Glossary

authentic materials

Resources such as newspapers, magazines,and news broadcasts; designed to communicate information or meaning rather than to facilitate language learning.

authentic situations

Communicative tasks (real or simulated) that require the use of language as it would be employed by a native speaker (that is, colloquial, idiomatic). Authentic situations are distinct from artificial situations that test particular vocabulary and structures rather than communicate meaning (e.g., memorized conversations).

cloze

An instructional technique that uses a written passage (a paragraph of at least four or five sentences) in which every nth word is deleted. Students fill in the missing words using contextual clues. This technique tests students' compre hension as well as their ability to understand vocabulary and appropriate grammatical form.

communucative competence

The ability to use listening, speaking, reading, and writing to communicate meaning. It implies a command of vocabulary and an understanding of grammar, idiom, and culturally appropriate behaviour. Acquiring communicative competence is the goal of the Punjabi 5 to 12 curriculum. The communicative approach focusses on language use rather than usage and on fluency rather than accuracy.

jigsaw technique

An instructional technique that promotes cooperative learning. This technique consists of dividing information among students who must then pool their information to complete a task. Typically, there are four steps:

1. Divide students into Home Groups and present an overview of the task.
2. Give each Home Group member a different part of the task so that one student in each group has the same information (e.g., divide a reading into several parts). Students with the same information then leave their Home Groups and form an Expert Group.
3. Expert Group members work together to gain sufficient understanding of their information toteach it to others in their respective Home Groups (e.g., they may have to relate a sequence of events, choose relevant data, or decide on a main idea).
4. Students return to their Home Groups, and experts share their knowledge with the others. The Home Group is responsible for helping all of its members understand the information and complete the task.

standard Punjabi

The modern, literary form of Punjabi, based on the Majhi and Malwi dialects. Also know as CentralPunjabi.  Because the political, commercial, cultural, and educational centres of Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Lahore are located in the Majhi and Malwi-speaking territories, it is the most widely used form of Punjabi.

strip story

A language-teaching technique that enables students to comprehend unfamiliar vocabulary, practise pronunciation, and understand the logical sequence. The sentences of a short story are put into separate strips. Each student in a group receives one sentence and memorizes it. The strips are then removed, and the students work with other group members to reconstruct the story by repeating their lines to each other until a logical sequences emerges.

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