TKT (module 1)

Formal language

Language used when speaking or writing to people we do not know well, e.g. using Yours faithfully in a letter of application, rather than writing All the best.

Syllable

A part of a word that usually contains a vowel sound, e.g. pen = one syllable; teacher = two syllables - teach/er; umbrella = three syllables - um/brell/a.

Model (noun and verb)

1. A clear example of the target language for learners to repeat or write down or save as a record. If a teacher is focusing on the target language of a lesson, he/she usually chooses a model sentence and writes it on the board. The teacher often models the language as well, by saying it clearly before getting learners to repeat it. 2. To do a whole class example of a task before learners work on their own or in pairs on the task. Teachers do this to show learners exactly what they need to do in the task.

Vowel

1. A sound in which the air is not blocked by the tongue, lips, teeth etc., e.g. /i:/ (eat), /ə/ (about), /e/ (egg), /ʌ/ (fun). 2. Movement or vibration is felt in the throat because the voice is used. See consonant and diphthong. In the alphabet, the letters a, e, i, o, u are vowels. They represent the vowel sounds.

Consonant

1. A sound in which the air is partly blocked by the lips, tongue, teeth etc., e.g. /θ/ in 'thing', /b/ in 'boy'. 2. Any letter of the English alphabet which represents consonant sounds, e.g. d - /d/, c - /k/.

Context

1. The situation in which language is used or presented; e.g. a story about a holiday experience could be used as the context to present and practise past tenses. Photographs can help to provide a context for a magazine article. 2. The words or phrases before or after a word in discourse which help someone to understand that word

Linking

1. The way different sounds and words can join with each other in connected speech, e.g. it 's a good day - /ɪtsəɡʊdeɪ/. 2. Joining parts of sentences (phrases and clauses), sentences and paragraphs to make text more cohesive, e.g. I went shopping, then I went to the gym. I bought a dress and a hat.

Highlight

1. To mark words on paper, on the board or on a computer screen using a colour or underlining so that they are easier to notice. 2. To focus on something so that learners realise it is important, e.g. to highlight a mistake by underlining it.

Graded reader

A book where the language has been made easier for learners. These are often books with stories or novels where the language has been simplified.

Compound noun

A compound noun is a combination of two or more words, which are used as a single word, e.g. a flower shop, a headache.

Draft (noun + verb)

A draft is a piece of writing that is not yet finished, and may be changed. A writer drafts a piece of writing - that is, they write it for the first time but it is not exactly as it will be when it is finished and they might change it or have to make corrections. Teachers encourage learners to begin with a quick first draft so that they can get their ideas down on paper, then go back and correct and improve the text.

Cohesive device

A feature in a text which provides cohesion (joins texts together), e.g. use of vocabulary about the topic throughout a text, of sequencing words (then, next, after that, etc.), of pronouns (he, him, etc.), of conjunctions (however, although, etc.).

Feature

A feature of something is an interesting or important part or characteristic of it. For example, look at the sentence I can play tennis. In connected speech, can is pronounced /kən/ - the weak form /ə/ is a feature of this sentence because it's important to the way we pronounce 'can'.

Lexical set

A group of words and/or phrases which are about the same topic or subject; e.g. a lexical set on the topic of weather could be: storm, rain, wind, cloud.

Word family

A group of words that come from the same root or base word, e.g. economy, economist, economic. See root word, base word.

Affix / affixation

A letter or letters added to the beginning or end of a word to make a new word, which can be a different part of speech from the original word, e.g. interview, interviewer; 'er' is an affix added to interview to make the new word interviewer. Affixation is the process of adding letters at the beginning (prefix) or end of a word (suffix) to make a new word. See prefix, suffix.

Guided writing

A piece of writing that learners produce after the teacher has helped them to prepare for it by, for example, giving the learners a plan or model to follow, and ideas for the type of language to use.

Phonemic chart

A poster or diagram of the phonemic symbols arranged in a particular order.

Prefix

A prefix is a letter or group of letters added to the beginning of a word to make a new word, e.g. clear - unclear.

Contraction

A shorter form of a group of words, which usually occurs in auxiliary verbs, e.g. you have = you've; it is = it's.

Suffix

A suffix is a letter or group of letters added at the end of a word to make a new word, e.g. good - goodness.

Part of speech

A way of categorising words according to their grammatical function and meaning, e.g. noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, conjunction. Similar to word class.

Neutral (language)

A way of speaking or writing that is neither formal nor informal, but in between. This type of language is appropriate for most situations; e.g. When you meet someone in a formal situation you say, 'How do you do' or 'Hello'. In an informal situation you say 'Hi' or 'Hello'. 'Hello' can be used in both formal and informal situations as it is neutral.

False friend

A word in the target language which looks or sounds similar to a word in the learners' first language but does not have the same meaning in both languages. For example, in French, 'librairie' is a place where people can buy books. In English, a library is a place you may go to borrow books rather than somewhere where you buy books (a bookshop).

Key word

A word or type of language in a text which is important for understanding the text. Teachers often teach the key words in a text before learners read it so that the text is more manageable for them.

Synonym

A word which has the same, or nearly the same, meaning as another word; e.g. nice is a synonym of pleasant.

Homophone

A word which sounds the same as another word, but has a different meaning and may have a different spelling, e.g. I knew he had won; I bought a new book.

Homonym

A word with the same spelling or pronunciation as another word, but which has a different meaning. There are two types of homonym: homographs, which are words with the same spelling but which have different meanings,e.g. bit (past form of 'bite') and a bit (a little), and homophones, which have the same pronunciation but different spelling and different meanings, e.g. write and right.

Introductory activity

An activity which takes place at the beginning of a lesson. Introductory activities often include warmers and lead-ins which teachers use to get learners thinking about a topic or to raise energy levels.

Exponent

An example of a grammar point, function or lexical set; e.g. Can you open the window, please? is an exponent for making requests.

Extension (activity)

An extension task is an activity which gives learners more practice of target language or the topic of the lesson or provides extra skills work; e.g. after learners have practised using the past simple by telling each other about their last holiday, they could do an extension task which involves writing sentences about the holidays they talked about.

Idiom

An unchangeable phrase or expression, in which the meaning of the phrase is different from the meaning of each individual word; e.g. She felt under the weather means that she felt ill.

Chunk

Any pair or group of words commonly found together or near one another, e.g. phrasal verbs (get on), idioms (it drives me crazy), collocations (make the bed), fixed expressions (How do you do?).

Pre-teach (vocabulary)

Before introducing a text to learners, the teacher can teach key vocabulary from the text which he/she thinks the learners do not already know and which they need in order to understand the main points of a text. For example, if learners are going to listen to a weather report, before they listen they match pictures of different weather to words for different types of weather (cloudy, sunny, foggy, etc.). The teacher is pre-teaching key words from the text.

Complex (language)

Complicated, not simple; e.g. some English grammar is easy to understand, some grammar is more complex.

Text type

Different types of texts, each of which has specific features such as layout and use of language. These features make them part of a recognisable type of text; e.g. letters, emails, news reports are different text types.

Diphthong

Diphthongs are vowel sounds. They are a combination of two single vowel sounds said one after the other to produce a new sound; e.g. /aɪ/ as in 'my' is pronounced by saying /æ/ and /ɪ/ together. There are eight diphthongs in English.

Subskill

Each of the four language skills can be divided into smaller subskills that are all part of the main skill; e.g. identifying text organisation is a subskill of reading; identifying word stress is a listening subskill.

Varieties of English

English is spoken as a first or second language in many countries around the world, but the English spoken may be slightly or significantly different in each country or in different parts of one country; e.g. different vocabulary or grammar may be used. An example of this is the English spoken in the USA and that spoken in the UK.

Guide

Help and advice about how to do something. Teachers give learners guidance with learning, or with doing a task.

Weak form

In connected speech, if a word is unstressed, the weak form of vowels is used. Words which do not carry important information in sentences are usually unstressed and their vowels are pronounced as weak forms - words such as prepositions, articles, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs, e.g. I can (/kən /) speak Italian. It's the (ðə) best film ever. The sound /ə/ is called the schwa.

Receptive skills

In language teaching we talk about the four skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Reading and listening are receptive skills because learners receive language; they do not have to produce language.

Lexis

Individual words or sets of words, e.g. homework, study, whiteboard, get dressed, be on time.

Colloquial

Language normally used in informal conversation but not in formal speech or writing, e.g. Give Gran a ring, OK?

Informal language

Language used in informal conversations or writing, e.g. Hi John.

Inappropriate

Language which is not suitable in a particular situation; e.g. it is inappropriate to say Open the door, will you? to a stranger; it would be more appropriate to say: Would you mind opening the door, please?

Appropriacy / appropriate

Language which is suitable in a particular situation; e.g. it might be appropriate to say Hi in one situation but Good morning in another.

Extensive reading / listening

Listening to or reading long pieces of text, such as stories or newspapers. Extensive reading is often reading for pleasure. See intensive listening/reading.

Compound

Nouns, verbs, adjectives or prepositions that are made up of two or more words and have one unit of meaning, e.g. assistant office manager, long-legged.

intensive reading/listening

One meaning of intensive listening/reading is listening or reading to focus on how language is used in a text. This is how intensive listening/reading is used in TKT. See extensive listening/reading, gist, detail.

Extract

Part of a text which is removed from an original, longer text. Newspaper articles can be very long, so teachers sometimes choose just a few of the paragraphs from an article for learners to read in class. This gives learners practice in reading extracts from authentic material.

Stress

Pronouncing part of a word (syllable) or part of a sentence louder and longer than other parts, e.g. VEGetable, I LOVE baNAnas. Some parts of words and sentences are stressed and some are unstressed.

Scan

Reading a text to look for specific information and paying no attention to everything else in the text, e.g. looking for a word you want to know the meaning of in a dictionary.

Brainstorm

To quickly think of ideas about a topic and also possibly note them down. This is often done as preparation before a writing or speaking activity; e.g. before learners write a description of their city they make a list of all the positive and negative adjectives they know to describe places.

Secondary stress

Secondary stress is stress on a syllable or word in a sentence which is less strong than the primary (main) stress, e.g. /prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ has the primary or main stress on /eɪ/ and the secondary stress on /ˌnʌn/. Secondary stress is marked in the dictionary with e.g. prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən.

Sentence stress

Sentence stress is about the way some words in a sentence are stressed and some are unstressed. The stressed words are usually the information-carrying words or content words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. For example, It was a lovely evening, and the temperature was perfect.

Primary / main stress

Some sentences and longer words may have more than one part stressed, These words and sentences have a primary or main stress which is the part that is loudest and longest. For example, pronunciation - prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən. The main stress is on the /eɪ/ part of the word. The primary or main stress on a word is marked in the dictionary with e.g. prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən.

Connected speech

Spoken language in which the words join to form a connected stream of sounds. In connected speech some sounds in words may be left out or some sounds may be pronounced in a weak way or some words might join together, e.g. Is he busy /ɪzibɪzi/. See linking, weak forms.

Discourse

Spoken language or written language in texts, e.g. groups of sentences which are spoken or written.

Schwa

The /ə/ sound is called the schwa. It is a feature of many weak forms, e.g. /kən/ in I can play tennis.

Accuracy

The ability to do something without making mistakes. Accuracy is the use of correct forms of grammar, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. In an accuracy activity, teachers and learners usually focus on using and producing language correctly.

Lead-in

The activity or activities used to prepare learners to work on a text, topic or task. A lead-in often includes an introduction to the topic of the text or task and possibly study of some new key language required for the text or task.

Form

The form of a grammatical structure is the way it is written or pronounced and the parts which combine to make it; e.g. the present perfect simple (grammatical structure) is made up of have + past participle (this is the form).

Formality / informality (level of) / register

The formality or informality of language used in a particular situation. Formal register or formal language is language which is used in serious or important situations, e.g. in a job application. Informal register or informal language is language used in relaxed or friendly situations, e.g. with family or friends. Register may also refer to language which is specific to a particular group, e.g. technical register, scientific register.

Skill

The four language skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Base word

The main word or part of a word from which other words can be made by adding a prefix or suffix; e.g. help is the root or base word of helpful, unhelpful and helpless.

Antonym

The opposite of another word, e.g. hot is an antonym of cold.

Function

The reason or purpose for using language, e.g. making a suggestion; giving advice.

Rhythm

The rhythm of speech is the way that some words in a sentence are emphasised or stressed to produce a regular pattern, e.g. If I were YOU, I'd go by BUS.

Phoneme

The smallest sound unit which can make a difference to meaning e.g. /p/ in pan, /b/ in ban. Phonemes have their own symbols (phonemic symbols), each of which represents one sound.

Phonology

The study of sounds in a language or languages. When teaching new language, teachers focus on teaching sounds and on other phonological areas such as stress and intonation.

Skim

To read a text quickly to get a general idea of what it is about - e.g. reading a description of a city to find out if it sounds like somewhere you'd like to visit.

Text structure

The way a text is organised. For example, an essay typically has an introduction, a main section and a conclusion.

Layout

The way in which a text is organised and presented on a page. Certain texts have special layouts; e.g. letters and newspaper articles have different layouts - when you look at them, the text is presented differently on the page.

Cohesion

The way spoken or written texts are joined together with grammar or lexis, e.g. conjunctions (Firstly, secondly), topic related vocabulary, pronouns (e.g. it, them, this).

Intonation

The way the level of a speaker's voice changes to show meaning such as how they feel about something; e.g. the level of your voice when you are angry is different from the level of your voice when you are pleased. Intonation can be rising or falling or both.

Ask for clarification

To ask for an explanation of what a speaker means, e.g. What do you mean?

Request

To ask someone (politely) to do something, e.g. Please could you open the window?

Evaluate

To assess or decide on the quality, importance or effectiveness of something. Teachers may evaluate learners' progress or strengths and weaknesses. Teachers also evaluate their own lessons and think about the things that went well and the things that they could improve in future lessons.

Infer attitude, feeling, mood

To decide how a writer or speaker feels about something from the way that they speak or write, rather than from what they openly say. Teachers might help learners to infer attitude by helping them to understand intonation. For example, learners could listen to a recording and say if they think the person is happy or sad.

Deduce meaning from context

To guess the meaning of an unknown word or phrase by using the information in a situation and/or around the word to help, e.g. I drove my van to the town centre and parked it in the central car park. We know from the sentence that van must be some kind of vehicle because you drive it and park it.

Distinguish

To identify the difference between two or more things

Read / listen for detail

To listen to or read a text in order to understand most of what it says; e.g. learners listening for detail to someone talking about a their last holiday would have a task to listen for where the holiday was, when it was, how long it was, what things the person did etc.

Voiced sound

To produce a voiced sound, the voice is used, e.g. /b/ in bad, /d/ in dentist. Movement or vibration can be felt in the throat. Vowels in English are voiced.

Unvoiced sound

To produce an unvoiced sound, no voice is used, e.g. /p/ in pad, /t/ in tomorrow. No movement or vibration can be felt in the throat.

Emphasise

When special force or attention is given to a word or information because it is important

Read / listen for gist (global understanding)

To read or listen to a text and understand the general meaning of it, without paying attention to specific details - for example, reading a restaurant review quickly to find out if the writer liked the restaurant or not.

Recall

To remember, bring something back into the mind; e.g. in a test, learners might have to recall vocabulary they learned the week before.

Edit

To shorten or change or correct the words or content of some parts of a written text to make it clearer or easier to understand; e.g. learners might edit the first draft of a text they have written to correct the mistakes.

Convey meaning

To show, express or communicate meaning. Teachers focus on conveying meaning when they present new language.

Narrate

To tell a story or talk about something that has happened. Teachers often narrate stories to learners in class.

Minimal pairs

Two words which are different from each other by only one meaningful sound (or phoneme), e.g. hit /hɪt/; heat /hiːt/.

Comprehension

Understanding something which is spoken or written. Teachers give learners comprehension tasks to help them understand listening and reading texts or to assess understanding.

Predict, prediction

Using your experience or knowledge to say what you think will happen in the future. Prediction is a technique or learning strategy learners can use to help with listening or reading. Learners think about the topic before they read or listen. They try to imagine what the topic will be or what they are going to read about or listen to, using clues like headlines or pictures accompanying the text or their general knowledge about the text type or topic. This makes it easier for learners to understand what they read or hear.

Coherence

When ideas in a spoken or written text fit together clearly and smoothly, and so are logical and make sense to the listener or reader. Teachers help learners to be coherent by getting them to plan what they will include in a text before they write it.

Word boundary

Where one word ends and the next one begins, e.g. the word boundary in ice cream is the place between the e in ice and the c in cream. Word boundaries are important in connected speech because we might drop a letter or join words together at a word boundary.

Collocation

Words which are regularly used together. The relation between the words may be grammatical, for example when certain verbs/adjectives collocate with particular prepositions, e.g. depend on, good at, or when a verb like make or do collocates with a noun, e.g. do the shopping, make a plan. Collocations may also be lexical when two content words are regularly used together, e.g. We went the wrong way NOT We went the incorrect way.

(Grammatical) structure

grammatical language pattern; e.g. present perfect simple is a grammatical structure.

Word stress

is about which syllable of a word is pronounced louder and longer - e.g. umBRELLa /ʌmˈbrelə/.

Contrastive stress

is used when we compare or contrast and involves stressing the word we are comparing or contrasting, e.g. It was my AUNT who bought the car (not my uncle) or My aunt bought the CAKE (not the biscuits)!