Contrast of ESL & EFL

Acronyms are fashionable and provide a sense of membership in a unique Tlite club. Teachers have not been spared the malady. Teachers of English to non-native speakers of English have devised the following acronymic cornucopia.

EFL (English as a Foreign Language) is sometimes referred to as TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) or TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), or ELT (English Language Teaching), or FLT (Foreign Language Teaching), or TEIL (Teaching English as an International Language). ELT and TEIL are more British than American. FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary School) is American. The other acronyms are used on both sides of the pond.

ESL (English as a Second Language), though apparently more specific than EFL, can be found as TESD (Teaching English as a Second Dialect).

Both ESL and EFL may find specific variations in ESP (English for Specific/Special Purposes) or EOP (English for Occupational Purposes).

To complete the picture, one also finds TENL (Teaching English as a Native Language), TEMT (Teaching English as Mother Tongue), TEFL (Teaching English as a First Language), and a few more.

The trouble with this alphabet soup is that, not only can there be different interpretations between British and American practitioners (Not to speak of Canadians and Australians), but there is little consensus and explicative literature about conceptual and methodologica

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, and cognitive sets do affect language acquisition and learning, and must be foremost targets of didactic methodology. The next hardest task for the learner of a foreign language is the revelation that English lacks the rigidity of structure of one's native language. To the Japanese, the Arabs, the Spaniards, and the French, for instance, English's fluidity is a matter of consternation. Otto Jespersen (1905) said it better than anyone else: "The English language is a methodical, energetic business-like and sober language, that does not care much for finery and elegance, but does care for logical consistency and is opposed to any attempt to narrow-in life by police regulation and strict rules either of grammar or lexicon. As the language is, so also is the nation". This is the genius and the weakness of English. Would that a Hitler or a Hussein had understood this! For the teacher, this characteristic of English, which makes it richer and more adaptable than most other languages, calls for a very difficult task: to convince the EFL learner that not all well-educated native English speakers use linguistic rules with consistency--particularly when there are no rules, and that they may fancy certain structures or expressions because
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Approximate Word count = 5370
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)

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