ELT Terms Tongue in Cheek

Hanna Kryszewska, Poland

Hanna Kryszewska is a teacher, teacher trainer, trainer of trainers. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Gdańsk, and EU Teacher Training College where she trains pre-service teachers. She is also Director of Studies at SWPS, Sopot, Poland. She is co-author of resource books: Learner Based Teaching, OUP, Towards Teaching, Heinemann, The Standby Book, CUP, Language Activities for Teenagers, CUP and a course book series for secondary schools: ForMat, Macmillan. She is also co-author of a video based teacher training course: Observing English Lessons. Hania is a Pilgrims trainer and editor of HLT Magazine. E-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk

"A mistake is a gift to the class"

Caleb Gattegno

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Introduction
Task 1
Task 2
PS

Introduction

"A mistake is a gift to a class" although some teachers are not happy when their students are too 'generous'. But it is also a very special gift to the class if it has a humourous angle. My pre-service teachers have been very generous this end of term when taking their written tests; have made me smile when I was marking their test, which is a rare sight when a teacher marks test. I would like to share these 'gifts' with you.

Task 1

First read the following terms and decide how you would define them; or just google them. Easy…

KISS
work in pairs
attention span
metalanguage

VAKOG
information gap
flash cards

lead in
gap filling

Task 2

What do you make of these new terms; 'courtesy' of creative or stressed students in exam time. Enjoy…

KISS - Keep it Short and Sound
work in peers
attention spam
metal language

VAKOG - Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic Obligatory Gustatory
information gab
fresh cards

lead out
gap feeling

PS

If your students are creative in a similar way please write up their contributions for HLT.

The Skills of Teacher Training course can be viewed here
The Fun, Laughter and Learning course can be viewed here