TKT: Young Learners flashcards
TKT: Young Learners · 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.
- Zone of Proximal Development
- Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with help from a more able other; teaching targets this gap.
- Scaffolding
- Temporary support such as models, prompts, gestures or sentence frames that lets a learner complete a task, gradually withdrawn as the learner's competence grows.
- Affective filter
- Krashen's idea that anxiety, low motivation or low self-confidence act as a filter that reduces how much language input learners actually take in.
- Comprehensible input
- Language slightly beyond the learner's current level (i+1) that can still be understood through context, gestures and visuals, making acquisition possible.
- Concrete operational stage
- Piaget's stage at roughly ages 7–11, when children reason about concrete objects and events but not abstract ideas, so grammar needs concrete examples.
- Multiple intelligences
- Gardner's model of eight ways of being intelligent, including linguistic, spatial, musical and bodily-kinaesthetic; teachers use it to vary activity types in lessons.
- Silent period
- A stage in early second language acquisition when a child understands but chooses not to speak; forcing production too early raises anxiety and slows progress.
- Enactive representation
- Bruner's first mode of representing knowledge, through physical action and doing; it is followed by iconic (images) and then symbolic (language) representation.
- Lesson aim
- A statement of what learners will be able to do by the end of the lesson; it should be learner-centred and describe observable behaviour.
- Subsidiary aim
- A secondary aim in a lesson plan, often about skills, attitudes or classroom language, that supports the main aim of the lesson.
- Stir and settle
- A planning principle of alternating energising activities (stir) with calming ones (settle) to manage young learners' energy and keep attention on task.
- Total Physical Response
- Asher's method in which learners respond physically to spoken commands; it suits kinaesthetic young beginners and requires no early spoken production from them.
- Pre-story stage
- The part of a story-based lesson before learners read or listen, in which they predict content, meet key vocabulary and activate what they already know.
- Interaction pattern
- The grouping arrangement for a task: whole class, pair, group or individual work; changing it alters participation, noise level and learner involvement.
- Anticipated problems
- Difficulties a teacher predicts a lesson may cause, such as a confusing task or missing vocabulary, together with the solutions planned in advance.
- Task-based lesson
- A lesson organised around completing a meaningful task with a real outcome, with explicit language focus coming after the task rather than before it.
- Recast
- An indirect correction in which the teacher repeats a learner's incorrect utterance correctly, without explicitly pointing out that an error was made.
- Instruction-checking question
- A question asked after giving instructions, such as "Do we write or draw?", to confirm that learners have understood what to do.
- Choral drill
- A pronunciation activity in which the whole class repeats a word or phrase together after the teacher, usually followed by group and then individual repetition.
- Teacher talk
- The adjusted language teachers use with young learners: short sentences, repetition, gestures, concrete vocabulary and a slower delivery than normal speech.
- Specific praise
- Positive feedback that names exactly what was done well, for example the language used or the behaviour shown, rather than a general "well done".
- Classroom routine
- A repeated sequence such as a hello song, register or goodbye ritual that gives young learners security and reduces management problems in class.
- Delayed correction
- A strategy of noting errors while learners do a fluency activity and dealing with them afterwards, so that the flow of communication is not interrupted.
- Monitoring
- The teacher circulating and watching learners work without intervening, in order to collect information about progress, difficulties and errors for later feedback.
- Formative assessment
- Ongoing assessment during learning, through observation, questioning and feedback, used to adjust teaching rather than to give a final grade.
- Summative assessment
- Assessment at the end of a unit, term or course that measures what learners have achieved overall, for example a test, project or portfolio review.
- Portfolio assessment
- Collecting dated samples of a learner's work over time to show progress and provide evidence for feedback to learners and parents.
- Observation checklist
- A pre-written list of target language or behaviours that the teacher ticks when observed, giving a systematic record of continuous classroom assessment.
- Can-do statement
- A description of what a learner is able to do in the language, used for self-assessment and for reporting progress in positive, non-comparative terms.
- Pre A1 Starters
- The first of Cambridge English's three qualifications for young learners, with Listening, Reading and Writing, and Speaking papers reported by shields.
- Shields
- The reporting system for Cambridge English young learner exams: one to five shields per paper, with no pass or fail grade awarded to the child.
- Diagnostic assessment
- Assessment carried out before teaching to identify what learners already know and where the gaps are, so that planning can address them.