The Alternative ELT Jargon Dictionary Part 14

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/

Tags: ELT jargon, Humour

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pmand is filed under ARELS, Direct method, English for Academic Purposes, International House, Linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA, TEFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.