Teaching Adults
We are Ezequiel and Jonathan, we are teacher trainees at Instituo Cultural de Mendoza. The aim of this blog is to show the different characteristics of adult learners and aspects we should take into consideration when teaching adult learners.
General Characteristics of Adult Learners
Adult learners show many
characteristics which set them apart from other learners and as teachers we
need to take them into consideration when planning our class. To begin with,
adult learners are diverse which means that they bring a lot of their life experience
to the class. In a group of adult learners
we can find variety of abilities and different ages, job experiences, cultural backgrounds
and goals. Also we can see a range in educational background and personal life
experiences, which can be learning resources.

Other characteristics are:
- They want an active involvement in their learning process. This means they should have as much choice as possible in the availability and organization of learning programs.
- They want to work in an environment where they feel safe and supported, where their life achievements are respected.
- Adults have a need to know why they should learn something.
- Adults enter into the learning process with a task centered orientation to learning. For example if they think that English is going to be useful for their lives they will study it.
- Adults learn languages more quickly than children in the early stages (They learn differently from children), especially in the area of vocabulary and structure language.
(This is a video explaining the characteristics of adult
learners.)