Teaching English to Adult and to Children

After graduating from Universitas Negeri Jakarta (formerly IKIP Negeri Jakarta) in 1995, I feel that it's time for me to widen my horizon in English Language Teaching in a formal institution. I, therefore, decided to take the post graduate program (Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris) Atma Jaya Catholic University. This will give me the opportunities to meet many experts in ELT and teachers from various regions and to learn the current teaching methodologies.

I was required to do three kinds of tests, which are writing an essay, TOEFL, and interview. In the writing test, I was asked to write a 1000 word essay on the similarities and differences between teaching English to adult and to children. It's quite a difficult task. I need to synthesize my knowledge and my teaching experience on this particular topic in an essay so the reader can see that I have known some ELT theories. While writing the essay, I was unable to quote all theories. What I did was writing the basic principles of how adult and children learn foreign language and showing my own experience of teaching those two groups of learners.Then, at home I was trying to browse some articles for the above topic to make sure that what I had written was not beyond the theories. The findings are as follows :

The acquisition of the foreign language by adult learners is slow, discouraging and often frustrating. All learners want to use a foreign language with confidence and spontaneity, in the same way as they use their mother tongue. The major complaint that teachers hear is ‘I can’t say anything off the top of my head’ (Rivers, 1992). Moreover, ‘none of learners can talk on unrehearsed topics without constant and painful hesitation’. The latter point is also applicable to young learners. It is noteworthy to examine how adult learners differ from young learners.

Adult learners are notable for a number of special characteristics (Harmer, 2000): “They can engage with abstract thought, have a range of life experiences, definite expectations about the learning process, their own set patterns of learning, and are more disciplined than children. On the other hand, adult learners have a number of characteristics which can make learning and teaching problematic: can be critical of teaching methods, anxious and under-confident because of previous failure and worry about diminishing learning power with age”. They more often than young learners face certain linguistic problems like ‘fossilized’ errors – persistent deviations from the L2 norm, language transfer - negative influence of the mother tongue on the productive skills.

Research in error analysis shows that over half the errors are interference errors. Adult learners are believed to be focused on form or correctness: “they are particularly conscious of deviations from the established networks, and seek to understand the nature of the rule system” (Rivers, 1992).

In one respect, however, adult learners are similar to young learners. All may be grouped according to their preferred learning styles. Differences in cognitive styles influence learners’ priorities for particular approach to learning. Learners employ different learning strategies, i.e. “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford, 1990). The common learning styles for each type of learners are (Richards & Lockhart, 1996):

- concrete - learners use active means of processing information;

- analytical - learners prefer logical and systematic presentation of new material;

- communicative - learners prefer social approach;

- authority-oriented - learners prefer the teacher’s authority.

While children learn English much faster than the adults. They imitate the teacher’s pronunciation, sentences, phrases, and words more easily. They do not ask for explicit rules which explain how sentences are put together, produced, and pronounced. They may ask for the meanings of words, but they are able to intuitively identify salient features of the meanings of a word and use the word more or less correctly.

An important prerequisite for effective learning and retention appears to be that instruction should be activity-based, rather than explanation- or theory-oriented. The activities should be of an engaging nature. The teacher should be pleasant and sweet-natured, able to communicate at the level of the children. She should not be a terror! Use of audio-visuals is more important than the printed text. The printed text should be colorful, full of pictures, and should have only few language elements such as words, phrases, and sentences.

Language learning should be encouraged in all the classes and in all the environments. Children have a natural curiosity to investigate the environment in greater detail. When they go to the bazaar, the see a lot of signboards and they start reading the same. They start reading the road signs with great interest. The teacher can create a bazaar inside the classroom for reading and conversation purposes. Pretend situations are greatly enjoyed by children, and they do actively participate in such game.

“This language is meaningful and understandable, because the activities are meaningful and understandable. Children are taught in English; children are not introduced to English language in an artificially pre-determined sequence of grammatical structures or functions; the input from the teacher, and their learning about their world, is in English” (Vale and Feunteun 1995). They
suggest the following orientation when we teach English to children:

- build confidence;
- provide the motivation to learn English;
- encourage ownership of language;
- encourage children to communicate with whatever language they have at their disposal (mime, gesture, key word, drawings, etc.);
- encourage children to treat English as a communication tool not as an end product;
- show children that English is fun;
- establish a trusting relationship with the children, and encouraging them to do the same with their classmates;
- give children an experience of a wide range of English language in a non-threatening environment.

Physical activities help in learning the words and sentences. An actitvity-based approach is always better than mere classroom teaching mode with repetition, imitation drills, etc.

Teaching both groups is interesting. It's rewarding when I observe that they can show their improvement after a series of teaching. In the mean time, I keep on reading more articles on ELT methodology to improve my teaching techniques. Eventually, I feel that teaching has enlightened my mind.