sniglet (noun): any word that should be in the dictionary, but isn’t. (Hall, 1983).

I’ve been watching some old sniglet sketches from Not Necessarily the News recently. This one is by far my favourite (sorry for lack of quality):

Call me a bit TEFL-obsessed, but I figured that somebody somewhere must’ve already made a list of TEFL-related sniglets, (tiglets, perhaps?). I’m sure there’s a list out there. I couldn’t find it, although I did stumble across a preview of an article for using sniglets in class…

Anyway, here are a few tiglets I came up with today during a whole morning of tech problems in the staffroom. This is the best use of my planning time this year…

aimbiguous = unclear lesson aims

clinical approach = the tendency to teach all new vocab/grammar using clines, whether appropriate or not. A variant, the inclinical approach, includes lines which steadily move up the board, normally due to poor control of the whiteboard marker

collection techniques = failed attempts to help learners distinguish between /l/ and /r/

critteria = a bug on an assessment rubric

gistage = an unexpectedly long amount of time for a first listening task

ICQs = lines of teachers waiting outside a conference centre for the doors to open, normally in Siberia/Canada

morment = the sudden realisation during planning/teaching that you haven’t conveyed and checked meaning before highlighting form

PPP = starting a class in the knowledge that you need the toilet

rubricon /ˈru:brɪkɒn/ = assessment criteria for tasks about Italian rivers

rubricon /ru:bˈraɪkɒn/ = an icon in the world of writing assessment criteria

SLAting = criticising certain theorists, e.g. Krashen

subsi-diaries = a daily log book of all a teacher’s sub-aims used during the year

TEFAL = An English for Specific Purposes course for chefs

wayne-rubbing = attempts made at pronouncing the name of author Ruth Wajnryb

 

and as always, a bonus tiglet:

jimnod = a reference to Jim Scrivener as ‘old Jim…’. This is normally preceded by the following stages:

a) a teacher references Jim Scrivener in conversation

b) another teacher references Jim Scrivener as ‘Shrivener’

c) another teacher believes this is wrong and corrects the second teacher through a recast

d) pronunciation errors continue as the recast goes unnoticed

e) somebody sneakily glances at Learning Teaching, realises the author’s name is spelt with a ‘c’ (/k/) and emphasises this strongly when the name is next mentioned

f) everybody is confused and doubting themselves so they just revert to the author’s first name as if he’s a pal.

 

Please share a sniglet, sorry, tiglet or two in the comments. If we start now we’ll have a whole Tiglets Annual by Christmas J