TEFL Glossary

An instructional approach that tailors teaching methods and resources to accommodate the diverse needs and learning styles of students.

See differentiation.

The ways in which a teacher can support students with different learning needs in the same class. It is anything that makes one student distinct from another, not just language and nationality. (In glossary - Differentiation means providing different tasks or teaching materials or adapting tasks to suit students of different levels in a mixed ability class.

Two letters which together represent a single sound, e.g., ph, sh, ee, ea, etc.

A 'double vowel' - two vowel sounds which together make up what is perceived as a single sound.

E.g. hair /heə(r)/

go /goʊ/

It is also called the Natural method.

In the late 19th century, Heness and Sauveur opened a language school in the United States teaching German and French. They employed what they called the Natural Method because it was felt to mirror how children naturally learn their first languages. However, the approach came to be more commonly referred to as the Direct Method. The principles of the Natural/Direct Method, as outlined by Richards and Rogers (2001), are:

• Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.
  
• Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
  
• Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organised around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes.
  
• Grammar was taught inductively.
  
• New teaching points were introduced orally.
  
• Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects and pictures; abstract vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.
  
• Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
  
• Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasised.
  

 (Richards and Rogers, 2001, p. 12)

Many features of this method or approach are still in evidence in the modern language classroom.

In some words in spoken English one syllable is not pronounced. E.g., 'interesting' looks as though it should be pronounced 'in-ter-est-ing,' but most native speakers say 'in-trest-ing.'

Syllables in words that are often not pronounced fully in connected speech, leading to a reduction in the number of syllables heard.

Discourse markers are words and phrases such as however, althoughand on the other hand in writing, and so, well and OK  in spoken language which are used to show how different parts of the text relate to each other.

They are also referred to as linking words, linking phrases, connectors, connectives and conjunctions.

This is a teaching approach particularly associated with Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings. Dogme rejects course books and grammar-based teaching. The focus is on 'emergent' language. Lessons are based around the language that the students produce.