What is the difference between ESL and EFL?
moha asked:
ESL is abbreviation for English as a Second Language and EFL is abbreviation for English as a Foreign Language.
This entry was posted
on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Studying Abroad.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
ESL is abbreviation for English as a Second Language and EFL is abbreviation for English as a Foreign Language.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Actually EFL is abbreviated as English as a First Language
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:51 am
They sort of mean the same thing, but generally nowadays EFL is preferred.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
It’s just a matter of semantics.
ESL (English as a Second Language) is mostly out of use as it is only appropriate where the student has only one other language, which is not always the case.
EFL (English as a Foreign Language (definitely not First, see the Wikipedia link)) is also becoming outdated as it is only useful if the language is not an official language of the country of residence.
The Term EAL (English as an Additional Language) is more encompassing as it applies to the maximum number of situations.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:36 am
ESL is English as a second language meaning you were raised speaking and reading another language. For example Spanish. Then you are trying to learn English, making it your second language.
EFL is English as the first language. You were raised speaking and reading English.
I have never heard of EFL being English as a foreign language.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
ESL is “English as a Second Language” and it usually means that you study English in an English speaking country, being a student there or an non-English speaking immigrant
EFL is “English as a Foreign Language” and that means you’re studying English in a non-English speaking country (your home country of China for example)
terms are often used together though with not much difference in meaning
There’s also “ESOL” - English to Speakers of Other Languages