ELT Glossary of Key Terms Every EFL/ESL Teacher Needs to Know.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Accuracy

Accuracy is the ability to produce language without making any errors; to speak or write a language without grammatical, vocabulary, spelling, or pronunciation mistakes.

Acquisition:

The way in which languages are learned unconsciously or ‘picked up’ by exposure to comprehensible input. In this definition, the term acquisition is used in contrast to learning, which is seen as a deliberate and conscious process of rule learning and self-monitoring of language use. However, the terms acquisition and learning are used interchangeably by some writers.

Example: «She learned Portuguese simply through acquisition – hearing and reading it all around her and chatting with friends. She never studied it.”

Authentic materials

Authentic materials are writings that were not designed or created for language learning purposes; some examples are news reports, magazines, blogs, or songs. These texts contain writing that is closer to how the language is used in everyday life

Awareness-raising

A technique used by teachers to make students aware of features of language or of language learning strategies. Becoming aware of something is part of noticing it.

Example: “When our teacher taught us a new vocabulary, she used to ask questions like: What was the vowel sound in that word? Where is the word stress? The questions helped to raise our awareness of things we might not have noticed otherwise.”

Approach

An approach to language teaching is the set of beliefs on which that teaching is based. The beliefs cover what language is, how it is used and learned. From these beliefs, a set of teaching practices are built. The terms method and approach are sometimes used interchangeably, with the approach being used nowadays more commonly than method, perhaps because it implies a less rigid set of teaching practices than method, e.g. The Lexical Approach v the Direct Method.

Example: “The Communicative Approach is based on a wide view of what constitutes language and language use. What methods should be used to teach this language and language use are still hotly debated.”

Audio-lingual

The audio-lingual method focused on drilling key language structures orally. It was popular in the 1950s and 1960s and derived from the behaviorist belief that repetition helped form habits. Although it has since been shown that repetition is not key to learning language, the method continues to be used by some teachers, often as a part of PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production).

Example: «We used to spend lesson after lesson repeating lines in dialogues, as a class and individually. It probably helped our memories, but we never used the language freely, and it could get boring.”

Aspect

Aspect is a grammatical term referring to how a verb expresses the speaker’s or writer’s view of certain features of time in an event i.e., whether it is completed or still in progress, whether it is one-off or repeating and its relevance to the present. In English, there are two aspects: progressive (or continuous) and perfect. Aspect is shown in auxiliary verbs + past participles, and the two aspects sometimes combine.

Assessment and testing

These terms are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the collection of data about and awarding of marks to learner performance. Sometimes, however, testing is used just to refer to evaluation involving tests, whereas assessment encompasses not only tests but also other means of assessment such as observation, portfolios, case studies, interviews etc.

Analytic/holistic assessment

Analytic and holistic assessments are two ways of evaluating the performance of learners in order to give grades. In analytic assessment, separate grades are awarded to different typical features of performance, whereas in holistic assessment markers give a grade based on their evaluation of a learner’s overall performance.

Affective filter

Certain researchers into language acquisition, particularly Stephen Krashen, maintain that language learning is facilitated or obstructed by an ‘affective filter’. The filter is made up of attitudes or feelings which are said to control and select the input learners absorb from their environment. If their affective filter is set low, learners are open to receiving input. If it is set high, because they are stressed/ anxious/ poorly motivated etc., then they are not open to receiving input.

Example: “For some unknown reason, he just loved Spanish and took in everything he heard – his affective filter was clearly set low.

Behaviourism:

Behaviourism is a theory of psychology that states that behaviour should be studied in terms of physical processes, without reference to the mind.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

This is a classification of affective and cognitive skills that are used to provide learning objectives. It was published by a committee of educators in the USA in 1956. Benjamin Bloom was the chair of this committee. The taxonomy of cognitive skills in particular has been very influential in curriculum and examination design. It was revised in 2000.

Example: Bloom’s taxonomy identifies cognitive skills and divides them into two categories, as follows:

• Higher order thinking skills (HOTS): creating, evaluating, analysing.
• Lower order thinking skills (LOTS): applying, understanding, remembering

CCQ/ICQ

These are two kinds of questions the teacher asks in the classroom. CCQs refer to Concept Checking Questions and are used by a teacher to check that students have understood the meaning of a new language (word, grammar, function, etc.) or the form. CCQs need not necessarily in fact be questions; they might, for example, be gestures, sentences for completion, or pictures but their purpose is to check to understand. They also aim at getting the student to think about a new language and draw conclusions about it, thus encouraging inductive learning. Is it talking about the past or now? is an example of a CCQ that a teacher might ask when introducing the past tense to learners?

ICQs are Instruction Checking Questions. These are used after a teacher has given instructions to make sure students have understood what they need to do. They might refer to the language to be used in the activity or to the procedure to use. They aim to ensure that students are on track before they begin an activity so as not to waste time or be confused. Like CCQs, ICQs are often phrased as binary choices e.g., Must you write or talk first? Should you tick or underline the new words?

Example: I try to use different ways of checking concepts e.g., asking students to mime, asking them to explain the meaning in their own words, eliciting examples – in this way the CCQs don’t become routine or meaningless. With ICQs I only ask them when the task is a bit complicated and could be misunderstood. Otherwise, students can feel they’re being patronized.

Communicative approach

The Communicative Approach has the goal of communicative competence and focuses on developing the students’ abilities to make meaningful communication and language through all classroom activities

Controlled practice

Controlled/restricted practice involves students in using the target language in a guided and restricted way in which they have little choice over what language to use. Examples of controlled practice activities are repetition and substitution drills.

Curriculum

A dynamic system that includes identifying learning outcomes, planning for teaching and assessment, putting the plan into practice, and evaluating the effects

Coherence

In English language teaching coherence refers to the ways in which a piece of discourse ‘makes sense’ through links in meaning. It does this by using various internal devices such as logical sequencing, adherence to a particular genre, accepted forms of text structuring, but also by referring to accepted external conventions and ways of thinking and experiencing in the outside world, such as adherence to one topic, the relevance between topics, shared knowledge.

Cognitive

It is related to mental abilities or skills. Cognitive is the adjective from cognition that refers to the mental processes of perception and thinking that our brains engage in.

Example: “Cognitive skills such as remembering, evaluating, analyzing, and creating are often classified into higher and lower-order thinking skills.

CLT

This stands for Communicative Language Teaching. There is not full agreement as to the meaning of communicative language teaching. It is generally agreed that it refers to teaching language for use in communication rather than as an object of study. There is much disagreement, however, as to the methodology it should involve, with some experts advocating that the only way to teach communication is to put learners in situations where they need to communicate, while others believe that language study can also aid communication. Use of pair and group work and free use of language are typical of a communicative classroom.

Communicative competence

Communicative competence refers to an ability to communicate that depends not just on linguistic ability but also sociolinguistic ability, including appropriate use of language, management of discourse, and recognizing cultural practices in communication e.g., who makes eye contact with who. The growing awareness of communicative as opposed to linguistic competence had a big impact on language teaching and was behind the development of the communicative approach.

Consolidate

When teachers or learners strengthen or reinforce previous learning, they consolidate it. For example, a learner may go home and do memory games on the vocabulary they learned in class that day, or a teacher might do a revision activity of a newly learned skill. Lessons often contain a consolidation stage during which the teacher aims to reinforce new language or ideas introduced earlier on in the lesson.

Constructivism

This is the theory that knowledge is actively constructed by individuals rather than being the fruit of passive absorption of facts. According to constructivist theory, each individual interprets and organizes the knowledge they receive according to their own prior knowledge and experience of the world. This theory supports a learner-centered classroom in which learners are given the opportunity to explore, personalize and apply knowledge.

Context

This term is used in ELT to refer either to the situational (where and when) context in which something happens or to the language surrounding words in a sentence or utterance (sometimes called co-text). M.A.K. Halliday proposed that a situational context contains three components: field (subject matter), tenor (social relations between interactants), and mode (the way in which language is used), which strongly influence the register of language. The contexts in which languages are learned and taught are also much discussed in ELT these days.

CLIL

CLIL (content and language integrated learning) refers to educational practice in primary, secondary, and tertiary contexts where subject teaching and learning take place in a non-native language. The acronym CLIL was first used in 1994 and by 2006 it was recognized as ‘an innovative methodological approach of far broader scope than language teaching.’ (Eurydice 2006: 7) The content was placed before language in the acronym because subject content determines the choice of language used to teach the subject matter as well as the language which learners use in order to communicate their knowledge and ideas about curricular content. What differentiates CLIL from ELT and approaches such as content-based instruction is ‘the planned pedagogic integration of contextualized content, cognition, communication and culture into teaching and learning practice.’ (Coyle 2002 in Coyle et.al. 2010: 6) There are different types of CLIL practice depending on the country, region or sometimes the school where it is being implemented.

CEFR

It stands for the Common European Frame of Reference. It was compiled by the Council of Europe and contains a series of descriptors of learners’ language performance at six different levels of proficiency, A1-C2, across the different language skills. The descriptors are expressed as ‘can-do’ statements. They can be used to set goals for learning or teaching and also to assess students’ proficiency.

Deductive teaching

Deductive Teaching teaches rules (typically grammatical rules) and then applies them to examples or data.

Dictogloss

Dictogloss, or Grammar Dictation, is a technique to develop students’ grammatical competence. This involves the teacher dictating (speaking) a text to students and letting them copy down whatever they are able to hear. Then they compare with a partner or group to see what they missed, which might be followed with the teacher repeating the process. Afterward, the students are given a copy of the original text to discuss their accuracy and what they missed

Drill

Drill is the teaching technique where the teacher asks the students to repeat sounds, vocabulary, or structures several times to reinforce learning.

Discrete

Isolated, distinct, by itself. This term is used to refer to the teaching or testing of language items when they are focused on separately from others and in a minimal context. A teacher might, for example, give students an exercise just practicing modal must, or a drill on the word stress in new vocabulary.

In language tests, multiple-choice is often used to provide a discrete focus on specific grammar items. Correction is often discrete too, focusing on specific language items.

Example: “When I listened to my students doing a group discussion it was clear they were having real problems with the forms of some irregular past tenses, so the next lesson I just focused on these, doing noticing activities and exercises – a discrete approach – before combining them into another group discussion in the following lesson.”

Display question

This is a question that a teacher asks in the classroom in order to get the student to ‘display’ or show their learning rather than because the teacher is interested in the information content of the reply. In fact, the teacher often knows the answer to a display question before it is given. Display questions are sometimes criticized for being rather meaningless and non-communicative but they can in fact be useful in checking learning. Display questions are often contrasted with referential questions (See Referential Questions).

Direct method

A method of language teaching that was popular until the early 1950s. The method advocated the use of only the target language in the classroom, and the use of student-teacher dialogue supported by visuals such as gestures or photos.

Eclectic approach / Eclecticism

An approach to teaching and learning which does not adhere to any one recognized approach but selects from different approaches and methods according to teacher preference and also to the belief that different learners learn in different ways and different contexts, and that therefore no one approach or method is sufficient to cater for a range of learners. Eclecticism is sometimes criticized as being too random and having no guiding principles. This criticism has given rise to Principled eclecticism which attempts to keep the flexibility of eclecticism while including in its principles of teaching and learning.

EFL/ESL

EFL stands for English as a Foreign Language. Generally speaking, it refers to learners learning English in an environment where English is not used, or to learners studying English on brief trips to an Anglophone country. ESL stands for English as a Second Language and has generally been used to refer to learners who have another mother tongue, learning English while living in an English-speaking environment. In the UK nowadays this tends to be called ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages). ESOL or ESL classes are likely to include a focus on language and communication, but also on the cultural practices of the Anglophone country, the students are living in. With globalization and the increased movement of people and immigration, the distinction between EFL and ESL is becoming less clear.

Elicitation

This is a teaching technique in which the teacher prompts learners in order to elicit or draw out from them specific answers. It is a technique used especially to re-activate or revise language items or ideas, and/or to encourage learners to contribute to their own learning rather than being spoon-fed by the teacher. Some people criticize the use of elicitation techniques as they think that they lead to the language being used simply for display (to show you know it), rather than to real communicative language use.

Error/Mistake/Slip

These words – error, and mistake in particular – are often used interchangeably. When given distinct meanings, a slip refers to the kind of mistake we can all (including proficient speakers) make due to pressure of time, anxiety, etc. i.e., this is not a mistake due to lack of proficiency but due to the temporary effect on the speaker of particular circumstances.

An error refers to a systematic mistake made by a language learner that is due to a lack of mastery of that part of the language system [see also interlanguage]. The mistake is a non-technical word that refers to both a slip and an error.

Exponent

This term refers to the words used to express different functions of language. Exponents are one way to begin looking at functional approaches to language teaching.

Evaluation

It is the process of assessing the value of something by collecting data. Evaluation often leads to decision-making. Evaluation can be of teaching, learning, curricula, methods, exam impact, materials or other areas related to teaching and learning.

Feedback:

This term has two meanings in ELT. It refers to the responses that we, as listeners, give to a speaker e.g., eye contact, exclamations, interruptions, in order to encourage or discourage them from continuing. Feedback also refers to the comments a teacher or other students make in class on a learner’s / learners’ performance. This feedback can be positive or negative.

Fluency

Fluency is the ability to speak over stretches of language smoothly, naturally, and without too much hesitation or pausing. Fluency is sometimes also used to refer to writing. In this case, it means writing with ease – coherently and with the flow.

Example: «He was a native speaker but he spoke so slowly – he was always searching for words, hesitating and pausing. His lack of fluency made him a bit difficult to pay attention to and understand.”

Grammar dictation

The terms grammar dictation and dictogloss are used interchangeably to refer to a technique for developing students’ grammatical competence. The technique involves dictating a text to students at normal speed while students copy down what they can of what they hear, leaving gaps for the parts they have not been able to write down for whatever reason. Then the students in pairs or groups compare what they have written and try and complete their version of the text. The teacher may choose to then repeat this process. In the end, students are given a copy of the original text to compare with their text and discuss the differences. The thinking behind grammar dictation is that it encourages students to think about both meaning and grammar and make grammatical choices based on working out intended meanings.

Lemma –A lemma is the dictionary or citation form of a word. Spoke, speaking, spoken, speaks are all forms of the lemma

Grammatization

This is a teaching technique, also known as grammaticization, in which students are given keywords, e.g., from a dialogue or text that has just been read or are about to read, and asked to add ‘grammar’ words to these keywords to produce a text that makes sense. Behind this technique is Diana Larsen-Freeman’s idea of ‘grammaring’, the skill of relating form and structure to meaningful units.

Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)

Thinking skills are often divided into higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) and lower-order thinking skills (LOTS). Higher-order thinking skills include analyzing, evaluating, and creating. HOTS involve greater manipulation of information than LOTS do. The division of thinking skills into HOTS and LOTS was made initially in the late 1940s by a committee of educators in Boston, Mass. chaired by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues. This taxonomy (known as Bloom’s Taxonomy) has been revised several times.

Inductive learning:

An approach where the learner works out rules for themselves from context or examples

Input:

The input hypothesis is the idea, developed particularly by Stephen Krashen, that language is acquired by exposure to language that is of interest to the learner.

Instrumental motivation:

wanting to learn because of practical concerns, e.g. getting a job

Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation

These terms both refer to types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the wish to do something because of the pleasure or enjoyment that doing this brings. Extrinsic motivation refers to the wish to do something that is due to the desired result or outcome of doing it. Both of those motivations have been used to explain the wish to learn languages, though nowadays more complex explanations of language learning motivation are available. Teachers are often concerned about how to increase their learners’ motivation.

Example

“When I learned English at school I just did it to get good marks, and because I thought it would help me when traveling. Now though, I just love it – I love learning all those words, imitating the accent, listening to the flow, etc., etc. – I guess my motivation has changed from extrinsic to intrinsic.”

Implicit instruction / teaching

Implicit instruction teaches students by guiding them to come to their own conclusions. Whereas ‘Explicit teaching’ is when a teacher directly provides the “answer,” implicit teaching is more indirect and is used to help language learners internalize language use for higher fluency and accuracy.

Inductive teaching

Inductive teaching lets learners discover grammatical or other types of language rules through their own experience of using the language. This type of teaching usually applies implicit instruction and focuses on the use of the language rather than the presentation of language knowledge.

Inferring meaning

When we infer meaning we work out from linguistic and contextual clues what a word, group of words, or sentence might mean. We do this for different types of meaning e.g., denotation, connotation, attitude.

Information gap

An information gap between two or more people is when some people know more information than others present. For instance, there is an information gap between teachers and students as the teacher has the knowledge, language skills, or answers while the students are trying to close the gap.

Integrated skills

Integrated skills are the combination of two or more skills within a communicative task.

L1/L2

L1 is also known as First Language, mother tongue, native language, or home language, which is a person’s mother tongue or first acquired language.

L2 is also known as Target Language which is one that a person is learning.

Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS)

Thinking skills are often divided into higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) and lower-order thinking skills (LOTS). Lower order thinking skills include remembering, understanding and applying. Generally speaking, LOTS involve focusing on and absorbing information, and less manipulation of information than HOTS do. (See Higher Order Thinking Skills). The division of thinking skills into HOTS and LOTS was made initially in the late 1940s by a committee of educators in Boston, Mass. chaired by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues. This taxonomy (known as Bloom’s Taxonomy) has been revised several times.

Example

“‘Tell me what you did in the holidays’ or ‘Describe your family’ are typical ELT LOTS questions. An example of a HOTS question might be ‘What do you think of that film’?’ or ‘Compare your town with London’. You don’t need to think so hard for LOTS answers and the language you need to use is often simpler.”

Lexical item

A lexical item is a word or group of words with a single meaning. Here, for example, are five lexical items: look after, quick as a flash, potato, at, waste paper basket. A lexical item may have more than one form e.g., child and children are one lexical item as are sleep, sleeping, slept. Thornburg (2006) defines a lexical item as ‘any item that functions as a single meaning unit, regardless of its different derived forms, or the number of words that make it up’. Estimates of proficient or learner speaker vocabulary size are normally based on lexical items rather than words.

Lexicon

A lexicon is the set of vocabulary that makes up a language. The grammar of a language and its lexicon are often considered its key components. Different professions and subjects are also said to have their own lexicon, as are individual children and language learners. Some experts only include individual words in a lexicon, others include chunks and collocations.

Method:

a way of teaching based on systematic principles and procedures, e.g. the audiolingual method

Methodology

The typical practices, procedures, and techniques that a teacher uses in the classroom, and may or may not be based on a particular method. The methodology can also refer to the study of these practices, procedures, and techniques and of the beliefs and principles on which they are based.

Monitor/monitoring

This term has two distinct meanings in ELT. The first comes from one of the five hypotheses that make up Krashen’s input hypothesis, a theory of language acquisition in which he maintained that when a learner is monitoring their use of language, they are focusing on accuracy and inhibiting acquisition. In this use, monitoring means the learner checking and evaluating their own language output, as they produce it, whether it be speaking or writing.

The other meaning of monitoring refers to the teacher observing and assessing learners in class.

Example: “I find that when I monitor my own language use as I speak, it really slows me down and makes me hesitate and make mistakes.”

Noticing

This is a term that refers to the process in which a learner, consciously or unconsciously, notices or becomes aware of an item or aspect of language in the language input that surrounds them. This may involve noticing spelling, word stress, meaning, grammar, collocation, or other language features. Noticing is believed to be the first stage in language learning, sometimes but not always triggering further stages of acquisition.

Example: “She’s a visual learner and when we went to Russia together, she was always looking at Russian script on signs, notices, advertising etc., trying to work out what each letter was. I didn’t even see the script myself; I just didn’t notice it – it didn’t register.”

Prescriptive

Prescriptive is a word used to describe an attitude to grammar that says what grammar should be used. Prescriptive grammar are based on an idea of what grammar should be used rather than what grammar is actually used. ‘Prescriptive’ is often contrasted with ‘descriptive’. Descriptive grammars describe how grammar is actually used.

Process writing

Process writing is an approach to writing that deliberately incorporates a focus on the stages in producing a piece of writing rather than focusing just on the product of the writing (product writing). The stages involved in writing are brainstorming, planning and organizing, drafting, editing, redrafting, proof-reading, and publishing (i.e., making public). Many experts believe that by focusing learners on the stages of writing, process writing helps learners become aware of what writing demands of them, and what enables good writing.

Reflection

Reflection is the process of thinking back on experiences, in order to better understand the experiences and why it is important.

Reflection grid

This is a grid or table often containing columns with these headings: name, description, aims, comments. It can be used by learners or teachers to record and comment on points in a lesson. It is designed to aid reflection and evaluation on learning/teaching, with a view to possibly introducing changes.

Recycle

Teachers recycle language when they deliberately bring items of language that have already been taught to learners’ attention or for learners’ use a second or further time. The purpose of recycling is to give learners further exposure to particular language items. Coursebook designers often build recycling into their materials, as do syllabus writers who adopt a spiral approach, dealing with the same item again but in greater detail.

Referential question

A referential question is a question a teacher or student asks because they genuinely want to find out the answer to the question. Referential questions are often contrasted with display questions (See Display Questions), which are asked so as to give the student an opportunity to ‘display’ their knowledge or ability. In language teaching, referential questions are often associated with the warm-up stage of a lesson or with free practice activities. They often lead to a use of language that the teacher cannot predict and tend to involve the use of higher-order thinking skills (See HOTS).

Scaffolding:

 Support given to learners to enable them to perform tasks beyond their capacity

Spidergram

A spidergram is a diagram with lines and circles for organizing information so that it is easier to use or remember. The diagram has its name because it looks like a spider’s web.

Syllabus

A syllabus is a document which outlines the structure of the course and identifies specific course content, goals, and focus.

Subjective assessment

This term is used in ELT to refer to types of assessment in which the assessor needs to use their judgment as to how correct an answer is, because the answer is open-ended and can be evaluated according to various different criteria. Speaking tests and essays are examples of subjective assessment formats. Two people listening to the same student speaking might grade him/her differently because they are listening for different things or because they give importance to different aspects of speaking.

TBLT (Task Based Language Teaching)

TBLT is an approach to teaching based on communication and interactive tasks. They can provide engagement to acquire grammar.

Top down/bottom up

These terms are used to refer to strategies we use when listening and reading in order to get meaning from a text. Top-down skills involve using our knowledge of the world, such as topic knowledge, familiarity with the speaker, familiarity with the genre, to make sense of what we are hearing or reading. Bottom-up skills involve using the language in the text, such as the meaning of words or the grammar of a sentence, to make sense of what we are hearing or reading. Good readers or listeners are believed to make use of the two strategies interactively.

Example

When we read a text in class, I always do a warmer to find out what the learners know about the topic and get them to predict its content. In that way, they make use of their top-down strategies. Then I often do (reading) for detail as well, as this kind of reading really requires them to read the language in the text to suck out its meaning. This gives them practice in using their bottom-up strategies.

Usage / use

Usage is the way people actually speak and write. There is a distinction between the function of a linguistic item as an element in a linguistic system (usage) and its function as part of a system of communication (use).