NCCA uses cookies so that you have the best possible browsing experience on our website. If you agree that we can store and use cookies click 'Accept & Close'.Manage Cookies

Glossary

This glossary is intended to clarify concepts and terms used in this specification for the reader.

Ab initio: Ab initio is a Latin term meaning from the beginning (‘ab’ meaning from and ‘initio’ meaning beginning).
Action-oriented: This approach views learners as social agents and active participants in their own learning. It implies the use of the target language by learners while engaging in purposeful, collaborative tasks.
Aural: In aural reception activities, the language user receives and processes a spoken input produced by one or more speakers.*
CEFR: Common European Framework of Reference for Languages published by the Council of Europe in 2001. This a framework of reference that provides tools, guidelines and resources for the development of language curricula, textbooks and assessment tools and programmes to support the teaching and learning of languages. The CEFR Companion Volume was published in 2018.
Input: Instructions, materials, etc. selected or produced by teachers and/or learners.
Interaction: Interaction includes communicating, collaborating, turn-taking and/or asking for clarification in order to co-construct meaning and is fundamental to language learning.
Logograph: In a written language, a logograph is a written character that represents a word or phrase. A writing system, such as for Mandarin Chinese, that is based on logograms is called a logographic system.
Media literacy: Media literacy encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media. Media literacy is not restricted to one medium.
Multilingualism: The co-existence of different languages in society.
Mediation: In mediation, the user/learner acts as a social agent who creates bridges and helps to construct or convey meaning, sometimes within the same language, sometimes from one language to another (cross-linguistic mediation). The focus is on the role of language in processes like creating the space and conditions for communicating and/or learning, collaborating to construct new meaning, encouraging others to construct or understand new meaning, and passing on new information in an appropriate form. The context can be social, pedagogic, cultural, linguistic or professional.
Output: Language composed or generated by the learners themselves.
Plurilingualism: Plurilingualism is the dynamic and developing linguistic repertoire of an individual user/learner in which they draw on all of their linguistic and cultural resources and experiences in order to participate more fully in social and educational contexts.
Pluriculturalism: In a person’s cultural competence, the various cultures (national, regional, social) to which that person has gained access do not simply co-exist side by side; they are compared, contrasted and actively interact to produce an enriched, integrated pluricultural competence.
Production: Generating language through speaking and/or writing.
Reception: Receiving and processing language through listening and/or reading.
Task-based language learning: An approach to language learning where learners engage with real-life and authentic tasks through communication, providing meaningful opportunities to acquire language by using it.
Text: All products of language including oral, written and multi-modal content.
Translanguaging: The process whereby multilingual speakers use their plurilingual repertoire, as an integrated language system.

 

*  CEFR, Council of Europe, 2001, p. 65.
** CEFR, Council of Europe, 2001, p. 55.