Archive for the ‘International House’ Category

ARELS- Association of Reasonably good English Language Schools
 
BAAL- The false god of Applied Linguistics
 
Direct method- A system of language learning aimed at making Japanese students say what they really mean

Ditransitive- verbs often used with the object “Lady Di”
 
EAP- English for Academic Purposes- learning English to seem intellectual
 
Facilitation- Rather than leading the language learning process, teachers aid the students by standing there doing nothing and spouting stuff like “Don’t ask me, you are empowered to control your own learning”.

Feedback- Based on the similarity with playing an electric guitar, in ELT this term is used to express the teacher’s ability to produce discord and put people on edge with the use of error correction

FFI- Form focused instruction- designing your lessons just to get good marks on the categories you know are on the student evaluation and lesson observation forms

Fillers- breakfast foods suitable for teachers who will be photocopying through their lunch break

FL- foreign language. Pronounced “fleur”, with as outrageous a French accent as you can manage
 
Focus on form- The problem of teachers writing down all the things students tell them during a level check interview and only remembering to notice the language they use during the last few seconds. Often contrasted with focus on forms*

Focus on forms- A teacher being distracted by the student’s figure during a level check interview and only remembering to notice the language they use in the last few seconds. Often contrasted with Focus on Form*

Fossilization- The immobile face and blank stare that teachers who have been in the business too long develop

Gap filling- The favourite physical threat of drunk TEFL teachers

Grammatical terminology- “all these like little name things” (definition by an English Language Teaching Assistant in Hong Kong, quoted in Teacher Language Awareness pg 157)

IH- International House, the chain of schools formerly known by the less successful name of “Nationalism House”

Immersion language learning- A way of increasing student motivation to speak. See also waterboarding*

Implicit knowledge of language- Students hiding the fact that they’ve known that grammar since primary school in order not to seem like a swot or to save the teacher embarrassment

Inductive approach (the) - Giving students who pause forever before speaking an epidural injection to force delivery

Inflections- Passed on in the spit of Spanish people trying to pronounce /h/

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from TEFL teachers is that there is no clear career progression in our profession, especially for those who do not want management jobs. There is an even louder clamour from those who want to break into writing for English language teachers and students, as there aren’t even the few clear options like “CELTA leads to DELTA leads to MA leads to university job” or “one year of experience leads to International House leads to British Council” that teaching can sometimes offer. Although the way most people who now get published regularly originally broke into the business are as varied as the teaching careers of the vast majority of teachers who did not follow the two ladders I described above, I hope giving a couple of simplified examples can persuade more people that it is a ladder worth starting on, and one that can provide satisfaction on every rung even to those who don’t make it all the way to the top.

Example One- The Article Man

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