Peculiarities of teaching language adults

About the author. Kulinka Elena master of pedagogical sciences, senior teacher of the KazakhAmerican Free University.

Annotation. In our time the question of language training of future professionals is very important. In modern conditions of production society needs a flexible, adaptive competitive personality with a high degree of internal stability, ability to develop, self-education, and self-improvement. The solution to this problem may be in the formation of a complex personality who is adapted to the constantly changing conditions. Thus, there is a list of principles was developed by synthesizing information that appears in a number of sources: involve learners in planning and implementing learning activities; draw upon learners’ experiences as a resource; cultivate self-direction in learners; create a climate that encourages and supports learning; foster a spirit of collaboration in the learning setting and use small groups. Adult learners usually approach learning differently than younger learners. They are more self-guided in their learning. They bring more, and expect to bring more, to a learning situation because of their wider experience and can take more away. They require learning "to make sense" they will not perform a learning activity just because the instructor said to do it. Adult students are completely different from children. Adults do not need that much demonstration but ask for more explanation and formulation of principles. Private lessons of English are the most convenient for adult learners because the style of private lessons is much more suitable for students who have specific demands, expectations, learning difficulties or problems of any kind. Thanks to a close contact between a teacher and a student a very good relationship can develop and it has a beneficial effect on the learning process. It must be taken into account that adult students are fully engaged and have duties in their private lives to be done. But at the same time it has some disadvantages such as boredom, lack of stimulation by other students and difficulty adjusting to a regular class.

Adult learners are people who are 18 years and up who are involved in different forms of learning. So that to teach adult learners, a teacher should know about adults’ self-concept, prior experience, readiness to learn, learning orientation and motivation to learn. A teacher should take into account that adults want to know why they need to learn something, they believe they are responsible for their lives and come into any activity with different experiences.

Adults become ready to learn things they need to know and do in order to cope effectively with real-life situations. They are life-centered (task-centered, problem-centered) in their orientation to learning. Adults are responsive to some external motivators (e.g., better job, higher salaries), but the most potent motivators are internal. Motivation means that a person wants to do something for some reason.

Adults in the classroom get higher grades and take academic work seriously. Adult experience brings different forms of learning into the classroom; faculty also becomes learners. They may take on some of the instructor’s role.

The most important social characteristic of adult learner is an abundance and variety of experiences. This aspect alone makes teaching adults different from teaching children.

No definitive list of adult education principles exists in the literature, but there is a great deal of agreement about what constitutes good practice in adult education. The list of principles that follows was developed by synthesizing information that appears in a number of sources:

• involve learners in planning and implementing learning activities. Including learners in the planning and implementing of their learning activities is considered to be a hallmark of adult education. Their participation can begin with the needs assessment process where members of the target population help establish the program goals and objectives and continue throughout

the learning activity to the evaluation phase;

• draw upon learners’ experiences as a resource. Another often-cited principle of adult education revolves around the idea of using the experiences of participants as a learning resource. Not only do adult learners have experiences that can be used as a foundation for learning new things but also, in adulthood, readiness to learn frequently stems from life tasks and problems. The particular life situations and perspectives that adults bring to the classroom can provide a rich reservoir for learning;
• cultivate self-direction in learners. Self-direction is considered by some to be a characteristic of adulthood but not all adults possess this attribute in equal measure. In addition, if adults have been accustomed to teacher-directed learning environments, they may not display self-direction in adult learning settings. Adult learning should be structured to nurture the development of self-directed, empowered adults. When adults are encouraged to become selfdirected, they begin “to see teem selves as proactive, initiating individuals engaged in a continuous re-creation of their personal relationships, work worlds, and social circumstances rather than as reactive individuals, buffeted by uncontrollable forces of circumstance” [1];
• create a climate that encourages and supports learning. The classroom environment should be characterized by trust and mutual respect among teachers and learners. It should enhance learner self-esteem. Supporting and encouraging learning does not mean that the environment is free of conflict. It does mean that when conflict occurs, it is handled in a way that challenges learners to acquire new perspectives and supports them in their efforts to do so;
• foster a spirit of collaboration in the learning setting. Collaboration in the adult classroom is frequently founded on the idea that the roles of teachers and learners can be interchangeable. Although teachers have the overall responsibility for leading a learning activity, in adult learning settings “each person has something to teach and to learn from the other” [2]. Adult learning is a cooperative enterprise that respects and draws upon the knowledge that each person brings to the learning setting;
• use small groups. The use of groups has deep historical roots in adult education, and adults learning in groups have become embedded in adult education practice. Groups promote teamwork and encourage cooperation and collaboration among learners. Structured appropriately, they emphasize the importance of learning from peers, and they allow all participants to be involved in discussions and to assume a variety of roles.

The principles discussed here reflect some of the widely held beliefs about adult learning.

It is not easy at all to learn foreign languages. People have various reasons for learning them. First of all according to the curriculum because English is a compulsory subject. There are some other reasons of learning English. It can be a possibility of getting a better job, an interest in reading original books or to understand song lyrics. People may learn languages for enjoyment or they can have many other different reasons for that. Jeremy Harmer specifies in his Practice of English teaching the most usual reasons as the followings:

• language is on the curriculum therefore the greatest number of language students learns it compulsory;
• there occurs a chance of advancement in professional life with new language;
• people live for some reason in a target language community where the knowledge of the language is necessary;
• very often there is a specific reason for wanting to learn the language. Examples of that could be e.g. the need to be able to communicate with foreign customers or business partners, the need to write reports or essays and to function in seminars or the need to be able to read articles and textbooks about special subjects in English;
• students are attracted to the culture of one of the English speaking countries and want to know more about its people, places or writings;
• there are many other possible reasons for learning a language like tourism, fun from the learning activity itself, and friends.

But the basic reason for learning foreign languages that all people have in common is communication – communication in any mode. It is a two-sided process, which requires the

ability to understand each other, to be able to code a message that someone wants to convey to someone else in a way, which will be comprehensible to the receiver and also appropriate to a concrete situation and status of all participants. Vice versa the person should be able to interpret a message that someone else is conveying to them. To acquire a good skill of communication in foreign language it is necessary to be familiar not only with vocabulary (single words and their meanings, collocations, phrases and phrasal verbs etc.) but also with language structures and above all with strategies for using them in right context according to concrete situations. The functional aspect of language is the most important one and teachers should be well conscious of that to be able to pass this sense of priority on their students.

To build a good stock of vocabulary is the first and most important step when starting to learn a new language. Well mastered ability of using the right expressions, phrases, grammatical structures and functions ensure students to be successful in their communication.

Children usually start with English or some other languages in very young age. Sometimes they acquire a relatively high level before the end of their compulsory education. On the other hand adults are in a huge language disadvantage. Learning English is not easy at all for them unless they dispose of at least basic knowledge of it or of general talent for languages. Certain psychic barriers might negatively influence learning. To avoid that it is necessary to select the appropriate and efficient learning strategy for adult students taking into account various important aspects arising out of their specific needs [3].

If we compare adult and young learners we can observe the following: Table 1. Comparing characteristics of adult and young learners

In summary, we see that adult learners usually approach learning differently than younger learners:

• 1. they are more self-guided in their earning;
  2. they bring more, and expect to bring more, to a learning situation because of their wider experience and can take more away;
  3. they require learning "to make sense" they will not perform a learning activity just because the instructor said to do it.

Adult students are completely different from children. Compared to younger group of students, adults do not need that much demonstration but ask for more explanation and formulation of principles. They are matured, their intelligence has already developed. They went through a whole educational system and they dispose of rich personal experience. They have

also developed specific habits and have specific expectations. Adults are in many cases not really interested in language, but in what they do through it. That is to say, adult students view language as an instrument for doing other things. It is not always easy for them to make a decision of enrolling to a language course. They know they need to learn English for some reasonthey dispose of a high degree of extrinsic motivation. But they also know that they will be in the same class with other students. This fact can be quite stressful for some of them. They are sure that “others’” level of English will be different from theirs, that they might not be good enough and the “others” might see it. It is not a pleasant idea and can play a key role in their final decision to “go for it” or not [4].

Thanks to the above-mentioned aspects it has become very popular lately to attend private lessons of English. The style of private lessons is much more suitable for students who have specific demands, expectations, learning difficulties or problems of any kind (time organization, health problems, anxiety…) or who simply prefer to have a teacher all for themselves. Usually the lessons are prepared for one student only but upon an agreement or demand more students can attended a lesson. Usually it is up to three students in private sphere and up to seven to ten students in lessons organized by a company for their employees, managers or other specific groups of people. The ‘company sector of private teaching’ (bigger groups) can sometimes be similar to the classical compulsory education because it is not always the students’ selfdetermined decision to attend the lessons but an order from the headquarters. Not all students are interested in taking lessons and stagnate. A risk of creating a mixed ability group is too high and usually comes to reality. Therefore it will not be dealt with in this work as with a main part of a private teaching sector [5].

One-on-one lessons are extremely beneficial in maximizing learning potential. The students move at their own speed along an individual created program. There is a luxury of spending more time on a subject that proves to be difficult – there no class to keep up with, all attention is dedicated to one student. All lessons are scheduled at a location convenient to the student, most often, in a student’s home.

The biggest advantage of one-to-one lesson is the fact the lessons can be adjusted to specific needs of a student and as much time as needed can be spent on every single item. If a student has trouble with understanding some grammar structure, it is possible to spend more time on its practice than in usual classes where the needs of a single student cannot be prioritized to other students’ needs. All students must be taken into consideration and a single student cannot restrain the others. In one-to-one lessons a student also has their long-term goal (to be able to understand non-subtitled English speaking films) divided into many short-term goals (acquiring a certain piece of grammar, finishing a unit) that should be fulfilled in an appropriate period of time. The goals are usually suggested by a student and modified by a teacher’s judgment of their attainability. It is necessary to determine priorities in the aims of what should be learned (fulfilled) at what stage. But what is great is the possibility to adjust these single aims to the actual student’s situation and needs. If the student asks for practice of an ‘Airport conversation’ because he is going to fly abroad for a business trip then it is no problem to stop practicing e.g. countable/uncountable nouns, move to a completely different topic and prepare the student for the wiles of an airport. But it is not only that. Teacher is in such an arrangement of lessons responsible only for one student (or a few more ones) and gets to know them much better than it would be possible in usual lessons with many more students attending. They can easily recognize where their student needs a proper explanation of grammar or structures and when only a lack of practice or opportunities causes making mistakes. Students can provide with learning experience that is just of the right level then. There is no need to be in a hurry to make a student familiar with particular pieces of grammar to catch up with other students, which provides a very good chance for the student to improve the skills and knowledge, which really need to be improved, and concentrate on them as much as necessary. All language skills should be acquired to master a language well. But no students have the opportunity to practice exactly what they need. In private lessons this is of course possible [6].

Thanks to a close contact between a teacher and a student a very good relationship can develop and it has a beneficial effect on the learning process. It must be taken into account that adult students are fully engaged and have duties in their private lives to be done. Every now and then they may feel that all of that is too much for them. A hesitation whether to continue in learning a language is one of the first to be reconsidered. The decision will then depend on the student’s relationship with their teacher. If the teacher does not show their interest in a student, lack of supporting them or behave demurely then a student has no motivation for continuing. But once a student feels comfortable and supported by a friendly teacher they will be inclined to clear all the difficulties and persist in learning.

“A teacher’s good humour and sympathetic understanding of his problems have stopped many a student from withdrawing from a course when faced, as many are, with a pressure of a full-time job and English classes several nights a week” [7].

A good relationship between teacher and student it is one of the first break points on a very long way in acquiring a language and is highly motivating.

Thus, private lessons have many benefits:

• The teacher can focus on student’s English, on his\her strengths, and the areas a student needs to work on.
• As long as a student does a lot of homework, his\her English may well improve faster than if he\she studies in a group.
• A student can negotiate the lesson topics and subjects with the teacher, and study things that he\she find interesting.
• If a student needs English for a specific job or situation (University Project, Job Interview) it can be very helpful to work only on this.
• A student can ask the teacher for as much correction and as many explanations as he\she wants without worrying about the other students in the class.
• A student can go at his\her pace.
• A student can bring his\her own materials to class and the teacher can prepare tailormade lessons.
• There are often fewer distractions, and private lessons are often very intensive [8]. However, there are also disadvantages to taking or giving private English lessons such as:

Boredom: When it gets down to it, there're only two people-a student and a teacher. And unless there is a lot of conversation going on, the time a student has together-especially if it is more than 45 minutescan get very tedious. This may happen more often when the student is at the beginning or elementary level.

Lack of Stimulation by other Students: Students often believe that they will learn a lot more when they have private time with the teacher. But that is not necessarily true. EFL students learn a tremendous amount from each other in group sessions. They learn how to mimic each other's pronunciation and intonation, they increase their vocabulary and form camaraderie with the other class members-all of which increases the learning of English.

Difficulty Adjusting to a Regular Class: Sometimes students get used to the exclusive attention afforded by the private lesson and have a hard time sharing the teacher with other students if and when they enter a regular EFL class. Students may feel they are being shortchanged by having to go from being the only student to one of dozen or so[9].

Thus, there is a list of principles was developed by synthesizing information that appears in a number of sources: involve learners in planning and implementing learning activities; draw upon learners’ experiences as a resource; cultivate self-direction in learners; create a climate that encourages and supports learning; foster a spirit of collaboration in the learning setting and use small groups.

Adult learners usually approach learning differently than younger learners. They are more self-guided in their learning. They bring more, and expect to bring more, to a learning situation because of their wider experience and can take more away. They require learning "to make sense" they will not perform a learning activity just because the instructor said to do it. Adult students are completely different from children. Adults do not need that much demonstration but ask for more explanation and formulation of principles.

Private lessons of English are the most convenient for adult learners because the style of private lessons is much more suitable for students who have specific demands, expectations, learning difficulties or problems of any kind. Thanks to a close contact between a teacher and a student a very good relationship can develop and it has a beneficial effect on the learning process. It must be taken into account that adult students are fully engaged and have duties in their private lives to be done. But at the same time it has some disadvantages such as boredom, lack of stimulation by other students and difficulty adjusting to a regular class.

RЕFЕRЕNCЕS

1. Brookfield, S. (1992). Why Can't I Get This Right? Myths and Realities in Facilitating Adult Learning. Adult-Learning, 1992, 3 (6), 12-15.
2. Draper J. A. The Dynamic Mandala of Adult Education. Convergence25, no. 6 (1992): 73-81.
3. Merriam, S. B. (2001). The new update on adult learning theory. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
4. Broughton G., Brumfit Ch., Flavell R., Hill P., Pincas A. Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Routledge, 1988/
5. Harmer J. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman 1993
6. Donaldson, J. F., Flannery, D., and Ross-Gordon, J. M. “A Triangulated Study Comparing Adult College Students’ Perceptions of Effective Teaching with Those of Traditional Students.” Continuing Higher Education Review, 1993, 57 (3), 147 – 163.
7. Gu P.Y. and Johnson, R.K. (1996). Vocabulary learning strategies and language learning outcomes. Language Learning 46(4), 643-679.
8. Schmitt, D. and Schmitt, N. (2005). Focus on Vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
9. Richаrds J.C., (1985). The Context of Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.