present tensen
a tense which typically relates the time of an action or state to the pre-
sent moment in time. In English the present tense can also be used to
refer to future time (e.g. We leave tomorrow) or to timeless expressions
(e.g. Cats have tails), and for this reason it is sometimes called the non-
past tense.
see also aspect
preservice educationn
alsopreservice training
(in teacher education) a course or programme of study which student
teachers complete before they begin teaching. This may be compared
withinservice education, which refers to experiences which are pro-
vided for teachers who are already teaching and which form part of their
continued professional development. Preservice education often sets out
to show future teachers basic teaching techniques and give them a broad
general background in teaching and in their subject matter. Inservice
education or training usually takes place for a specific purpose and often
involves the following cycle of activities:
1 assess participants’ needs
2 determine objectives for inservice programme
3 plan content
4 choose methods of presentation and learning experiences
5 implement
6 evaluate effectiveness
7 provide follow-up assistance.
Inservice programmes for language teachers are sometimes referred to as
Continuing Education for Language Teachers (CELT).
presuppositionn presupposev
what a speaker or writer assumes that the receiver of the message already
knows. For example:
speaker A: What about inviting Simon tonight?
speaker B: What a good idea; then he can give Monica a lift.
Here, the presuppositions are, among others, that speakers A and B know
who Simon and Monica are, that Simon has a vehicle, most probably a car,
and that Monica has no vehicle at the moment. Children often presuppose
too much. They may say:
... and he said “let’s go” and we went there.
even if their hearers do not know who he is and where thereis.
see also coherence, cohesion
present tense