Teach English in Hangkong Xincheng - Tianjin

young learners vs adults There are many factors that will determine the success of a teacher's teachings. One of them is to know who is their teaching audience. There are great differences between young learners and adults. Their age, needs, motivation, experiences, analytic capability all have an impact on the way they learn. The teacher must therefore be aware of these and plan their lessons according to who their target audiences are. Young learners learn not just from explanations but also from the other stimulus they receive surrounding the explanation for example what they hear, what they see and even what they touch and interact with. Their own understanding comes from their hands, eyes, and ears. Therefore when planning for their lessons it is best to include lots of activities and games which are exciting and fun to stimulate their curiosity. This is the most effective method when teaching young learners. It is also a good idea to put some effort in designing their learning environment. For example it is possible to improve the classroom environment with posters, cartoons, children's own artwork, etc. A colourful and bright environment can create a fun, lively and creative environment for them to learn. Of course design of the environment also have great impact for the adults as well. Only in this case we want to create something that is more mature, professional and comfortable for them to learn. One important point teachers need to know when teaching young learners, they generally have short attention spans and get bored easily if they just have to sit and listen or if activities drag on for too long. Therefore when planning their lessons, teachers need to keep activities short, include lots of fun activities and games. Try to keep complex ideas like structures and function of grammar to bare minimum. As for the adult learners, learning a language often depends on the conscious exercise of their considerable intellects, unlike younger learners whom language acquisition naturally happens. And the teacher can tap on adult learners' vast life experiences to design their teaching programs with more real life and practical activities. Since adult learners have better analytic capability compared to younger learners, the teachers can use more authentic materials e.g. newspaper articles, news clips, books for their teaching. Teachers can also breakdown to adults complex grammatical and phonetically structure of the english language and they are more likely to understand the rules and use their intellect to learn consciously. Adult learners are usually more motivated in their learning as they are more goal focus. They usually know why they want to learn english e.g. job requirements, promotions, further studies etc. With this in mind it is always good to conduct needs analysis from the audience to know what they are looking for from the course. What are their focus, requirements and results they are after. Although adults can be more flexible to try new teaching methods , they may have anxieties or be under confident from past experiences learning a language. Adults also tend to be more disciplined and can struggle on despite boredom. One of the problems of teaching adult learners is that they are often tired due to most of them maybe doing their learning at night (part time) and they are working during the day. Teachers need to be flexible in their progress of covering their teaching materials. They may have to compromise and make the material less challenging, or cut down on input. Attendance is sometimes sporadic due to their other commitments and homework may also be difficult for them due to pressure or work, family etc. To conclude we can see the importance of knowing the needs of our audience and to prepare our lessons and courses based on these needs. Teachers also need to be flexible in their approach as not all audience are the same and surprise situations may arise. It is important for the teacher to form a good relationship with their students and to be patient and remain professional at all times to help inspire them to learn.