Glossary

Aids to Teaching: (a) Visual: Blackboard, whiteboard, overhead projector, realia, posters, wall
charts, flipcharts, maps, plans, flashcards, word cards, puppets. (b) Electronic: Tape recorder, TV
or video player, computer, CD Rom, language laboratory.
Applied Linguistics: The study of the relationship between theory and practice. The main
emphasis is usually on language teaching, but can also be applied to translation, lexicology,
among others.
Audio-Lingual Method: Listen and speak: this method considers listening and speaking the first
tasks in language learning, followed by reading and writing. There is considerable emphasis on
learning sentence patterns, memorization of dialogues and extensive use of drills.
Authentic Materials: Unscripted materials or those which have not been specially written for
classroom use, though they may have been edited. Examples include newspaper texts and TV
broadcasts.
Bilingual instruction: Provision of instruction in school settings through the medium of two
languages, a native and a second language; the proportion of the instructional day delivered in
each language varies by the type of the bilingual education program in which instruction is
offered and the goals of said program.
Communication Strategies: Strategies for using L2 knowledge. These are used when learners
do not have the correct language for the concept they wish to express. Thus they use strategies
such as paraphrase and mime: See learner strategies and production strategies.
Communicative Approaches: Approaches to language teaching which aim to help learners to
develop communicative competence (i.e., the ability to use the language effectively for
communication). A weak communicative approach includes overt teaching of language forms
and functions in order to help learners to develop the ability to use them for communication. A
strong communicative approach relies on providing learners with experience of using language
as the main means of learning to use the language. In such as approach, learners, for example,
talk to learn rather than learn to talk.
Communicative Competence: The ability to use the language effectively for communication.
Gaining such competence involves acquiring both sociolinguistic and linguistic knowledge (or,
in other words, developing the ability to use the language accurately, appropriately, and
effectively).
Communicative Functions: Purposes for which language is used; includes three broad
functions: communicative, integrative, and expressive; where language aids the transmission of
information, aids affiliation and belonging to a particular social group, and allows the display of
individual feelings, ideas, and personality.
Communicative Language Teaching: An approach concerned with the needs of students to
communicate outside the classroom; teaching techniques reflect this in the choice of language
content and materials, with emphasis on role play, pair and group work, among others.
Comprehensible Input: When native speakers and teachers speak to L2 learners, they often
adjust their speech to make it more comprehensible. Such comprehensible input may be a
necessary condition for acquisition to occur.
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 authentic.
Content Words: Words with a full meaning of their own; nouns, main verbs (ie not auxiliary or
modal verbs), adjectives and many adverbs. Contrasted with structure words.
Content-based E.S.L.: A model of language education that integrates language and content
instruction in the second language classroom; a second language learning approach where
second language teachers use instructional materials, learning tasks, and classroom techniques
from academic content areas as the vehicle for developing second language, content, cognitive
and study skills.
Context: The ‘context’ of an utterance can mean: i) ‘situational context’ – the situation in which
the utterance is produced; ii) ‘linguistic context’ – the linguistic environment (the surrounding
language).
Direct Method: The most common approach in TEFL, where language is taught through
listening and speaking. There may be little or no explicit explanation dealing with syntax or
grammatical rules, nor translation into the mother tongue of the student – inductive learning
rather than deductive.
Discussion Group: An electronic list in which list members correspond by email to discuss
issues of interest to the group. A discussion group will typically not only receive and send
emails, but will also have access to a group website where they can save and share files, use chat,
and read other members’ profiles.
Feedback: The response learners get when they attempt to communicate. This 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.
Foreign language: A language 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.
Grammar-Translation: A method based upon memorizing the rules and logic of a language
and the practice of translation. Traditionally the means by which Latin and Greek have been
taught.
Immersion Method: This simulates the way in which children acquire their mother tongue. The
learner is surrounded by the foreign language, with no deliberate or organized teaching
programme. The learner absorbs the target language naturally without conscious effort.
Inductive Learning: Learning to apply the rules of a language by experiencing the language in
use, rather than by having the rules explained or by consciously deducing the rules.
Input: This constitutes the language to which the learner is exposed. It can be spoken or written.
It serves as the data which the learner must use to determine the rules of the target 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: The learner’s knowledge of the L2 which is independent of both the L1 and the
actual L2. This term can refer to: i) the series of interlocking systems which characterize
acquisition; ii) the system that is observed at a single stage of development (an ‘interlanguage’);
and iii) particular L1/L2 combinations.
Intermediate: At this level a student will have a working vocabulary of between 1500 and 2000
words and should be able to cope easily in most everyday situations. There should be an ability
to express needs, thoughts and feelings in a reasonably clear
way.
Learning strategies: These account for how learners accumulate new L2 rules and how they
automate existing ones. They 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).
Linguistic Competence: A broad term used to describe the totality of a given individual’s
language ability; the underlying language system believed to exist as inferred from an
individual’s language performance.
Natural Approach: Pioneered by Krashen, this approach combines acquisition and learning as a
means of facilitating language development in adults.
Peer Group: Usually refers to people working or studying at the same level or in the same
grouping; one’s colleagues or fellow students.
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.
Product approach: The product approach focuses on the end result of teaching/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 refer to utilization of linguistic knowledge in communication.
They do not imply any communication problem (cf., communication strategies) and they operate
largely unconsciously: See communication strategies and learning strategies.
Target language: This is the language that the learner is attempting to learn. It comprises the
native speaker’s grammar.
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 in which it is used in the ‘real
world’ outside the classroom. They have no pre-determined language syllabus and the aim is for
learners to learn from the tasks the language they need to participate successfully in them.
Examples of such tasks would be 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.
Method: Developed by Asher, where items are presented in the foreign language as ‘orders’,
‘commands’ and “instructions” requiring a physical response from the learner (e.g., ‘opening a
window’ or ‘standing up’ after being asked, linguistically, to carry out such command).
Transactional tasks: These tasks are primarily concerned with the transfer of information: See
interactional tasks.
Universal grammar: A set of general principles that apply to all languages, rather than a set of
particular rules.
Workbook: A book which contains 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 in the back of the book to give feedback to the learners.