As I noted in my last post, EFL has more than its share of jargon. After giving a taxonomy of EFL/ESL/TEFL, etc., I felt I ought to add some discussion of other basic terms in the EFL industry:
accuracy v. fluency: A major issue in EFL instruction. Accuracy means, not surprisingly, producing language and grammatical structures correctly. Fluency refers more to students' ability to speak confidently in English and get their message across, even if their grammar and usages are imperfect. Naturally, a teacher wants his students to develop both accuracy and fluency, but an individual activity may be aimed more at one than at the other.
bushiban/cram school/hogwan: Known by different terms in different countries (here in Taiwan it's called a bushiban; hogwan is the Korean term), these are for-profit English schools for children and teenagers. Some, like mine, also offer adult classes and private tutoring. Cram schools have widely different reputations depending on the country you are in, and different schools within the same country can also differ tremendously. Some of these schools are well-established business that genuinely care about their students' progress in learning English and encourage teacher development. Others are fly-by-night operations that exploit teachers, provide inadequate materials and training, and basically steal their students' money.
CELTA: Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching for Adults. The most widely respected certification in the ESL industry. The basic standard of training in ESL/EFL is a minimum 100-hour course that involves teaching actual ESL students (not just fellow would-be teachers), and the CELTA is the most widely recognized course providing this. Centers offering CELTA operate all over the globe. I took the CELTA in New York prior to leaving for Taiwan.
collocation: A fancy word for a simple concept. Collocation refers to sets or arrangments of words that frequently go together. For instance, we say "do the dishes," not "make the dishes". The word "car" might have the collocations park (British term for a parking lot), wash, drive, etc.
controlled v. uncontrolled activity: Somewhat correlated with accuracy v. fluency, controlled v. uncontrolled has to do with a student's ability to use all of the language at their disposal and to make mistakes in the activity. Gap fills and drilling (see below) are the ultimate controlled activity; speaking practice for fluency is the ultimate uncontrolled activity. Even here, though, there is some degree of "control" since a teacher usually doesn't say "talk for five minutes" (though he might do this occasionally when he needs to, say, set up a CD player or video before class). Instead, the teacher gives a topic or asks students to brainstorm and put ideas on the board ("tell me everything you know about Britney Spears" or "talk about your last vacation").
cowboy: I'm not sure how widespread this term is, but I've seen it used in a couple of guides to the EFL/ESL industry. Cowboy is a term for a fly-by-night school that exploits teachers or is just a means of separating students from their money. But just as there are cowboy schools, there are also cowboy teachers--teachers who don't know the English language well enough to teach it, and are often just in the profession to finance travel.
drilling: Basically, having students repeat set phrases or target language (see below) over and over. The aim here is to produce accurate pronunciation and to get students more comfortable with talking in English. At their worst, these can be very, very dull. But there are ways to liven them up. For instance, the "substitution" drill, which works as follows:
Teacher: "I drove my car tot he supermarket."
Students (2 or 3 times): "I drove the car to the supermarket."
Teacher: "Movie theater."
Students: "I drove the car to the movie theater."
Teacher: "Jessica."Students: "Jessica drove the car to the movie theater."
And so on.
Drilling is somewhat controversial in ESL/EFL these days, though still widely used. I tend to think of it as being something like diagramming sentences in regular English classes--controversial for the simple reason that it effects a clear educational purpose and has been used with success by generations of teachers actually to teach, not to boost student self-esteem or provide entertainment. My school relies on it quite a bit but provides a lot of suggestions (the substitution drill is just one example) to make it more lively.
eliciting: Giving hints or clues to get students to produce language. This can be used in a diagnostic way, to see what students know, or to introduce new language.
enthusiastic: In the real world, this terms means, "having strong excitement or feeling." In the EFL world, this term is the most common way of describing a child who is a royal pain in the you-kn0w-where. As in, "Brittany is very bright but could do with a little less enthusiasm."
gap fill: British term for what Americans call a "fill-in-the-blank" activity.
L1: Twenty-dollar abbreviation for a student's native language. I'm not sure whether this is an attempt at political correctness, given the negative connotations the word "native" can have, or just a shortened term.
lexis: At first glance, this might seem like an unnecessarily fussy term for vocabulary, but it isn't. The concept of vocabulary tends to focus on individuals words. Lexis, on the other hand, takes note of how many multiple-word phrases actually constitute a single concept--i.e., stock market or ballpark figure.
lexical set: A set of lexis (see above) all relating to a particular concept or having a unified context. For instance, if you were teaching students lexis related to grocery stores, you might have aisle, checkout, shopping cart as part of a lexical set, along with words for particular items like detergent or corn flakes.
MFP: Meaning, Form, and Pronunication. The basic elements of any piece of language. Every ESL/EFL teacher needs to be able to analyze target language for meaning, form and pronunciation. Meaning and form are often quite distinct. For instance, in the sentence, I'm taking my cat to the vet tomorrow, the verb am taking is present continuous, but the meaning is future.
monitoring: Basically, this is a fancy term for walking around the room and perking up your ears as students work on an activity in groups or pairs. The aim here is see what areas students are having trouble with, without being too obtrusive, and to offer small suggestions when asked for them (i.e., the student wants to know a word that hasn't been taught yet, or is confused about a particular point of grammar or usage).
needs review at home before progressing: EFL codespeak for, "Your child is so lazy and/or so much of a behavior problem that I would have him or her back in my classroom over my dead body."
onion: This refers to a set-up in which half the students stand on the inside of a circle, and the other half stands on the outside, both broups facing each other. One group or the other will periodically rotate. Onions are used in fluency-practice activities, more rarely in accuracy activities. They can also be used for ice-breaker activities on the first day of class...i.e., have students go around the room until they find someone who has been to Australia, likes Thai food, or swam the English Channel.
pelmanism: As noted before, this is what the rest of the world calls a card matching game. Used quite extensively in ESL/EFL contexts, particularly with YLs (see below).
phrasal verbs: A major bugaboo to ESL/EFL learners. These are the million or so English verbs that consist of the form verb + preposition: put off, give up, go down, blurt out, etc. Common practice is to teach each of these as a separate verb--i.e., don' t try to teach put off, put up with, put out, or put down as though they are all variations on the verb put.
privates: No, not those privates! This refers to "private students," i.e., students a teacher takes on aside from those from his school or bushiban. It can also refer to one-on-one lessons, whether arranged through the teacher's primary employer or not. In many countries, it is illegal for teachers to take on students outside of the school that sponsors their visa and/or work permit, but it's quite common nonetheless and, from what I hear, the laws are rarely enforced. If your school finds out you are teaching privates, however, it can be grounds for dismissal.
taking (or doing) the register: Apparently, this term is common in Britain even outside the ESL/EFL context. What Americans call "taking attendance."
target language: The language you are trying to introduce or practice in any given lesson. Often abbreivated to TL.
YL: Young learner. Essentially, children under the age of 12. There is, as far as I know, no particular EFL/ESL term for adolescent learners, basically because, by the time students reach adolescence, they are presumed to have the same level of ability to think abstractly as adults. YLs are the definite growth area in EFL/ESL today. Nearly all ESL/EFL teachers starting out overseas will have to teach YLs.
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