Language accuracy means writing or speaking with few mistakes. Language fluency, on the other hand, means writing or speaking easily, with little need to pause. Levels of accuracy and fluency are determined, in part, by how easily a message is understood by a native speaker of the language.

See Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition.

A teacher can help learners understand and remember a new idea by first activating their prior knowledge related to this idea. Teachers aid learners’ awareness of their background knowledge by asking questions about their previous experience, reviewing related topics, and providing practice using contextual clues.

Active vocabulary refers to the words that a learner is able to use in speaking or writing without the aid of notes or a dictionary. Passive vocabulary, on the other hand, refers to the words a learner can understand but not produce spontaneously in speech or writing. A learner’s passive vocabulary will be larger than his/her active vocabulary.

See Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition.

Authentic materials are print, visual, or audio resources that are produced for native speakers of a language. Most language teachers use both authentic materials and materials produced specifically for language learners.

See dual language program.

Choral reading activities are those in which learners read aloud in unison. Simple, patterned readings are best for beginning learners. Choral reading activities can provide opportunities for learners at all levels to improve their command of target language pronunciation, stress, and intonation patterns. Many learners feel less nervous about readi [..]

In a cloze activity, the learner’s task is to replace words that have been deleted from a reading passage. Depending on the learner’s language proficiency and/or degree of content knowledge, a word bank may or may not be provided.

Cognates are words in two languages that sound similar and have similar meanings. For example, libertad in Spanish and liberty in English are cognates because the two words sound similar and have the same meaning. False cognates, one the other hand, are two words that sound similar but have different meanings. For example, embarazada in Spanish and [..]