Teaching English to adults

Teaching English to Adults

Chapter I – Child foreign language learning vs.

adult foreign language learning

Chapter II - Activities for the Adult Language Learner :

Part 1- Activities for teaching Vocabulary

Part 2 – Activities for teaching Speaking/Communicative Skills

Optimal age for second language learning

• Penfield (1960) – ‘ Young children, exposed to another language, seem to acquire this language rapidly and without much effort’.
• Carroll (1975) 'Students who start the study of a foreign language at relatively older ages make faster progress then those who start early’.
• Krashen (1979) - ‘Adults initially acquire the second language faster than young children ( older-is-better for rate of acquisition ) but child second language acquirers will usually be superior in terms of ultimate attainment ( younger-is-better in the long run ).'

Conclusions on the Age Issue

• Young learners respond more readily and intuitively to language acquisition in social and communicative situations
• Adults can learn languages more readily by means of cognitive and academic approaches
• Adults are better than younger learners on morphology and syntax
• Older learners are also better than younger learners in their vocabulary progress
• Adults are more efficient learners because they bring to the learning task more experience and greater cognitive maturity.

Activities for the Adult Language Learner

• Teaching Vocabulary

MEMORABLE

Motivating

Sharing and Discussing

Pair-Work & Group-Work

Vocabulary Activity : Fishy Adjectives

• Marginal proud subversive self-centered confused
• Unemployed ill satisfied irresponsible disruptive
• Intolerant brave different paranoid delinquent
• Victimized bossy peaceful mean agitated
• Happy fishy furious calm nervous
• Skimpy jealous trustful easy-going gullible

Teaching speaking/communicative skills

Talk Openly

about themselves

Confident to express thoughts

in a foreign language

Discuss almost any topic

(taboo subjects)

Desire to express opinions

MOTIVATED LEARNER

“ Taboo” Topics

• Baby designers

Blonde hair, blue eyes – would you like to design your children?

• Sexual harassment

What’s wrong with telling a colleague she has nice legs?

• Gays and jobs

Does it matter that a doctor, teacher, or the Prime Minister is gay?

• Animal rights

We eat them, we do experiments on them, and we keep them as pets. Do you object?

• Legalizing drugs

Is it time to change the law on drugs?

General Conclusions

• Personalized activities

• Motivate your learners

• Make BOTH learning and teaching fun!

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