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.

          Another characteristic is that adult learners want to be able to relate the content to specific context in their lives. They tend to be pragmatic learners which means they are practical, logical, and systematic. They choose to study so they can improve their performance in other social roles, for example, work, travel, etc. On the other hand, adult learners tend to put their school work aside to focus on other responsibilities such as jobs and families. Keeping these in mind, they expect the time in class to be spent well and hope that these courses will help them solve problems in their daily lives.

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.)

Source: 

Seven characteristics of highly effective adult learning programs BY Dorothy D. BillingtonThe older language learner BY Mary SchleppergrellWhat are the principles of adult learning BY Gerard O´Brien