| A |
|
| Adverb |
The
classic definition of an adverb is:
A word which modifies a verb.
This definition includes:
1. Adverbs of manner.
He paints well.
He drives dangerously.
2. Adverbs of frequency.
I always arrive late.
They never pay their bills.
3. Adverbs of time:
I’ll see you tomorrow.
They went to the museum yesterday.
4. But adverbs can also modify adjectives.
She’s incredibly beautiful.
I’m really sorry.
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| Auditory
/ Visual discrimination |
Learning
to process auditory and visual information so that it can be
understood.
Example:
A non-Chinese–speaking adult arriving in China will not be
able to understand a single word of Chinese. She will get the
impression that the Chinese speak very fast, without pausing.
With time (and Chinese lessons!) she will learn to recognize
individual words and phrases in spoken Chinese. As she
progresses, she will eventually be able to divide the spoken
language in intelligible words and sentences. She is learning
to discriminate the auditory input.
Auditory and visual discrimination is not limited to
language learning. Babies and children are learning to process
all the perceptual information they receive - they are
learning to recognize patterns, colors, shapes and objects,
and to understand sounds as speech, music, animal sounds and
so on. It’s a fundamental process in cognitive development.
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| Authentic
material |
Pieces
of language from the "real world" – newspapers,
menus, radio broadcasts, television programs, websites, etc.
Because the language in authentic material is not graded,
our students often need help to understand it. Pre-reading
activities and pre-listening
activities will focus the students’ attention on the
nature of the text.
Some of the reading and listening skills that can help with
the understanding of authentic material are:
Guessing
meaning
Identifying
key words
Skimming
Scanning
Listening
for gist
Listening
for detail
Listening
for specific information
Inferential
listening
Students’ access to authentic material has been enormously
expanded by the Internet. They can now read on-line versions
of hundreds of newspapers, magazines, as well as e-zines
(magazines only available on the Internet) and listen to
on-line radio broadcasts from other countries.
Teachers and textbooks often adapt authentic material to make
it easier to understand. This material is called semi-authentic
material.
The term authentic material usually refers to written and
listening material. For the use of real objects in class, see Realia.
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|
| B |
| Behaviorism |
A
theory of learning. The idea of Behaviorism is that all
learning is determined by a response to a stimulus. Within
operant conditions negative or positive
reinforcement and
positive or negative punishment serve as the stimulus. For
example, if a person receives positive reinforcement (praise, a smile,
a candy) for doing something, they will automatically do it
again in similar situations.
Within classical conditioning learning is a result of pairing a
conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus which is
typically a naturally occurring emotion. For example, if a
person flinches when their hand is slapped (unconditional
stimulus) and that action is paired with a bell (conditional
stimulus) they will soon flinch at the sound of the bell.
Behaviorists think of learning as an automatic process and do
not think there are any cognitive processes in the brain. It
is the opposite of
cognitivism.
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| Bilingualism |
The
ability to speak two languages with native speaker competence.
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| Blackboard
blindness |
The
most common form of blackboard blindness is when you
have to write a word you know well on the board and you
can’t remember how to spell it.
In a more general context, it refers to all those situations
in the classroom where you suddenly forget something you in
fact know and understand perfectly well.
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|
| C |
| CALL |
Computer
Assisted Language Learning.
1 Using specially designed computer programs to teach
English. These may be simple game-type activities or
grammatical exercises, or complete language courses on CD-ROM
with graphics, sound and practice exercises. CD-ROM CALL
programs often have a facility for recording and playing back
your voice to help with pronunciation.
2 Using non-ELT computer programs and the Internet in
your class.
Example: Students can use an Internet site with a
route-planner for the United States to plan a vacation.
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| Challenge |
A
low challenge activity is one which the students can do
without too much effort.
A high challenge activity is one which needs a greater
amount of effort and concentration to do.
Remember that a low challenge activity doesn’t mean that
students aren’t working properly. A good class balances the low
challenge, medium challenge and high challenge
activities.
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| Checking
meaning |
See
Key
questions.
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| Citation
form |
See
Weak
forms and citation forms
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| Classroom
management |
The
process of setting up an activity in class, monitoring it, and
following it up.
Different activities require very different types of classroom
management. For example, getting students to do a fill-in
exercise in their books is very different to setting up a team
game.
A key concept in classroom management is classroom dynamics.
This is the type of interaction going on in a class:
Example: Teacher to group – Here you must ensure that
all the students are paying attention to you, and that you are
addressing all of them – not just the keen students at the
front, or the student who is always daydreaming at the back.
Other types of dynamic – Student to Student, Student to
Teacher, Group to Teacher, and so on, require different
management.
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| Cloze
test |
A
cloze test is a special type of fill-in
exercise where, for example, every 5th word in a paragraph
of about 150 words is deleted. (It could be every 6th word, or
every 7th word, and so on.)
Cloze tests are a very good indicator of general ability in
the language: usually a student who gets a good score in a
cloze text is a good “all-rounder” in the language.
See also fill-in
exercise.
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| Cognates
/ False cognates (false friends) |
Cognates
are words in English which are similar or the same as words in
the students’ language and have the same meaning.
Example: computer
in English means the same as computadora
in Mexican Spanish.
False cognates (or false friends) are words
which are similar or the same, but which have a different
meaning.
Example: sensible
in English means the same as the Spanish sensato,
not sensible.
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| Cognitivism |
A
theory of learning. The idea of cognitivism is that
learning is a conscious, rational process. People learn by
making models, maps and frameworks in their mind.
Cognitivism is the opposite of Behaviorism.
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| Collocation |
The
tendency for one language item to occur in the same sentence
as another language item, usually in the context of a corpus
of the language.
Example:
crime collocates with words such as violent,
inner-city, increase, rate, as in:
Violent crime is a growing problem.
There has been an increase in crime in the town center.
Crime is not just an inner-city issue.
Crime rates have fallen slightly this month.
Collocations show the ways a word is used in the
“real-world”. All the examples above are possible uses,
but only the first set are common.
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| Communicative
approach |
A
method of teaching that focuses on helping students
communicate meaningfully in the target language. With this
approach there is a tendency to place more emphasis on
speaking and listening tasks.
The communicative approach is designed to give the
students meaningful activities. The aim is to teach the
students to use "real-world" language.
The communicative approach is the opposite of the grammar
/ translation method.
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| Competence
and Performance |
Competence
is the knowledge which a student has of the language. This may
be conscious or unconscious knowledge. Native speakers have
perfect competence, but in many cases this is unconscious
knowledge.
Performance is applying this knowledge when you’re
using the language. Often performance is not perfect, even for
native speakers!
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| Concept
checking questions |
See
Key
questions.
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| Conceptual
Development |
An
important aspect of child psychology is how children’s
understanding of the world develops. For example, children
develop a conception of themselves as individuals, of other
people as members of their family or people outside their
family, of physical laws (if you drop a glass, it breaks), and
so on.
One of the key stages of conceptual development is
developing the idea of object permanence. Very young babies do
not attempt to look for an attractive object which is hidden.
As they grow older, they understand that the object still
exists and they look for it.
Other key ideas in conceptual development are pattern
recognition (learning to recognize and eventually to predict
patterns) and abstract operations (learning to think in
abstract terms, using abstract language)
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| Concordance |
A
concordance of any word is a list of sentences the word
appears in, taken from authentic
material – newspapers, magazines, radio programs,
television programs, books, etc.
Example: A concordance of the word can might include
sentences like this:
There’s a can of tuna in the cupboard.
Can you help me?
I’d love to come, but I don’t think I can.
It’s a picture of a can-can dancer by Toulouse-Lautrec.
I can’t imagine anything more ridiculous.
Concordances are used for compiling the definitions and
examples that appear in many ELT dictionaries.
The set of language from which the concordance of a word is
taken is called a corpus.
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| Constructivism |
A
theory of teaching. The basic idea of constructivism
is:
“Knowledge cannot be instructed by a teacher, it can only be
constructed by a learner”.
This means learning is not just a direct result of listening
to a teacher. The students have to organize and develop what
they hear and read.
Constructivisim is an example of Cognitivism
applied to teaching.
The opposite approach to constructivism is Instructivism.
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| Controlled
/ Free practice |
Controlled
practice is when the students use a limited set of new
language.
Example: After a presentation of the present simple,
students might have controlled practice of the new structure
using the model sentences, with days of the week as cues.
Teacher: Monday.
Student: He goes to the movies on Monday.
Teacher: Wednesday.
Student: He visits his friends on Wednesday.
In this case, the controlled practice is the Practice stage of
the PPP
technique.
After the controlled practice, students can then move on to free
practice where they invent parallel sentences about
another person with other activities.
He plays football on Monday. He swims on Tuesday.
In this case, the free practice stage is the Production stage
of the PPP
technique.
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| Corpus |
A
database of real spoken or written language, taken from
newspaper articles, magazine articles, websites, radio
programs, TV programs, etc.
A corpus is used as a basic reference material for
analysis of the language, such as producing a concordance.
It is also used for writing definitions of words, and examples
of how they are used, especially in the compilation of
dictionaries.
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| Critical
period hypothesis |
The
theory that there is a critical period in language
acquisition, from very early childhood up to adolescence. If
a language is not acquired during this stage, the learner will
not usually achieve native speaker competence.
The critical period is related to the development of laterality
in the brain. Once laterality is fully established (during
adolescence) the critical period is over.
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| Cross-curricular
syllabus |
A
syllabus which teaches English through the other subjects in
the school curriculum. For example, a course which involves
elements of geography, history and social studies.
You can find cross-curricular elements in many contemporary
ELT textbooks.
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