THE BASICS

TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language / EFL - English as a Foreign Language

Teaching English to students whose first language is not English. This is usually in countries
where English is not the first language (hence the ‘foreign language’ part of the term).
However, some private language schools in English-speaking countries also offer what they
call English as a Foreign Language – usually to students who are in the country temporarily,
for holiday, work or study and who plan to return to their own country.
TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages / ESOL - English for Speakers
of Other Languages
This term is sometimes used interchangeably with TEFL but is more often used when English
is taught in English speaking countries such as the UK or USA. TESOL also tends to be the
term preferred to TEFL in the US.
ESL – English as a Second Language
This refers to English used in societies where it may not be the official, main or native
language, but where it is used widely. Think about the Netherlands, or India, for example.
Sometimes the line between EFL and ESL becomes blurred in countries where English is
becoming more and more common.
EAL - English as an Additional Language
This is a term often used in schools in English-speaking countries to describe the teaching of
English to groups who may need additional language support outside of regular classes, or
specifically differentiated learning in their regular classes. Support is often provided by a
specialist EAL unit or by the SEN (Special Educational Needs) department. These learners
are usually migrants whose first language is not English. However, they are not a socially or
linguistically homogenous group – for this reason, their needs will usually be individually
assessed.

A SELECT GLOSSARY
There are hundreds of technical terms related to teaching and language learning and it would
not be practical to list them all here. However, below we have listed a selection of a few of
the more common ones you may encounter.
Accuracy-based Activities
Activities where the aim is to practise and achieve mastery and accuracy of a specific form or
forms. For this reason, the teacher will tend to correct errors, model correct forms, and ask for
repetitions from students.
Activating Language
Providing opportunities for students to practise and use the language that they have ‘learnt’.
Aspect
Those elements in the tense system that encode information about when an action started and
whether or not it is ongoing. For example: the -ing form of a verb indicates the action is
ongoing; the perfective aspect (using the auxiliary verb ‘have’) provides clues about when an
action started and whether it has finished.
Auxiliary Verb
A verb is used to help encode grammatical information, rather than having any intrinsic
semantic content.
Blended Learning
A mixture of face-to-face and online teaching.
Collocations
Words that commonly appear together in sequence. Collocations can be weak or strong.
When given the start of a strong collocation, it is easy to predict what comes next, for
example: ‘salt and...pepper’; ‘rancid...butter’; ‘a splitting...headache’. Weaker collocations
evoke a wider range of possibilities, for example: ‘broken...heart’; ‘broken...English’;
‘broken...vows’).
Communicative Competence
The ability to communicate meaning effectively in interactions.
Concept-check questions
Questions asked by the teacher to check specific aspects of the students’ understanding. They
tend to be ‘closed’ questions, formulated in such a way that they cannot be answered
correctly if the concept, language point, or instruction has not been understood.
Conditionals
Constructions that describe predictions about the future based on situations, events, or
conditions that have not yet happened; or, alternatively, conjectures about how things could
have been different. Conditionals have an ‘if’ or ‘when’ clause (the condition), plus a result
clause (what will happen or what could have happened differently).
Drilling
A technique whereby the teacher models words and phrases to be repeated by individual
learners or in chorus by the class. The aim is to correct pronunciation errors, elicit accurate
pronunciation, and aid memorisation through motor-muscle memory.
DOGME
A communicative methodology that focuses on the use of non-coursebook texts, meaningful
conversations, and collaborative communication.
Flipped Learning
A student-centred approach to learning that uses a blended learning model. It usually involves
students learning content through online videos and lectures, then using supervised classroom
time to practise, apply and deepen understanding of the learnt content.
Fluency-based Activities
Activities where the aim is for students to communicate fluently. For this reason, the teacher
will tend not to interrupt to correct errors – although they may be noted and corrected later.
The Four Skills
The four basic skills required to understand and speak a language: reading, writing, speaking,
and listening.
Lexis
Often used as a synonym for vocabulary, lexis is somewhat wider in scope. It includes not
just words, but also multi-word phrases and formulaic expressions.
Mixed-skills Activities
Activities requiring a balance of two or more of the four skills.
Modal Verbs (Modal Auxiliary verbs)
Plural verbs that are used to indicate ability, possibility, intention, and permission (for
example: can, could, will, would, may, might, must).
Phonemes
Symbols representing the sounds of English. Often taught using a phonemic chart to help
students with the elements of English pronunciation.
Phrasal Verbs
Strictly, a main verb plus adverb combination, the meaning of which cannot be easily guessed
from the regular meaning of the verb. They are often used in place of a more formal verb (for
example, ‘sort out’ rather than ‘resolve’). The term is commonly applied to other multi-word
verbs that function in a similar way, but which take prepositions or particle/preposition
combinations (eg: ‘get into’, ‘come up with’).
Pragmatics
The study of language in use, in real-life situations.