Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Glossary of terms

I will try to continue to update this glossary to include terms and jargon that will help you read more technical or research-oriented articles, books, blogs, etc. Please post in the comments if you would like me to add a term!
  • L1: the language someone grows up speaking (“1st Language”)
  • L2: the language someone learns as an adult (“2nd Language” – at LETC we generally refer to English as the students’ L2, but keep in mind, someone may have already learned other languages!)
  • corrective feedback: feedback is how you respond to someone’s writing (or speaking), and corrective feedback is when you offer error corrections, e.g. correcting the use of past tense, offering a different word for a better fit, or suggesting that a student reorganize the sentences in a paragraph
  •  recast: a recast is a rephrasing of something a learner has written (or said), in order to make it sound more natural or more intelligible
  • SLA: Second Language Acquisition; the field of research which concerns itself with understanding the process by which someone learns another language
  • Instructed SLA: the field of research which investigates the connections between types of instruction and exposure to another language, and the process of language learning
  • TESL: Teaching English as a Second Language (in a second language setting, the target language to be learned is spoken all around)
  • TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language (in a foreign language setting, the target language to be learned is only spoken in the classroom, like in college foreign language classes)
  • TESOL: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (this refers to the learners, not the setting, and so it doesn't distinguish TESL from TEFL)



No comments:

Post a Comment