time expressions n
words or phrases that indicate time, such as after, last weekend, in an hour.
time lines n
in teaching grammar, a visual representation of time consisting of a horizon-
tal line from left (earlier) to right (later), on or parallel to which are indicated
points or periods of time, and the relationship between them. Time lines
are used to teach the meanings of verb tenses.
time expressionstime on task n
also on-task time
(in teaching) the amount of time within a lesson in which students are
actively thinking about and working with the content of a lesson. The
amount of time that students spend “on task” in a lesson is one of the most
basic predictors of learning. Research has distinguished several ways in
which time is used within a lesson:
1 allocated time: the amount of time provided by the teacher for stu-
dent learning within a lesson. In secondary schools with a 50 minute
class period, teachers typically allocate between 30–35 minutes for
instruction.
2 time on task or engagement rate: time during which students are work-
ing on learning tasks.
3 academic learning time: a category of time on task which consists of
“high-quality” use of time, i.e. when students devote themselves to, and
succeed in, meaningful tasks.
Time-on task rates vary greatly in lessons and may be as low as 30% in
some lessons and as high as 90% in others. Effective teachers are said to be
successful in maintaining high rates of time on task and academic learning
time in lessons.
tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon n
the feeling that one is almost but not quite able to find a word that one is
trying to produce. People having the tip-of-the-tongue experience are often
able to recall some characteristics of the word, for example the initial
phoneme or the number of syllables, suggesting that these aspects of word
structure may be stored independently of others.