ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Peter Viney

Curtis Kelly

Chris Hunt

Panelists: Curtis | Peter | Chris
Date: February 2004

Topic: "Why must we teach adults differently?"

Curtis Kelly

You see them from time to time, and they always seem out of place: the housewife in your Tandai class; the businessman next to you on the train trying to muster the courage to talk; your friend's private "grandma class" – curious, quaint, and always armed with cakes. Adult English students seem odd, the anomaly, but demographic data says that the future belongs to them. Japan has just entered an adult education boom that might soon make the average age of a Japanese college student the same as that in America, 29!

“the single greatest finding by Adult Education academics...is that adults don't learn the same way children do”

It is sad, though. Despite all we have learned about teaching adults from the twenty-year adult education boom in the West, the know-how has not reached these shores, and the same problems are cropping up again here in Japan. In fact, the single greatest finding by Adult Education academics, a field virtually unknown here, is that adults don't learn the same way children do, and yet, in Japan, they are being integrated into traditional English classes with no considerations of their differences. They are given the same schedules, told to read the same texts, assessed by the same tests, and many don't come back after the first year. After all, the research shows that they excel in learner-facilitator rather than teacher-student environments; they construct themselves as non-dependent personalities, they need reasons, and they need to tell their stories.

It has been estimated that there are over 400,000 teachers of adults in North America alone, and my Web search last night came up with 42 Adult Education doctoral programs in the United States. From this rich ground, and urged on by years of adults in college classes that dropped out at the rate of 50-100%, we have formed some basic theories of how adults learn. The characteristics outlined by Malcolm Knowles provide the best picture, so here they are, although I have changed the order:

a) Readiness to learn
Lifespan theory holds that we pass through different stages in life and face different sets of challenges in each. Adults become ready to learn when their life situation causes the learning to be necessary. Newlyweds study interpersonal communication and gender issues; retirees study healthcare. Educators who integrate their learners' life situations into the class content are more effective.

b) Problem-centered orientation
Since adults seek learning in order to solve the problems thrown at them by life, they are task-centered in their orientation towards learning. They need to see how learning applies to their lives: tasks they need to perform, problems they need to solve. Whenever possible, learning should be oriented towards solving real problems in real life situations. Since they study for specific goals, they prefer practical, hands-on training to study of theory. For example, adults are much more likely to sign up for a course called "Writing Better Business Letters" than "Composition I."

c) Motivation to learn
It follows then, that adults are motivated by intrinsic value and personal payoff. While they still seek and respond to external motivators, such as grades, internal priorities are far more important: self-esteem, quality of life, or a desire to get a better job, are common reasons adults study. One study found 80% of adults study to improve their work situation.

d) Need to know
Since adults seek learning as a means to solve their own problems, they are finicky about what they are taught; they need to know why they study it. We assume children, dependent personalities, will do what they are told; but adults, non-dependent personalities, resent situations in which they feel others are imposing their wills. Adult educators usually set up frames of study, and allow learners to modify them to their needs.

e) Self-directed learning
Their need to maintain control over their learning brings us to the central concept of adult education: basically, adults, who are self-directed in life, also prefer to be self-directed in their studies. They hate to be treated like children, and they learn better when assignments are flexibly organized around basic criteria to allow personalization. Generally, instructors should manage the processes, not the content. However, adults returning to the classroom are not always aware of their need to be self-directing, and often start out expecting to be treated like children. This attitude, though, is rarely beneficial. An adult instructor, then, must be ready to facilitate their transition to self-directedness. Furthermore, being self-directed does not always mean that adults are self-motivated, or willing to engage in self-teaching, especially when studying an unfamiliar subject.

f) Role of experience
Finally, their need to be self-directing and their orientation towards solving life's problems makes it important for adults to connect learning to their rich bounty of experience. They need to share their experiences and have them acknowledged. This is another reason why adults need discussion time, even in a lecture class (conference presenters take note), so that they can relate the ideas to their own experiences. In fact, the need to integrate experience is related to schema theory, and belies a major difference from the way children learn. Learning in children centers on accretion (making new schema), while learning in adults centers on tuning and restructuring (revising and replacing schema). Talking about one's personal experiences, then, is more than just an ego massage, the act itself is a means to tune and restructure. Since replacing existing schema is far more painful than just acquiring new ones, adults need to share and collaborate in the process. The difficulty of replacing old schema, or weaving new information into existing mental models, is also why adults are mistakenly characterized as being slower at learning, or even unable to learn (in both cases, the research says otherwise). Therefore, since adult learning requires them to challenge and evaluate their mental models, adult educators prefer to accommodate reflective learning.

So that is why adults wilt in the traditional teacher-centered classroom, where the teacher tells them what they must know, tells them how they must learn it, and then subjects them to discrete item tests. And yet, few EFL teachers are even aware that a different pedagogy even exists. If those English teachers had access to just one or two minor adult education methods, it might make a world of difference. Using learning contracts instead of tests, self-generated instead of textbook-determined topics, discussion instead of dialog recital, and individualized rather than teacher-assigned projects might turn their classes into even greater vehicles of growth.

In fact, here are some wonderful ideas for changing your traditional English lessons into lessons for adults...

...but wait a minute. Why listen to my puny ideas when we have this wonderful Think Tank lined up? And so I ask you, my fellow pundits, provide us succor in your creativity and genius!

Panelists: Curtis | Peter | Chris

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Curtis Kelly, Heian Jogakuin University

Author of Writing from Within

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