EFL

1. 1
   noununcountableinitialism

   Initialism of English as a foreign language.

   EFL emphasizes practical communication over endless grammar drills.

   She earned a certificate to teach EFL overseas.

   Note

   A teaching label for English learned where it is not the language of daily life. ESL is broadly synonymous, but careful users keep ESL for learners living where English dominates everyday talk. EAL is another close neighbor. As an uncountable noun, EFL takes no article: you teach EFL, never an EFL.

2. 2
   proper nouninitialism

   Initialism of English Football League.

   Several EFL clubs reached the later rounds of the cup this year.

   Promotion from the EFL into the Premier League is worth millions to a club.

   Note

   A football name for the body that runs the three professional divisions just below the Premier League in the English pyramid. In running prose it usually takes the definite article (promotion from the EFL), and it also works before a noun, as in EFL clubs. Context keeps it apart from the language-teaching sense: sports pages mean the league, and classrooms mean the language.

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