How is teaching adults different

Feuer, D. ERIC No. EJ Gorham, J. ED Knowles, M. Knowles and others. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Library Reference Search. Please note that this site is privately owned and is in no way related to any Federal agency or ERIC unit.

Further, this site is using a privately owned and located server. This is NOT a government sponsored or government sanctioned site. Malcolm Knowles , is attributed with developing the most cogent model underlying the assumption that teaching adults should differ from teaching children and adolescents Beder and Darkenwald By contrasting "andragogical" or learner-centered methods with "pedagogical" or teacher-centered methods, Knowles argues that adults differ from preadults in a number of important ways that affect learning and, consequently, how they approach learning.

Therefore, according to Knowles, the more traditional pedagogical model is inappropriate for use with adults. Although the andragogical approach to teaching adults has been widely espoused by adult educators, until recently there has been no effort to test whether teachers do actually use a different style when teaching adults.

Two studies Beder and Darkenwald ; Gorham , examined this area by investigating the following questions: Do teachers teach adults in a different way, and if so, what are these differences? In both studies, subjects were teachers who taught both adults and preadults. In the Beder and Darkenwald study, information was collected solely through a self-report questionnaire.

Gorham used an adaptation of Beder and Darkenwald's questionnaire for the initial phase of her study, followed up with classroom observations of a small number of her sample for a second phase.

I found this particularly so as they would arrive to class in the afternoon at around m and I sensed they were already exhausted from the days activities. I found adult learners to have high motivational levels since they are committed to improving their English.

In some instances the students were almost too enthusiastic and I experienced this with a couple of my adult students. The problem here was that they were too talkative in class and very often I was unable to stop them to correct any errors as they found it difficult to contain their excitement and listen.

Thanks for sharing this — Knowing what kind of students you have and their learning style certainly helps you as a teacher! Your email address will not be published.

Please enable JavaScript to submit this form. Join a global community of over , TEFL teachers working throughout the world! Published 11th October Cheerful TEFL teacher and student high five in classroom. Share on Facebook Share. Share on Twitter Tweet. Share on Google Plus Share. Share on Pinterest Share. Share on LinkedIn Share. Share on Digg Share. Send email Mail. Print Print. Related Articles. The 10 Happiest Countries in the World to Teach in Have you ever thought about what the happiest country in the world is?

Where in I love it. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. They do not need as much attention from the teacher which is why the teacher needs to adopt different strategies for each group of students. With young learners, the teacher should take control of most of the lesson, ensuring adequate instructions are given for every stage. In contrast, adult learners are typically able to work more things out for themselves and should be given more leeway throughout the lesson.

The second difference is the motivation of adult and young learners. Adult learners are usually more motivated as they know why they are learning the language because it is normally their own decision to study it. In contrast, young learners are typically learning English because it is part of a school program and they do not have any choice in the matter.

This is why they often do not recognise the aim of studying and lack motivation and enthusiasm during lessons. Young learners and adult learners generally have different ways of studying. Lessons with young learners should be short, active, fun and extremely fascinating because they can often struggle to focus for a long time on one thing and can become tired quickly.

Language lessons for adult learners can be longer in duration and can be more focused on learning tasks.