TEFL Glossary

See four skills.

Skim reading, or skimming is when we look through a text quickly just to get the gist - a general idea of what is being said. For example, imagine you were choosing a book to read in the airport shop shortly before going to catch a flight., you would probably skim through the 'blurbs' on the back covers of the books you are considering. 

See error.

The separate steps in a lesson are usually referred to as lesson stages.

See warmer.

See stative verbs.

They are also called state verbs. These are verbs that describe states rather than actions. They are often verbs which refer to thoughts, feeling and senses (e.g., love, understand, believe, see). These verbs are not usually used in continuous forms as they refer to something which is seen as permanent. When they are used in continuous form, the meaning is often slightly different (compare: I see the flowers with I'm seeing her tonight).

Most verbs are dynamic verbs; they describe physical actions and can be used in continuous forms.

It refers to the pattern of stresses on the syllables of a word. For example, important, disaster and commander all have the same stress pattern: oOo.

A string of letters is a set of letters which commonly occur together in a word. For example, 'string' is made up of two strings: str- (as in strike, stroke, stride, struck, etc.) and -ing. Awareness of strings helps develop reading skills.

The grammatical subject of a sentence is the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that comes before the verb. The subject is normally described as the agent (do-er) of an action:

All the children ran away.

He said I was stupid.

However, some verbs serve a linking function rather than expressing an action (see linking verbs). In sentences with linking verbs, something is said about the subject:

Belinda is a drug addict.

I became a teacher 10 years ago.

When the verb is in passive form, the subject of the sentence is the recipient of the action:

Vicki was bitten by a poisonous spider.

English demands that all sentences (except some exclamations, such as 'How nice!') have a subject. In some sentences, 'there' or 'it' acts as a dummy subject.

There are many reasons why I doubt what he says.