a number that represents some feature of the data, such as measures of
central tendencyand dispersion.descriptive writing n
see modes of writing
descriptor n
a description of the level of performance required of a test taker for a
specific level or bandon a rating scale. A descriptor can be general,
consisting of a short sentence, or fairly detailed, consisting of a paragraph
with several sentences.
see also scoring rubric
deskilling n
the loss of skills which a person once had through lack of use. In teaching,
deskilling refers to the removal of a teacher’s responsibility and participa-
tion in certain important aspects of teaching, leaving the teacher to deal
with lower-level aspects of instruction. Some educators argue that the
over-dependence on textbooks deskills teachers, since textbooks do much
of the thinking and planning that teachers themselves should be allowed
to do.
detection n
see attention
determiner n
a word which is used with a noun, and which limits the meaning of the noun
in some way. For example, in English the following words can be used as
determiners:
aarticles, e.g. apencil, thegarden
bdemonstratives, e.g. thisbox, that car
c possessives, e.g. herhouse, my bicycle
dquantifiers, e.g. somemilk, manypeople
e numerals, e.g. the firstday, threechairs
developmental bilingual education n
also late-exit bilingual education
bilingual education programmes for language minority students who enter
school with limited or no proficiency in English but who are proficient in
other languages. Such programmes are intended to maintain the students’
proficiency in home languages while promoting effective development of
English.
developmental bilingual education