is good learner
training.

Process Approach: The process approach focuses on the means whereby learning
occurs. The process is more important than the product. In terms of writing, the important
aspect is the way in which completed text was created. The act of composing evolves
through several stages as writers discover, through the process, what it is that they are
trying to say. See Product Approach.

Process Writing: Process writing focuses learners on the different stages and aspects of
writing as they have been observed in good writers, and spends time on each stage. These
are: planning, drafting, revising, editing and considering the audience.

Process-oriented Syllabus: A process-oriented syllabus focuses on the processes of

learning. It can be compared to a product-oriented syllabus which focuses on things learnt
at the end of the learning process (outcomes) rather than on the process itself. Many
people have questioned the validity of separating syllabi into process- and product-
oriented and argue that most syllabi are, and must be, a combination of processes and
outcomes.

Product-oriented Syllabus: A product-oriented syllabus focuses on things learnt at the

end of the learning process (outcomes) rather than the learning processes involved (see
above). Many people have questioned the validity of separating syllabi into process- and
product-oriented and argue that most syllabi are, and must be, a combination of processes
and outcomes.

Product Approach: The product approach focuses on the end results of teaching and
learning. In terms of writing, there should be something "resulting" from the composition
lesson (e.g. letter, essay, story, etc.). This result should be readable, grammatically correct
and obeying discourse conventions relating to main points, supporting details and so on.
See Process Approach.

Production Strategies: These are strategies involved in using linguistic knowledge in

communication, and they operate largely unconsciously. They do not imply any
communication problem. See Communication Strategies and Learning Strategies.

Productive competence: This refers to learners’ ability to produce coherent,

appropriate and relevant messages in writing and speaking. It also refers to their ability to
express ideas effectively and organize thoughts appropriately. Productive competency is
more often associated with writing because writing involves producing texts such as letters
or essays. Productive speaking competency is also the production of texts; it differs from
interactive speaking competency in that it does not involve interaction with other
speakers. Giving a lecture or a presentation are examples of using one’s productive
speaking competency.

Productive Skills: The productive skills are speaking and writing. They are called
‘productive’ because learners produce language when they speak or write. They are also
known as active skills. They can be compared with the receptive skills of listening and
reading.

Productive Use: It is sometimes important to differentiate between the English that

students need to be able to use when they speak or write, and the English that students
need to be able to understand when they hear or read. Using English to speak or write is
called productive or active use. Using English to listen or read is called receptive or
passive use. English can be used receptively and productively at the same time. For
example, in a conversation, people listen (receptive use) and then speak (productive use).

Project: A project is a task which involves pairs, small and/or larger groups of students
working together independent of the teacher to produce an authentic product: a series of
posters for tourists giving information about the students’ town, an advertisement, a
collection of recipes, a collection of poems, a newsletter, a play, a brochure, a news
program, etc. The students and teacher discuss the content of the project, the time
allocated for project, what students might need to complete the project and so on.
Students may take on specific roles within their groups in order to get work completed.
Then the students to the work: they carry out interviews, they research for information in
books or online, they draw, etc. The teacher monitors their work and offers help where
necessary. When they have completed the task, students present what they have done to
the class (or in some cases to the school or parents). Peers and/or the teacher may give
feedback on the product. Projects should involve students in authentic communication and
tasks should be engaging, motivating and meaningful.

Project Work: Project work is work which focuses on completing a task. Project work
normally involves a lot of resources - time, people and materials - and learners practice a
range of skills and language as they complete the work.

Prominence: Prominence is a technical term for Sentence Stress.

Prompts: Prompts are stimuli a teacher uses to get learners to give a response using
target language. Prompts can be visual, spoken or written.

Psychological Distance: The term is used to refer to the learner's overall psychological
set with regard to the target language and its community. This is determined by factors
such as language shock and motivation.

R
Rapport: Rapport in language learning refers to the relationship between the teacher and
the learners. Teachers try to build good rapport with the learners. A good rapport between
teacher and students and between students contributes to an environment that will help
learning.

Rate of Acquisition: The speed at which the learner develops L2 proficiency. This is
different to the 'route of acquisition'.

Rating scale: A rating scale is a scale against which a learner's performance is assessed,
producing a quantifiable result. The rater is usually trained in applying the scale before
they rate real samples of language.

Realia: Realia are real things that are brought to the class and used as a resource. A
teacher working with beginners on food lexis might bring in authentic examples of food
such as garlic, an apple, a pear, a carrot, etc to show students. Realia is an extremely
efficient way to clarify meaning.
Real-life Communication: This is the kind of communication activity people engage in
outside the classroom in the real-world.

Real-world Tasks: These are tasks based on authentic materials and situations. Learners
are required to approximate, in class, the sorts of behaviors required of them in the world
beyond the classroom. See Pedagogic Tasks.

Receptive Skills: The receptive skills are listening and reading. Learners do not need to
produce language when they listen and read; instead they receive and understand it.
These skills are sometimes called the passive skills, and they can be contrasted with the
productive, or active, skills of speaking and writing.

Receptive Use: It is sometimes important to differentiate between the English that our
students need to be able to understand when they hear or read it, and the English students
need to be able to use when they speak or write. Using English to listen or read is called
receptive or passive use. English can be used receptively and productively at the same
time. For example, in a conversation, people listen (receptive use) and then speak
(productive use).

Recycling: Recycling involves learners’ practicing language which they have been
exposed to previously. It is very unusual for anyone to learn anything after only one
exposure to it, and recycling helps students remember and internalize the language and so
is an essential part of the learning process. The recycled language is often re-introduced in
a different context, or through a different skill. This helps the student extend their range of
use of the new item.

Referential questions: Referential questions are questions people ask when they do not
know the answer. In an ELT classroom, referential questions can be questions teachers ask
learners and learners ask each other. Referential questions can be compared to display
questions, which are questions teachers ask even though the answer is already clear, and
teachers ask just to see if the learners know the answer, or in order to give students
practice manipulating the language.

Register: A register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a

particular social setting. For example, the register of parents talking to their young
children is quite different from the register of employers talking to their employees.
Talking to employees in the same way that one normally talks to young children is usually
considered inappropriate.

Reliable: This term is used to talk about tests and test results. A test is considered
reliable if it gives consistent results when it is given at different times to different groups of
people.

Retention: Retention of (new) language means remembering the language rather than
forgetting it. Once a word is retained, it can be retrieved and used later.

Retrieval: Retrieval is the action of recalling (remembering) and using language stored in
long-term memory.

Roleplay: In a roleplay, students are asked to act out a particular transaction in a

particular role. Students can roleplay ordering food in a restaurant, asking directions on
the street, or interviewing a famous football (soccer) player or musician. Roleplays are
usually used to practice language that students already know (semi-controlled oral
practice) or sometimes used to practice the skill of speaking (fluency speaking practice).
Students decide what they are going to say with or without help from the teacher. If the
teacher limits students’ choice of language to use, the roleplay is a practice activity; if
students are free to choose what they will say, the roleplay is a fluency activity. Reading a
dialog aloud is not a roleplay because students have no choice about what to say. Before
doing a roleplay, students need to understand clearly what the situation and roles are, and
to have preparation time to think about what they are going to say. Roleplays should be
realistic, interesting, and require genuine communication.
Route of Development: L2 learners go through a number of transitional states en route
to acquiring target language rules. This is referred to as the 'route of development.’

Routines: These are a type of formulaic speech. They are units that are learnt and used as
wholes, for example, "I don't know” “How awful!” “Thank you very much” and “the thing
is…” See Formulaic Speech and Patterns.

Rubric: Rubrics are the marking standards used to assess communicative tasks such as
essays, posters, presentations, letters and interviews. A rubric is composed of
characteristics of the task being assessed and a scale that rates the quality of the
characteristics from low to high. For example, a rubric for a written essay might include
these four characteristics: organization, appropriateness of content, grammatical accuracy
and range of vocabulary. The characteristics might be rated along four levels: excellent,
good, adequate, needs improvement.

S
SARS: This acronym stands for Select, Adapt, Reject, Supplement. When making
decisions about what to use in a course- or text book, a teacher can decide to use the
material as it is; the teacher can make changes to – or adapt – the material the book; the
teacher can decide not to use the material at all; or the teacher can supplement the
material in the book by finding additional material from other sources. This decision-
making process can be applied to texts, activities connected with the texts, visuals,
activities for practicing language items, speaking or writing tasks, and projects.

Scanning: Scanning is a reading or listening technique used to find specific information as

efficiently (and quickly) as possible. When scanning, readers or listeners know what
information they want and read or listen until they find it, usually ignoring other
information. Readers move their eyes quickly over the page until they find the information
they are looking for. For example, when people want to find a phone number, they scan
the telephone book for the specific person’s name and number. They do not read all the
names, addresses and telephone numbers, but instead look only for the one they want.
Scanning as a listening technique is similar. Listeners know in advance exactly what
information they want and they listen until they hear it. For example, people waiting at the
bus station listen until they hear the destination, the time or name of the bus they want.
Then they listen very carefully for the specific piece of information they need or want.

Scripts: These can be considered a type of formulaic speech. They are memorized
sequences of utterances which are more or less fixed and predictable, such as “How do
you do?”

Schwa: The vowel sound in many (but not all) unstressed syllables or words is the schwa.
It is the only vowel sound in English that has its own name, “the schwa.” The phonemic
symbol for this sound is /ə/. For example, the underlined words or syllables contain the
schwa when said at a natural speed: “I need to go to the doctor’s.”

Second Language: The term is often used to refer to any language a person speaks other
than that person’s first or home language. Use of the word “second” has become
controversial given the fact that many people speak more than two languages; there is
increasing use of the term “Additional Language.”

Self-access Materials: These are materials designed for learners to use independently -
i.e. on their own without access to a teacher or a classroom. They are normally used by the
learner at home, in a library or in a self-study centre.

Self Assessment: Self-assessment involves learners assessing their own language

proficiency, rather than a teacher doing it.

Self-correction: Self-correction happens when learners correct themselves instead of a

teacher doing it. Teachers can involve learners in self-correction by giving the learners
more or less guidance as to where the error is and/or what type of error it is, and by
providing learners with examples of correct or appropriate use of language so that they
can compare what they said or wrote to it.

Semantics: Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and fixed-word combinations
(e.g., “by the way”) and how they work together to create meaning.

Semi-controlled Practice: One way to teach new language (grammar, lexis, or

functional expressions) is to clarify it (i.e., to be sure that students understand what it
means, how it is formed and pronounced, in what situations it is used and the purpose for
using it) and then to give students opportunities to practice it in increasingly more
challenging and authentic ways. At the beginning, the teacher controls or limits the range
of language that students need to use. These are called controlled practice activities, and
they can be written or spoken. When students have demonstrated their ability to produce
the new language with increased accuracy, teachers then give them more freedom of
choice in what other lexis, grammar or functional expressions they can also use. This kind
of practice is called semi-controlled practice. However these are not distinct categories of
practice activities, rather a continuum between controlled and freer practice. Controlled
and freer practice activities are described elsewhere in this glossary.

Sentence Stress: Sentence stress is the pattern of stressed and unstressed words across
a sentence. Normally this emphasis, or prominence, is on words that carry important
information, although this can change significantly, depending on the specific meaning the
speaker wants to communicate. Words that carry the most important information in a
sentence or utterance are usually spoken a little more loudly, with a little more emphasis
and take a little longer than less important words. In the sentence, “I went to the park”,
‘went’ and ‘park’ are the most important words and so they would normally be stressed.
Depending on the speaker’s meaning, the stressed words can change. For example, the
response to the question, “Did you go around the park?” might be “No, I went to the park”,
with the stress on ‘to’. Research shows that putting stress on the wrong words or syllables
in a sentence can make it very difficult for listeners to understand what the speaker is
trying to say. For this reason, it is important to help students notice and practice
appropriate sentence stress.

Silent Way: The Silent Way is a language teaching methodology created by Caleb
Gattegno. He believed that students do not learn something just because the teacher has
taught it; he believed that the teacher needs to remain as silent as possible during a class
partly in order to listen and observe students, how they learn and what they are learning,
and partly so that learners have as much speaking opportunity as possible. Gattegno
believed that the only way a person learns to speak a language is to speak it, not study it.
He believed that learners use the experience of learning their mother tongue when
learning a new language, and that an essential part of learning a language involves
developing internal criteria of what is right and wrong in the language. He understood that
language is a vehicle for the expression of a person’s thoughts, attitudes, opinions,
feelings, perceptions, etc and that encouraging learners to express these things motivates
their learning language. The use of physical objects such as Cuisenaire rods, the
Sound/color wall chart, word charts and a pointer are associated with this approach.

Simplification: This describes the way learners make use of rules which are
grammatically, morphologically or phonologically less complex than the actual rules of the
language they are learning. They often do this as a result of overgeneralization. For
example, having learned that in English the past is formed by adding –ed to the verb, the
learner tries to add –ed to all verbs, thus producing incorrect forms such as “spended” or
“costed.”

Simplified Texts: These are texts which have been made simpler so as to make it easier for learners to read them.
The usual principles of simplification involve shortening the length of the text, shortening sentences, omitting or
replacing difficult words or structures with simpler ones, omitting qualifying clauses and omitting non-essential
detail. It can be argued, however, that such simplification might make the words easier to understand but it could
make it more difficult for the learners to achieve global understanding of the text because it is now dense with
important information. It might be more useful to learners to simplify texts by adding examples, by using
repetition and paraphrase and by increasing redundant information - in other words, by lengthening rather than
shortening the text.

Skimming: Skimming is reading or listening to get the main idea, or gist. When skimming,
readers or listeners don’t try to understand every word, but try to get an overall or general
understanding of what seems most important. As a reading technique, skimming helps
readers to read more quickly. Readers look quickly at the title, subtitles, subheadings, and
any pictures to get hints about the topic of the text; they might read the first and last
sentence of each paragraph, look for important words, or jump over portions of the text in
order to find the main idea (or gist) of the text. Readers, often skim the front page of the
newspaper before deciding which article to read first. Skimming as a listening technique
can help listeners to understand the general idea of the text before deciding to listen more
carefully. When skimming during listening, listeners use the context in which they are
listening to get hints about the topic and then notice and interpret words that are spoken
more loudly, or with slightly longer pauses around them. These words are often important
clues to the topic of the listening text. When sitting on a bus, people sometimes listen in
this way to the conversations of people sitting in front of them in order to find out what
they’re talking about. At the supermarket people listen in this way to an announcement on
the loudspeaker to see if the announcement is useful or interesting for them.

SLA: This is an abbreviation for Second Language Acquisition and is normally used to refer
to research and theory related to the learning of second and foreign languages.

Slips: Slips are mistakes caused by temporary factors such as a learner’s being tired,
nervous, excited or distracted. They can be compared with errors, which are caused by a
learner not knowing something.

Social Distance: This refers to feelings a person has that his or her social position is
relatively similar to or different from the social position of other people. The social
distance between two different groups, communities or individuals affects how they
communicate with each other and may affect how members of the group or community
feel about the language of the other group and how the they learn the language of the
other group.

Socio-cultural Context: Socio-cultural context refers to the idea that language, rather
than existing in isolation, is closely linked to the culture and society in which it is used. This
means when language is learnt, the socio-cultural context in which it is used needs to be
taken into consideration as well.

Socio-cultural awareness: Socio-cultural awareness means awareness of the societies

and cultures of the target language, and therefore of the contexts the language is used in.
Teachers themselves transmit information subconsciously about culture and society
through their behavior and interaction with learners.
Spontaneous Speech: This is speech produced without rehearsal or planning.

Standard Pronunciation: Around the world, English is spoken in many different

countries, by many different groups of people and with many different accents. Deciding
which of these accents is ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ pronunciation is difficult. However, by
“standard pronunciation” we mean “the pronunciation of American English that is most
commonly used and most easily understood by most Americans”. One way to think of it is
‘newsreader pronunciation’.

Strategic Competence: Strategic competence is a speaker’s ability to choose the best

verbal or non-verbal strategy to improve the effectiveness of communication or to repair
break-downs in communication in a particular context.

Stress: Stress is the emphasis or force given to certain syllables in words or words in a
phrase or sentence. A listener hears stressed syllables or words as longer, louder and/or
higher-pitched than unstressed syllables and/or words. See also Sentence Stress or Word
Stress.

Stress Pattern: The stress pattern of a word is the way all the syllables in it are stressed.
Depending on the number of syllables in the word, there can be main, secondary and
unstressed syllables.

Stress-timed: A stress-timed language is a language in which the stressed syllables in

phrases and sentences occur at regular intervals of time. For example, in the sentence
“The temperature/ rose steadily/ all day” there are three stressed syllables marked with an
accent, one per segment; in order to maintain rhythm and say each segment in basically
the same amount of time, other syllables are unstressed and shortened. Stress-timed
languages can be compared with syllable-timed ones, where each syllable takes roughly
the same amount of time to say.

Success of Acquisition: This is the level of proficiency that a learner finally achieves. See
Fossilization.

Summative Assessment: Summative assessment evaluates how much a student has

learned at the end of a course. Summative assessment “sums up” the student’s progress.
It can be compared to formative assessment, which gives the teacher and learner helpful
information during the course.

Supplementary Materials: Supplementary materials are designed to be used in addition

to the core course materials. These materials may come from teacher resource books,
coursebooks other than main (core) textbook, workbooks, and authentic sources such as
radio, TV, magazine, newspapers, etc. See Course book.

Syllabus: A syllabus is a document that describes what the contents of a language course
will be and the order in which they will be taught. The content of a syllabus normally
reflects certain beliefs about language and language learning.

Syntax: Syntax is the study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which
govern sentence formation in a particular language. The syntax of a language determines
what kind of word can go in which sentence positions. For example, in English syntax, the
subject of the sentence is usually before the verb and the subject and verb are placed
before the object. English syntax is described as S-V-O. In Japanese syntax, on the other
hand, although the subject of the sentence is first, it is followed by the object and then the
verb. Japanese is an S-O-V language. Students often make errors with syntax. For
example, it is common for French and Arabic speakers of English to put the adjective after
the noun (e.g., “She is a woman big”) because this patterning reflects the syntax of those
languages.
T
Target Language: This is the language that the learner is attempting to learn.

Task: A task is an activity that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating,

producing and/or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on
mobilizing their language to exchange meaning. The intention is to convey meaning rather
than to manipulate form.

Task-based: This refers to materials or courses which are designed around a series of
authentic tasks which give learners experience of using the language in ways that it is
used in the 'real world' outside the classroom. There is no pre-determined language
syllabus, and the aim is for learners to learn from the tasks – to notice - the language they
need to participate successfully in them. Examples of such tasks are: working out the
itinerary of a journey from a timetable, completing a passport application form, ordering a
product from a catalogue and giving directions to the post office. See Authentic Tasks.

Teacher-centered: A teacher-centered approach is one in which the teacher is the

center of class activity and student attention. It can be compared to a learner-centered
approach.

Teacher Development: Teacher development is concerned with professional

development and training for in-service teachers – in other words for teachers after their
initial training (see Teacher Training below). The focus is usually on deepening and
expanding teachers’ knowledge, skills and attitudes, developing teacher self-evaluation
practice, and innovations in the fields of education, teaching and learning, and subject
matter.

Teacher-Talking Time (TTT): Teacher-talking time (TTT) is the time that teachers, rather
than learners, spend talking in class. Some teacher talking time is necessary and/or
helpful: giving instructions, checking student understanding, and synthesizing what
students have said. Other teacher-talking time is unnecessary and detrimental to student
learning: (lengthy) explanation of grammar, lexis, pronunciation points and/or functions,
talking while students are doing an activity or thinking, answering questions instead of
allowing students to answer, etc. Teacher talking time can be compared with student-
talking time. One key element of many modern approaches is to reduce the amount of TTT
as much as possible so as to allow learners opportunities to speak, and learn from using
the language.

Teacher Training: The formal process by which people learn basic knowledge, skills and
techniques for teaching grade-level classes or content-specific classes (such as English
language, math, science, geography, etc). The focus of many initial English-language
teacher training programs is on preparing lesson plans, classroom management
techniques, ways of teaching/revising and practicing language, teaching the fours skills
and correcting errors. Teacher training programs of excellence also guide potential
teachers to develop awareness of students and student learning, evaluation of their
teaching in terms of student learning, and development of positive attitudes.

Teacher Talk: Teachers make adjustments to both language form and language function
in order to help communication in the classroom. These adjustments are called 'teacher
talk.'

Test: A test is a procedure of measuring ability, knowledge and/or performance. It is form

of assessment. Words commonly associated with “test” include: achievement, aptitude,
placement or diagnostic; proficiency or progress; cloze, discrete point or essay;
standardized, etc.

Test-Teach-Test: Test-teach-test (sometimes known as task-teach-task) is an approach

to teaching (presenting or reviewing) lexis, grammar, pronunciation and/or functions. In
this approach, learners first complete a task or activity without help from the teacher; the
teacher monitors carefully. Then, based on the challenges or problems seen, the teacher
focuses on those problematic areas in particular. Finally, learners do another task or other
tasks to practice the language. This approach is used when the teacher knows the
students are most likely to have some knowledge of the language focus. The teacher may
not be sure how much the students know and may also wish to activate what they already
know before adding to or building on that knowledge with new information. The first
activity is not really a test; its purpose is to highlight what students know, don’t know
and/or are uncertain of. The post-teach activities are also not really tests; their purpose is
to give students practice and use of the language being covered.

Text: A text is any scripted or recorded production of language presented to the learners
of that language. A text can be written or spoken and could be, for example, a poem, a
newspaper article, a passage about pollution, a song, a film, an extract from a novel or a
play, a passage written to exemplify the use of the past perfect, a recorded telephone
conversation, a scripted dialogue or a speech by a politician.

Textbok Adaptation: Based on an understanding of what students’ needs and interests

are, a teacher makes changes to texts, activities and tasks in the text- or coursebook so
that they meet student needs better and/or are of more interest or relevance to students.

Think-out-loud (Think Aloud) Protocol: Helping students to become more conscious of

the ways they think about and do particular activities, and the strategies they use to do
them, can help them to see possible improvements. Teachers can help students with this
kind of ‘thinking about thinking’ (or metacognition) by asking them to explain what they
are doing and why as they do something. This is called a ‘think-out-loud (or think aloud)
protocol.’

Tongue Twister: A tongue twister is a phrase, sentence, or rhyme that is difficult to

pronounce because some of the sounds are similar, or because it is difficult to say quickly.
“Sally sells seashells at the seashore” is an example of a tongue twister in English.

Total Physical Response: Total Physical Response (TPR) is an approach to language

learning and teaching in which instructions and/or commands are issued initially by the
teacher and later by students which require a physical response from learners. For
example, teachers teaching some basic verbs of movement ask students to stand up, walk
to the door, go back to their seats, sit down, cross the room, etc., first model language and
action, and then ask students to do the actions. Later, when students are confident of both
meaning and form, they give each other instructions using the language.

Training: See Teacher Training.

Top-down Approach to Language Comprehension and Production: The top-down

view of language learning starts from use of the language. The study of grammar,
vocabulary, sentence structure, etc., come later, once the learner has started using the
language for communication. In a top-down approach, a learner makes use of previous
knowledge and experience, expectations and scripts to analyze and process interactions
and texts for meaning. In this way, the learner utilizes knowledge of the “larger picture” to
assist in comprehension. See Bottom-up Approach to Language Comprehension and
Production.

Transactional Tasks: These tasks are primarily concerned with the transfer of
information. See Interactional Tasks.

Transfer: Students and teachers can use knowledge they have of the students’ L1 to help
in learning the L2. Transfer of knowledge from L1 to L2 can be positive when the two
language have similar structures, or it can be negative, when the two languages are
different, and L1-induced errors occur.

U
Universal Grammar (UG): Noam Chomsky, an influential linguist, proposed the theory
that every speaker is born with and knows a set of general principles that are the same for
all languages – thus it is known as universal grammar. When learning another language,
learners are able to apply these principles to the new language, as they learn the
parameters of the principles in the new language. For example, a universal principle is
that in all languages words have structural relationships; language is not simply a
disconnected sequence of words, but words that relate to each other in specific ways to
convey meaning. The language specific parameter of this principle is that syntax varies
from language to language and so learners of English learn that in a prepositional phrase
the preposition goes at the beginning of the phrase (in the room) while in Japanese, it goes
at the end (Japan in). Theorists believe that Universal Grammar makes it possible for
children to learn languages more easily before the critical period because after the age of
puberty, universal grammar becomes fixed to reflect the grammar of the language(s) have
learned in childhood.

Universal Hypothesis: This states that certain universal linguistic properties determine
the order in which the rules of a specific language are acquired. Thus, linguistic rather than
cognitive factors determine acquisition.
Unvoiced: Please see Voiced.

Use: Use is the ways that people actually speak and write to communicate in a language.
In the classroom, use activities are tasks – opportunities for students to engage in
authentic communication using English to solve a problem, to get or exchange information
not known to the other person, to create something (a poster, a brochure, for example), to
reach a group decision or consensus, and/or to discuss a topic. With regard to classroom
activities, the use focused portion of a lesson is distinct from the language-practice
focused portion.
Utterance: An utterance can be a single spoken word, several words spoken together, or
a whole spoken sentence. An utterance can be thought of as a complete unit of speech in
spoken language. In linguistics, the technical definition of utterance is, “any speech
sequence consisting of one or more words and generally preceded and followed by a short
pause or period of silence”. For example, “Congratulations!” is a one-word utterance;
“Nice weather” is a two-word utterance, and “Without any doubt” is a multi-word
utterance. All these utterances can be used as complete and independent units of spoken
language to communicate effectively in particular contexts. Note that none of the above
examples are sentences, although spoken sentences are also utterances.

V
Valid: See Validity below. A test can be called valid if it has validity.

Validity: A test's validity refers to the degree to which the test measures what it is
supposed to measure. For example, a test intended to assess students’ ability to use the
past tense has validity if it requires students to use regular and irregular past forms they
have studied or could be expected to know, in assessment activities they are familiar with,
in positive and negative sentences, and/or in questions; the same test would have little to
no validity if it tested students on things they could not be expected to know using types of
test items students have never experienced before and if it did not assess a range of
regular and irregular verbs, positive and negative sentences and questions. Statistical
measures are applied to tests to assess their validity. Validity can be compared with
reliability, which refers to how consistent the results are if the test were given under the
same conditions to the same learners.

Variability: Language learners vary in the use they make of their linguistic knowledge.
This can be systematic or unsystematic.

Visual Aid: Visual aids are the pictures, diagrams, maps, graphs and/or realia, etc a
teacher uses to help students understand, to introduce and set the scene for a reading or
listening text, or to stimulate students’ thinking, speaking, discussion and/or writing.

Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic (VAK): VAK, or Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic,
refers to one model of learning styles. The VAK model is comprised of three different
learning styles, or preferred ways of learning. In some accounts, another style, tactile, is
included.

Vocabulary: Vocabulary has two meanings in English language teaching. First, it means
the individual words that students learn as part of their study of English. The term lexis
rather than vocabulary is increasingly preferred now because lexis includes not only single
words, but also multi-word combinations. Please see Lexis. The second meaning of
vocabulary is ‘the set of words that a person is familiar with in a particular language’. It is
possible to say that a person has ‘a large vocabulary’ or that students’ active or productive
vocabulary is usually smaller than their passive or receptive vocabulary.

Vocabulary Bank: A vocabulary bank is a collection of new lexis –words, phrases and
expressions - that the learner or class builds up as they learn.

Voiced (Voicing): Some English sounds are produced using the vocal chords and some
are pronounced without using them. The use or non-use of the vocal cords to produce
sounds is called voicing. Sounds that are produced using the vocal chords are called
voiced sounds. For example, /d/, /g/, /b/, /m/ and all vowels are voiced sounds. Sounds
that are produced without using the vocal chords are called unvoiced sounds. For
example, /t/, /k/, /p/and /f/ are unvoiced sounds.

W
Warmer/ Warm-Up: A warmer is a short, active, participatory activity at the start of the
class to get students thinking in and speaking English, to bring the class together – in other
words, to warm up the learners. Warmers can be compared to coolers, which are short,
often calming activities to finish the class.

Weakened: Please see Weakening.

Weakening: Vowels in unstressed syllables in connected speech often change so they

become shorter and more like the vowel sound in the in the phrase ‘in the corner.’ This
sound is called the ‘schwa’ and is represented by the phonetic symbol, /ə/. Not all
weakened vowels become schwa.

Word Grammar: Word grammar is the structural pattern in which an individual word is
correctly used. For example, the verb ‘want’ must be followed by an object. It is not
possible to say only “I wanted”; it is necessary to say “I wanted (something)”. In addition,
it is not correct to say, “I wanted him coming”; it is necessary to say “I wanted him to
come”. Thus the word grammar for these two uses of ‘want’ is: ‘want + object’ and ‘want
+ object + infinitive.’ When learning new words, students need to know this kind of
information to help them use the word correctly.

Word stress: In English, in words of more than one syllable, one or more syllables are
usually pronounced a little more strongly than the others. These syllables are pronounced
more loudly, are a little longer than other syllables, and are also a little higher than other
syllables. This is called word stress. Word stress can change the meaning of words. For
example, the word ‘dessert’ (something sweet eaten after a meal) has stress on the
second syllable, but the word ‘desert’ (a dry area such as the Sahara) has stress on the
first syllable. Word stress can also change the part of speech. For example, ‘record’ is a
verb, but ‘record’ is a noun. For these reasons, stressing the wrong syllable(s) can
seriously affect understanding. It is therefore very important to help students notice which
syllables are stressed. A good dictionary indicates which syllable is stressed in a word.

Workbook: A workbook is usually part of a coursebook series (teacher’s, student’s and

workbook). Workbooks contain extra practice activities for learners to work on in their own
time. Usually the book is designed so that learners can write in it and often there is an
answer key provided at the back of the book so that learners can check their own work.