ELT

English Language Teaching (ELT) is the professional and academic field concerned with teaching English to speakers of other languages. It comprises the methodology, materials, assessment, teacher education, and institutional infrastructure surrounding non-native English instruction across primary, secondary, tertiary, and adult settings worldwide. ELT is one major application area of applied linguistics without being reducible to it: classroom craft, materials design, and curriculum decisions involve professional judgements that no research finding alone determines.

Major Branches

The field divides by learner context and purpose:

1. ESL (English as a Second Language): Teaching English in settings where English is the dominant societal language (e.g., adult migrant programmes in the UK, US, Australia, Canada).
2. EFL (English as a Foreign Language): Teaching English in contexts where it is not the dominant societal language and learners encounter it primarily in the classroom (most of Vietnam, Korea, Japan, continental Europe, Latin America).
3. ESP (English for Specific Purposes): Tailored instruction for particular professional or vocational domains (business, medicine, aviation, law). Driven by needs analysis rather than a generic syllabus.
4. EAP (English for Academic Purposes): The largest branch of ESP, preparing learners for study and research in English-medium higher education.

The ESL/EFL distinction has become contested as English use globalises: many learners in nominally EFL countries now use English daily online, in workplaces, and in higher education, blurring the categorical line.

Methodology

ELT methodology has cycled through identifiable approaches: grammar-translation (19th century), the direct method (early 20th), audiolingualism (mid-20th), the communicative turn (CLT, from the 1970s), task-based language teaching (from the 1980s), the lexical approach (1990s), and the more eclectic, principled-pluralist orientation that has dominated since. Most contemporary classroom practice draws on multiple traditions rather than committing to a single named approach.

The Industry

ELT is also a global industry. Major publishers (Cambridge, Oxford, Pearson, Macmillan, National Geographic), examination boards (Cambridge Assessment, IDP/British Council/Cambridge for IELTS, ETS for TOEFL), and teacher-training providers (CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, DELTA) constitute the institutional spine of the field. The economic scale shapes which methodologies become entrenched, which materials reach learners, and which qualifications gatekeep teacher employment.