Native language

Primary or first language spoken by an individual. See L1.

Native speaker

Someone who has spoken a particular language since they were a baby, rather than having learnt it as a child or adult. See L1/L2 and mother tongue.

Natural approach

Created by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell (1983), the Natural approach involved the learners into TPR activities, but at the beginning level when “comprehensible input” is essential. The authors believed that the learners would benefit from delaying production until speech “emerges,” that learners should be as relaxed as possible in the classroom, and that a great deal of communication and acquisition should take place. The Natural aimed at basic communication skills, that is, everyday language situations like conversations, shopping, listening to the radio, and so forth. Pioneered by Krashen, this approach combines acquisition and learning as a means of facilitating language development in adults.

Natural order

Some people believe there is an order in which learners naturally learn some items in their first or other languages. Some language items are learned before others and it can be difficult for teachers to influence this order.

Needs

The language, language skills or learning strategies a learner still has to learn in order to reach their goals, or the conditions they need to help them learn.

Norm-referenced assessment

An assessment in which an individual or group's performance is compared with a larger group. Usually the larger group is representative of a cross-section of all US students.

O

Odd-one-out

A task type in which learners have to find usually a word among three or four words that do not belong to the same lexical category. For example, cat, dog, pen, mouse – the ~ will be pen because it does not constitute part of the given lexical set of animals.

Off task

When learners are distracted or not completing an activity in the way the teacher wants them to do it then they are off task. See on task.

On task

When learners are doing an activity in the way the teacher intended that it should be done then learners are on task. See off task.

One-minute paper

A short test with a few simple questions that can be answered briefly in a minute.

Open class, whole class

When the teacher leads the class and each learner is focusing on the teacher, rather than working alone or in groups. When learners respond, they do so in front of everyone in the class.