Glossary
Teaching & Exam Glossary for CTET and TET Aspirants
Short, plain-language definitions of 39 terms that come up in teacher-eligibility exams and school teaching. Use them for quick revision; the syllabus and official notifications remain the final authority.
Terms and definitions
CTET
The Central Teacher Eligibility Test, conducted by CBSE. Paper I is for those who want to teach Classes I–V and Paper II is for Classes VI–VIII.
TET (Teacher Eligibility Test)
A test of teaching eligibility. Under the Right to Education framework, passing a TET is part of the minimum qualification for teaching in elementary schools. States such as West Bengal run their own TETs.
NCERT
The National Council of Educational Research and Training, which develops the school textbooks and curriculum materials used by CBSE and many states.
NCTE
The National Council for Teacher Education, the statutory body that sets norms for teacher-education programmes in India.
CBSE
The Central Board of Secondary Education, a national school board that also conducts CTET.
Pedagogy
The method and practice of teaching: how a teacher plans, explains, engages learners and checks understanding.
Growth and development
Growth means measurable physical increase (height, weight). Development is the wider, ongoing change in abilities — physical, cognitive, social and emotional — through the life span.
Heredity and environment
Heredity is what a child inherits through genes; environment covers everything else that influences development, from family and school to nutrition and culture. Both interact.
Schema
In Piaget's theory, a mental structure or pattern of thinking used to organise knowledge and experience.
Assimilation and accommodation
Piaget's two ways of adapting. Assimilation fits new information into an existing schema; accommodation changes the schema because the new information does not fit.
Piaget's stages of cognitive development
Sensorimotor (about 0–2 years), preoperational (about 2–7), concrete operational (about 7–11) and formal operational (about 11 years onward).
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with help from a more knowledgeable person.
Scaffolding
Temporary support given to a learner — prompts, hints, models, questions — that is gradually withdrawn as the learner becomes capable. Linked to Vygotsky's ideas and developed by Bruner and colleagues.
Sociocultural theory
Vygotsky's view that learning is shaped by social interaction, language and culture.
Kohlberg's theory of moral development
Three levels — pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional — each with two stages, describing how reasoning about right and wrong develops.
Erikson's psychosocial stages
Eight stages of development across the life span, each with a central conflict, such as trust versus mistrust in infancy and identity versus role confusion in adolescence.
Behaviourism
A family of learning theories that explain learning through observable behaviour and its consequences, including Pavlov's classical conditioning, Thorndike's trial-and-error learning and Skinner's operant conditioning.
Constructivism
The view that learners actively build their own understanding from experience and prior knowledge, rather than receiving knowledge ready-made.
Multiple intelligences
Howard Gardner's idea that intelligence has several relatively independent forms, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
A model of motivation arranged from basic needs upward: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation comes from interest in the task itself; extrinsic motivation comes from outside rewards or pressures such as marks, praise or punishment.
Bloom's taxonomy
A classification of learning objectives. The revised version lists remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create.
Formative assessment
Assessment during learning, used to give feedback and adjust teaching — for example, class questioning, quizzes and observation.
Summative assessment
Assessment at the end of a unit or term to judge what has been learned, such as a final examination.
CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation)
A school-based approach that assesses both scholastic and co-scholastic areas regularly rather than only through a final exam.
Diagnostic test
A test designed to find the specific areas where a learner is struggling so teaching can be targeted.
Remedial teaching
Extra, targeted teaching to help learners overcome specific difficulties that diagnostic assessment has identified.
Inclusive education
An approach in which all learners, including children with disabilities and those from marginalised groups, learn together in the same classrooms with the support they need.
Learning disability
A neurological difference that affects specific skills despite typical intelligence. Examples include dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing) and dyscalculia (mathematics).
Gifted children
Children with unusually high ability or potential in one or more areas, who may need enrichment beyond the regular curriculum.
RTE Act 2009
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which makes elementary education a right for children aged 6 to 14 years.
NEP 2020
India's National Education Policy 2020. It proposes a 5+3+3+4 school structure, an emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy, and teaching in the home language or mother tongue wherever possible in the early years.
NCF 2005
The National Curriculum Framework 2005, which promoted constructivist, learner-centred teaching and discouraged rote learning. A newer framework for school education was released in 2023.
LSRW skills
The four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Language acquisition and language learning
In Krashen's terms, acquisition is the largely unconscious picking up of a language through meaningful use, while learning is the conscious study of rules.
Transfer of learning
Applying what was learned in one situation to a new situation. It is positive when it helps and negative when it interferes.
Negative marking
Deduction of marks for wrong answers. CTET and the West Bengal Upper Primary TET have no negative marking.
PYQ (Previous Year Questions)
Questions that appeared in earlier editions of an exam, used to understand the pattern, difficulty and frequently tested topics.
Mock test
A timed practice test that imitates the real exam's pattern, used to build speed, accuracy and exam temperament.
Practise these ideas
CTET practice
Paper I and Paper II syllabus and sample questions
Open CTET →WB TET practice
West Bengal Upper Primary TET syllabus and samples
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