The Alternative English Teaching Jargon Dictionary
accuracy- Not making mistakes in a foreign language. A student who is obsessed about having every mistake corrected, often Swiss, is called an Accurist
advanced learner- a proficient user of a foreign language. One who can correct their teacher once or twice a term and still thinks it is clever to do so. A learner who could do so even more but has learnt that they are actually there to learn something and move up to the next level is defined as proficiency level.
affect- basically, emotional factors in the classroom, e.g. feelings towards L2, the teacher, native speakers etc. This noun is based on the first syllable, and correcting a teacher on this is a perfect example of producing negative affect with error correction.
affix- In a rare but not unique example of linguistic jargon being named after a childrens toy, affixes are named after the plastic model brand Airfix. This is due to sticking affixes onto the front of words (prefixes, mis- etc.) or end of words (suffixes, -ify etc.) being like a nerdy teenager sticks decals onto a badly painted model of a WWII Spitfire fighter plane.
agency- In linguistics, having agency means having control over your own language learning. How ironic then that agency is also the name for the companies that sell English courses in the UK etc. abroad by lying through their teeth about likely progress, extra charges, friendliness of host families etc. etc.
agreement- Verbs matching their pronouns, e.g. third person -s. If students make mistakes with this you can prompt them using this technical term, e.g. “Your verb and pronoun disagree” “Eh?” “I said, your verb and the word before it are having a bit of a row” “What??” “If you don’t change that verb ending soon it’s going to come to blows, I’m telling you” “This teacher, he explain very bad” “Oh dear, your verb…” etc.
ALT (Alien Language Teacher)- a native speaking assistant teacher who helps give lessons in Junior High schools etc. Not to be confused with ALF (Alien Language Friend)- someone who gives informal English conversation lessons in cafes.
approximants- Sounds that are as close as your students are ever going to get to the real pronunciation of English, e.g. something somewhere between an /r/, /l/ and /w/ but usually identifiable as only one of those sounds.
aptitude- your inbuilt ‘talent’ for learning languages. Not to be confused with ‘apitude’, which is your ability to make a realistic bee -like buzzing noise with your mouth.
ARC- (Authentic, Restricted, Clarification). This more flexible variation on PPP is thought by the cabalist school of English teaching to be the original language teaching method passed on by Noah after the great flood, PPP being a later corrupted version.
articulators- The special parts of the mouth, nose and throat (e.g. larynx, pharynx, hard palate, alveolar ridge) that are only used when we pronounce articles (a, an or the) in English.
assimilation- A form of connected speech where a sound in a word is modified by a neighbour, e.g. by buying a computer operated sprinkler because the next sound has one
ATPR (Adult Total Physical Response)- termed derived from the Japanese English expression AV- “Adult” videos, knudge knudge, wink wink, know what I mean?). An attempt at using the ultimate motivation to improve language learning through movement
attention- the stance with ramrod straight back and eyes directly forward that helps language learners concentrate on the language point being taught and not be distracted by other things. Experienced teachers find that shouting “Attention!” during the important part of a grammar explanation and having their students jump up and line up helps retention. Another useful technique to focus attention taken from the army is to use framing language like “Right! (You horrible little lot!)” (language in brackets is optional).
audiolingual method- Literally, the ’sound tongue’ method. Based on behaviourist experiments such as the famously salivating Pavlov’s dog, students would be made to control the panel of a language lab booth using only their tongue in order to help them physically memorize the dialogues on the tape. This method died out when it was found that student errors are in fact contagious, and were being picked up by future students licking the same booth controls (this is also why Japanese students wear face masks on days when they are making many language errors, so as not to pass them on).
base form- This rather negative expression for the form ‘be’, ‘do’, ‘have’ etc. comes from a medieval superstition that this verb form was somehow dirty and brought bad luck. It has now been replaced by the expression ‘infinitive without to’.
back-reference- The technical term for bitching about someone when they are not there, e.g. “Have you heard the news? It seems he’s one of them too!”
Behaviourism- The idea that skills such as speaking another language could be taught in the same way as disciplining a child or teaching a dog how to fetch. It became less popular after the last generation of makers of craft dunce hats in Cornwall died out, and using dog leads and collars in the language classroom is now only a very specialist, if exclusive, market.
Bilabial- Used to describe someone whose lips can go either way, i.e. look exactly the same the other way round. This can help learners pronounce consonants where both lips are used: /p/, /b/, /w/ and /m/.
bilingualism- Literally ‘having two tongues’. This is still considered a negative thing in countries such as the USA.
CALL (Computer assisted language learning- pronounced /kal/)- An intermediate step on the way to TELL (totally electronic language learning) and HAL (hologram assisted learning).
CELToids- a new generation of impeccably-trained CELTA-trained pre-teaching machines ready to take over the world
clause- Clauses are the largeest grammatical unit smaller than a whole sentence. Not to be confused with ‘Klaus’, who is the man with the largest waistline ever to attempt to wear leather shorts.
CMC (Computer-mediated communication)- When everything the teacher says goes through the students’ electronic dictionaries before it is accepted as true
complexity- How much of a hang up students have about using things like conjuctions and pronouns for back-reference
compound sentence- A sentence with two or more clauses, usually long- like the protective wall around the compounds teachers in Saudi live in
compounding- A way of forming words by combining two or more nouns or adjectives. Not to be confused with “pounding“, which is the technical term for when a student makes endless identical failed efforts at pronouncing a word until the teacher screams at them to stop
co-ordinate clauses- When two or more clauses of equal rank are linked they are co-ordinate clauses. As well as learning to spot these, students will need the classroom language of talking about them, e.g. “Do you think this clause looks okay with this one?” “It’s a bit last year, why don’t you try it together with this?” “Does my main clause look big with this?” “Oh no, darling, just throw in this conjunction and it is sooooo you”
blended learning- The idea that in order for the attention deficit disorder young people of today to be able to learn a language, everything has to reduced to an easily-digested, computer-generated, un-intellectually-stimulating mush; like making baby food in a blender.
bottom-up processing- As an extension on NLP theories of where people look when they are thinking and what that means about their preferred learning style, researchers have found that they direction in which you scan the face and body of good looking people of the other sex is related to how you best process the information in a text. For example, people who start looking at the arse and work their way up (bottom-up processors) tend to do well at noticing the small details of a text but less well in noticing how the information is arranged into paragraphs etc.
chunks- Strings of language that are not digested properly and come out whole when you’ve had too many beers during a language exchange party.
CLL- (community language learning- pronounced /cululu/). Based on counselling therapy, students sit in a circle and are helped by the teacher to cooperatively produce a dialogue in English on a tape about their relationship with the local catholic priest.
concord- Another name for agreement, such as agreeing to add an -e onto the end of the supersonic plane name just to make the French shut up for a minute
connected speech- When the student who always starts long monologues about random topics manages, by some fluke, to say something perfectly connected to what you want to do next in the lesson
connotation- The good, bad, humurous, old-fashioned etc. associations of words and expressions. The word “connotation” is derived from the French word “con”, which is a nice way of saying “bloody stupid”
dummy operator- The word ‘do’ and ‘did’, used to make questions and negatives of sentences that do not have an auxiliary verb such as the ‘could’ in the question “Couldn’t you think of anything more amusing to write about that?”
EFL- English as a Foreign Language- usually meaning people studying English for use outside of English speaking countries, e.g. people studying over the summer in the UK then returning to their countries. Pronounced /eful/.
EFLuant- The dark side of EFL.
Eikaiwa- “English conversation” in Japanese, This is the normal expression in Japan for the language schools and the private language teaching industry- and maybe another reason why Japanese students sometimes have false hopes on how easy it will be to learn at your school and so don’t apply themselves (often not even bringing a pen!)
ELT- English Language Teaching
ESL- English as a Second Language- usually meaning people for whom English is a daily second language in the community in which they live, e.g. immigrants.
fricatives- Sounds that are produced by friction. The word “fricative” is derived from the euphamism “fricking”, and was originally used only to mean the insulting “raspberry” sound produced with your tongue
hybrid language learning- When strong students help weaker ones not just by explaining grammar but by contributing some of their genes with the use of modern classroom cloning technology
Juncture- The age of the rule of the Junker class in Germany, who were famous for pausing between each and every word to give them all strong Germanic emphasis
liaison- When an extra sound between a final vowel and the first sound of the next word pass notes back and forward between those two sounds until they get together for some really hot connected speech
linguistics- Literally, ‘the science of the tongue’. This definition is only to be used when someone you are chatting up asks you what you do if you are both very very drunk. Ditto applied linguistics.
mentalist- Young language teachers followers of Noam Chomsky who use illegal substances at all night ‘linguistic raves’.
non-finite clause- a non-finite clause is one that contains a non-finite verb, i.e. a verb that is not marked for tense and person such as an infinitive. Not to be confused with a infinite clause, which is what French students produce when trying to do IELTS or CAE writing.
non-voiced- Negative feedback to using games in class that doesn’t come out until the end of course feedback because they always seem to be having fun
plosive sounds- The sounds students make just before they explode with frustration, e.g. the first four sounds in “bu bu bu bu..but I DID DO MY HOMEWORK!!”
prefix and suffix- These affixes that go on the front (sub-, re- etc.) and back (-able, -ly etc.) of words are named after Asterix characters that always wandered into battle at the front of the phalanx not knowing how much trouble they were getting into (Prefix) or cowered at the back until Obelix found them (Suffix).
schema- A scheme or plot that is very complex and intelligent, hence the use of Latin
stance- Stance (also, appraisal) is the way people show their personal attitude to what they are hearing or reading. As the word originally comes from how people stand, in linguistics stance language is divided into categories based on body language, e.g. ‘hands on hip stance language’ and ‘I’m a little tea pot stance language’.
TBL- Task Based Learning- Although many of the details of this approach are still less clear than the (at least easy to understand) approach of PPP, the basic idea is to get students learning the vocab, grammar and functional language they need by basing the interactions and possibly the whole lesson and even syllabus on tasks (negotiating a menu, finding your way around the Hong Kong tube etc.) that students perform. As is clear from the random examples I gave, it is quite possible for such tasks to be nothing new and possibly totally unstimulating, and so it was to be in the first major TBL textbook series, Cutting Edge- which was pants. There are other theoretical and practical arguments against TBL, but the main point is that after 100s of books and research papers it has not changed the way English is taught in more than 1 percent of the classrooms of the world. More sensibly, recent textbooks seem to concentrate much more on what to teach rather than how to teach it.
TEFL- Teaching English as a Foreign Language. It was once quite ordinary to refer to the industry as TEFL and even say “I am a TEFL teacher”, but as the term has taken on a negative image of cowboy schools, underqualified teachers and all the other sterotypes of the industry. “EFL teacher” and “the ELT industry” are now much more generally used by people inside the industry, although of course the negative view people have rather than the word people use is the problem. I am therefore starting a campaign to reclaim the word TEFL, in the same way as the N word has become standard for rappers.
TEFLdonia- a mild nation of located a few clicks south of Freedonia. Primary crop: dislocated gin drinking philosophy graduates.Secondary crop: undercooked “academic style” writing. Renewable resources: people keen to escape debt (teachers); people keen to escape poverty (student). Climate: dry with occasional elicitation. Currency: DVDs from home. System of government: Private fiefdoms
TPRA (Total Physical Response for Adults)- using activities like the song “YMCA” with actions with classes such as Business English. This ultimate proof of English teaching technique is often used near the end of a TEFL career.
Trinity-kins- Teachers fresh off the Trinity Certificate, with a innocent, childlike enthusiasm still in their eyes
vowels- Sounds that are made without any significant obstruction or constriction. The word is derived by shortening the phrase “v(ery loose b)owels”
zero article- This is the ‘invisible’ article used instead of ‘a’/'an’ or ‘the’ when you are refering to something general using a plural or uncountable noun, e.g. “- apples grow on trees”. Native speakers use a tiny, almost unnoticeable hiccupping movement of the diaphragm to mark the zero article. You can develop this skill in students by having them cough or hiccup loudly when they use a zero article and then gradually reduce the noise as they go up in language level.