between actual teaching performance and ideal teaching behaviour,
guiding the student teacher’s development and offering suggestions for
improvement. When the supervisor acts more as a consultant or facilitator,
the goal is to explore aspects of teaching that have been determined through
negotiation, and to encourage teacher self-development through reflection
and self-observation.
see also reflective teaching, clinical supervisionsupplementary materials n
in language teaching, learning materials which are used in addition to a
course book. They often deal more intensively with skills that the course
book does not develop or address in detail.
suppletion n
(in morphology) a type of irregularity in which there is a complete change
in the shape of a word in its various inflected forms (see inflection).
For example, English good – better – best does not follow the normal pat-
tern as in tall – taller – tallest but uses different forms for the comparative
and the superlative (see comparative) of the adjective good.
supporting sentences n
(in composition) sentences in a paragraph which support, illustrate or explain
the topic sentence.
suprasegmental n
(in phoneticsand phonology) a unit which extends over more than one
sound in an utterance, e.g. stressand tone (see tone,^1 tone^2 ). The term
suprasegmental is used particularly by American linguists.
see also intonation, prominence, segmental phonemes
surface structure n
see generative theory, phrase structure
surrender value n
(in language teaching) a term borrowed from life insurance and sometimes
used to refer to the functional skills which a learner has acquired at any
given point in a language course, and which the learner would be able to use
even if he or she did not continue learning beyond that point. Courses
where elements are organized so that items of high need are taught first have
high surrender value.
sustained attention n
see attention
supplementary materials