TEFL Glossary

The lexical and grammatical linking used within a text to achieve coherence. See also cohesive devices.

The means by which a text is made coherent. These include referencing and the use of discourse markers.

(of vocabulary) - frequently occur with another word. E.g., freezing collocates with cold.

See collocate.

See CEFR.

All nouns that are not proper nouns.

See Communicative Language Teaching.

It is the ability to successfully communicate and understand messages in the target language.

Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) . CLT had become mainstream by the 1980s and remains the approach that most syllabuses claim to follow today. CLT sees that the primary goal of language teaching and learning is communicative competence: the ability to successfully communicate and understand messages in the target language. Grammatical accuracy is seen as less important than the successful communication of meaning. This approach believes that grammatical competence will be acquired through use of the language for communicative purposes.

Community Language Learning (CLL) is a teaching method developed byCharles Curran, a professor of psychology and a counsellor. Essentially, the method consists of using psychological counselling techniques in the language classroom. The teacher is referred to as the 'knower'. The knower's role is to assist the learners to articulate what they want to say in L2. When an individual student is ready to say something, s/he says it to the knower in L1 and the knower translates the message into L2.