Acquisition - A subconscious, intuitive, natural process; learner “knows” information but doesn’t know why or how they know
Communication - Act of conveying intended meaning to another entity through the use of mutually understood signs and rules. The basic steps of communication are the forming of communicative intent, message composition, message encoding, transmission of signal, reception of signal, message decoding and finally interpretation of the message by the recipient.
Comprehensible Input (CI) - What the teacher gives the students; in order for the input to be considered comprehensible, the student needs to understand what is being said and/or given. By making input comprehensible or understandable to students teachers use a maximum amount of the target language without feeling they have to revert to the mother tongue.
Focus on formS (FonFs) - Instruction involving a structure-of-the-day approach, where the students’ primary focus is on form (i.e., accuracy) and where the activities are directed intensively at a single grammatical structure. This approach, then, involves teaching grammar in a series of separate lessons. Also Form-Focused Instruction (FFI)
Focus on form (FonF) - A focus on meaning with attention to form arising out of the communicative activity
Functional Language Ability - Ability to accomplish real world communicative tasks such as handling a simple social transaction or resolving a situation with a complication
Interlanguage - A dynamic, rule-based linguistic system that has been developed by a learner of a second language (or L2) who has not yet reached proficiency
Interpretive Communication - Learners understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed on a variety of topics
Interpersonal Communication - Learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed, or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions
Language Learning - Conscious process; memorization of rules and/ or vocabulary lists
Proficiency - Communicate meaningful information in spontaneous communications with native speakers; does not mean perfection; how well a student can use functional language (often categorized as beginner, intermediate or advanced)
Performance - To communicate meaningful information in practiced, rehearsed, and familiar contexts; connected to a specific curriculum
Presentational Communication - Learners present information, concepts, and ideas to inform, explain, persuade, and narrate on a variety of topics using appropriate media and adapting to various audiences of listeners, readers, or viewers.
Universal Grammar (UG) - Theory in linguistics(Chomsky) proposing that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain; 'mental grammar', and as opposed to other 'grammars', e.g. prescriptive, descriptive and pedagogical. The human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. This implies in turn that all languages have a common structural basis/ rules.