Tag Archives: term of art

Term of Art: Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

acquisition-learning hypothesis: A theory that there are two ways to describe the learning of language. One way is subconscious acquisition, which is how infants learn their native language. The other is learning through acquisition and study, which is the typical approach found in schools. Many teachers of foreign language now prefer the subconscious acquisition approach, which attempts to approximate living in a foreign country and being immersed in the use of the new language. See also immersion.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Term of Art: Agreement

“Agreement: The correspondence of a verb with its subject in person and number (Karen goes to Cal Tech; her sisters go to UCLA), and of a pronoun with its antecedent in person, number and gender (As soon as Karen finished the exam, she picked up her bookbag and left the room).”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Term of Art: Adverbial Phrase

“Adverbial Phrase: A phrase that functions as an adverb. Landon laughs with abandon.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Neurosis

None of us know, I guess, what’s going to happen with schools opening in the fall. Even with the best case scenario, opening schools is a dicey proposition. In any case, health teachers or just about anyone in a classroom come September, you may find this reading on neurosis and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet useful for helping your students understand their feelings.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Term of Art: Adverb

“Adverb: A word that modifies or otherwise qualifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Gestures gracefully; exceptionally quiet engine.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Term of Art: Social Fact

“Social Fact: A complex notion, with attributes of externality, constraint, and ineluctability. It is to be understood within the context of Emile Durkheim’s conception of collective conscience and collective representations. Social facts are ways of acting which emanate from collectively elaborated and therefore authoritative rules, maxims, and practices, both religious and secular. Norms and institutions are examples of social facts in more or less solidified forms. They constitute practices of the group taken collectively and thus impose themselves and are internalized by the individual. Because they are collectively elaborated they are moral and therefore constrain individual behavior. The interesting problem for sociologists concerns the gap between the ideal representations and the material social organizations and their constituent actions—as, for example, between the socially approved forms and the actual practice.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Term of Art: Theism

“Theism: A term which refers to the belief in the existence of a divine being, especially in the existence of a single God, who is thought to be personal and who is the Creator of the universe. Theism involves the idea of divine revelation, and consequently is contrasted with deism, the rational belief in divinity independent of faith in a revealed truth.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Term of Art: Adjective

“Adjective: A word that modifies, quantifies, or otherwise qualifies a noun or pronoun: Drizzly November; midnight dreary; only requirement.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Term of Art: Subjunctive

“Subjunctive: Indicating expression of something not actual or real but rather a desire, demand, plan, doubt, requirement, conception, etc., e.g., ‘Were I your sister….’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Term of Art: Relative

“Relative: Indicating reference to or dependence on an antecedent word, phrase, or clause, or introducing a subordinate clause, e.g., ‘which,’ ‘who,’ ‘whatever.’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.