Frequently Used Acronyms

The TEFL/TESOL environment is full of acronyms. We have listed some of the frequently used acronyms. Try and get to grips with these through time.

ELT (English Language Teaching) has quite recently come into use as an umbrella term which aims to include everything in the Teaching English field. 

TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) are perhaps the most common terms. 

TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is another umbrella term, similar to ELT. In the USA, Canada, and Australia, the term TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is much more widely used than TEFL, but the concept is much the same. 

TEYL (Teaching English to Young Learners) is encompassed within TEFL/TESOL and is geared, as you would imagine, to teaching young learners of English.

TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) is teaching immigrants in English-speaking countries, though this area is also, confusingly, referred to as TESOL. The students are studying an ESL (English as a Second Language) course. 

CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) is an umbrella term for learner-centered, authentic and meaningful language acquisition principles that inform the most widely practiced language teaching approach used in second language learning classrooms today. It is also referred to as the Communicative Approach. Our course will follow this approach.

L1 is the term used for a student’s first language (the student’s native language). If someone asks you if you allow L1 in the classroom, they are asking if you allow your students to use their native language in class.

L2 stands for the second language a student is learning. Your students’ L2 will be English.

PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) is a widely used model of classroom teaching for lesson planning and lesson delivery. Some learning Providers call this the I do, We do, You do model of teaching. However, we will adhere to our 5 Step Lesson Plan model, which will keep you firmly on track all of the time.

STT (Student Talking Time) is the amount of time that students spend talking in class (ideally as much as possible).

TTT (Teacher Talking Time) is the amount of time you spend talking during a class (ideally as little as possible and much less than STT). 

There are more acronyms, but these will do us fine for the moment!

Later, we’ll look at another small group of acronyms, representing different types of EFL/ESOL courses that students may be taking and the specific examinations that some students may be preparing for. 

This course will prepare you to help students to enhance their English Language level per se.

But it will also prepare you to help those students who are aiming for a specific EFL/ESOL qualification, often for entry to university studies, for migration purposes or work reasons. All you will need to do is familiarize yourself with the specific syllabus relating to the examination.