UAE TLS English Subject Test flashcards
UAE TLS English Subject Test · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Listening for gist
- Understanding the main idea or general meaning of an audio text without focusing on every detail. It is usually tested with summary or main-idea items.
- Listening for detail
- Extracting specific information such as names, numbers, times, or reasons from an audio text. Answers are usually short and constrained by word limits.
- Connected speech features
- Features of natural spoken English including elision, assimilation, weak forms, and contractions. Recognizing them supports decoding fast speech in listening tasks.
- Skimming
- Reading quickly to grasp the main idea or overall structure of a text. It supports gist questions and matching-headings tasks.
- Scanning
- Reading quickly to locate specific information such as dates, names, or figures without reading every word. It supports detail questions.
- Inference in reading
- Drawing a conclusion that is logically implied by stated evidence in the text. The answer must be warranted by the passage, not merely plausible.
- Not Given
- A true/false/not-given category meaning the text neither confirms nor denies the statement. It differs from False, which contradicts the text.
- Present perfect
- A verb form (have/has + past participle) linking a past action to present relevance. It is incompatible with finished past time markers such as yesterday.
- Third conditional
- A structure (if + past perfect, would have + past participle) expressing an unreal past situation and its imagined result.
- Reported speech backshift
- Tense shifting in indirect speech (present to past, will to would) together with changes to time and place references.
- Non-defining relative clause
- A relative clause giving extra information, set off by commas, which cannot use 'that'. A defining clause takes no commas.
- Modals of deduction
- Modal verbs expressing certainty or possibility: must (strong certainty), might/may/could (possibility), can't (impossibility).
- Paragraph unity
- The quality of a paragraph that develops one controlling idea, stated in a topic sentence and supported by relevant detail.
- Comma splice
- An error in which two independent clauses are joined only by a comma. It is corrected with a semicolon, period, or coordinating conjunction.
- Process writing stages
- Planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Revision addresses content and organization; editing addresses mechanics and accuracy.
- Communicative Language Teaching
- An approach prioritizing meaningful interaction and fluency, with accuracy work supporting rather than replacing communication.
- Washback
- The influence of testing on teaching and learning. High-stakes tests can produce negative washback such as teaching to the test.
- Formative assessment
- Assessment during learning that informs teaching and learning, using observation, questioning, and exit tickets. It contrasts with summative assessment.
- Scaffolding
- Temporary support such as models, prompts, or graphic organizers that is gradually withdrawn as learner independence grows.
- Pre-listening tasks
- Activities before listening, such as predicting from the title or pre-teaching key vocabulary, that activate schemata and reduce cognitive load.
- Dictogloss
- A listening activity in which learners hear a short text, reconstruct it collaboratively from notes, and compare with the original.
- Extensive reading
- Reading large volumes of comprehensible text for fluency and vocabulary growth. It contrasts with intensive reading of short texts for close analysis.
- Top-down processing
- Using prior knowledge, context, and expectations to interpret a text. It contrasts with bottom-up processing of letters, words, and syntax.
- Inductive presentation
- A grammar presentation in which learners discover the rule from examples. It contrasts with deductive presentation, which states the rule first.
- Concept-checking questions
- Questions that verify learners' understanding of a language item's meaning and use, not just its form.
- Recycling vocabulary
- Revisiting vocabulary through spaced retrieval across lessons to strengthen retention, rather than relying on single exposure.
- Genre approach
- A writing approach teaching the moves and language features of specific text types such as recount, report, argument, and procedure.
- Analytic rubric
- A scoring scale that rates separate criteria such as content, organization, and language. It contrasts with a holistic scale giving one overall score.
- Placement test
- An assessment that assigns learners to a level. It contrasts with diagnostic tests, which identify specific strengths and weaknesses before instruction.
- Constructive alignment
- The principle that learning objectives, teaching activities, and assessment tasks should target the same intended outcomes.
- Second conditional
- A structure (if + past simple, would + base verb) expressing unreal or hypothetical present or future situations.
- Embedded question
- A question inside a statement that keeps statement word order, as in 'Do you know where he lives?'.