Glossary
Adult Education Teacher Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential adult education teacher terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key adult education teacher vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in adult education teacher training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ABE
- Adult basic education.
- ASE
- Adult secondary education.
- CASAS
- An adult skills assessment.
- Contextualized instruction
- Teaching skills through real-life topics.
- ESL
- English as a second language.
- GED
- A high school equivalency exam.
- HiSET
- Another high school equivalency exam.
- Integrated education and training
- Combining basic skills with job training.
- Learner goals
- What adults want to achieve.
- Measurable skill gain
- Progress tracked for funding.
- Mixed-level class
- Students at different skill levels.
- Retention
- Keeping learners enrolled.
- TABE
- Test of Adult Basic Education.
- TESOL
- Teaching English to speakers of other languages.
- WIOA
- Federal workforce and adult education law.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Adult Education Teacher practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Adult Education Teacher training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.