Terminology

Input and output

Example: An English person learns Urdu. Or a Nigerian learns Urdu on the basis of English because he cannot get hold of a Urdu course written in Yoruba. In that case, English is treated as his "native language" and Urdu is treated as the "foreign language", the language to be learnt.

When this student is testing his mastery of vocabulary with the help of a list containing English words and their Urdu equivalents, i.e. "pairs" of (English, Urdu) words, he will probably be given an English word (the input or stimulus) and asked to produce the Urdu equivalent (i.e. translate the English word into Urdu). In this case the Urdu word is the output or his response.

Each pair of words is called "an item". Trying to produce the right response (model response, model answer) for an item is called "trying an item" or "tackling an item", "doing an item".

Each half of a pair/item is called an "element".

The exercise: 10 pairs = 10 items

"Pairs" are grouped into Exercises. Each exercise consists of
10 pairs - 10 items.

"To do an exercise" or "to learn an exercise" (= learn the contents of an exercise) or "to master an exercise" means to work through the exercise (in strict accordance with the rules of DYLL) until the student has given 10 correct responses in succession.

At more advanced levels of DYLL, we will come accross exercises of different lengths: e.g. 5, 20 and 30 items (n items). In that case mastery is defined as n correct responses in succession.

Mastery = n correct responses in succession, where usually n = 10.

Exercises where n <> 10 are usually prescribed for unusually difficult languages or for learners with unusualy learning characteristics.