organize, and practise language would the term “situational method”
strictly apply.situational syllabus n
see situational method
situation analysis n
also SWOT analysis, target situation analysis
in curriculum development, the identification of key factors that might
positively or negatively affect the implementation of a curriculum plan and
the study of the direct and indirect effects a proposed curriculum will have
on the students, on other programmes, and on other people in and outside
the institution. Such factors could be political, social, economic, institu-
tional, administrative, etc. Situation analysis is sometimes considereda
dimension of needs analysis. This is sometimes known as SWOT analysis
because it involves examination of a language programme’s internal strengths
and weaknessesin addition to external opportunitiesand threatsto the
existence or successful operation of the language programme.
skewness n
a measure of the lack of symmetry of a distribution. When there are
more low scores than high scores, its distribution is positively skewed,
whereas when there are more high scores than low scores, its distribution
is negatively skewed.
skill n
an acquired ability to perform an activity well, usually one that is made
up of a number of co-ordinated processes and actions. Many aspects of
language learning are traditionally regarded as the learning of skills, such
as learning to speak, or read fluently.
see automatic processing
skills n
(in language teaching) another term for language skills
skimming n
a type of reading strategyin which the reader samples segments of a text in
order to achieve a general understanding of its meaning. Skimming involves
the use of strategies for guessing where important information might be in
a text and then using basic reading comprehension skills on those parts of
the text until a general idea of its meaning is reached.
see SCANNING
situational syllabus