As a teacher of English as a foreign language and Spanish as a second language, my main area of interest and concern has been teaching adults. Since I graduated in 1984, I have constantly been trying to identify and explore the right approach to teaching adult learners. As a result of this search, I have been enlightened by the principles of Andragogy, Social Constructivism and C.L.I.L. (Content and Language Integrated Learning). Ultimately, research and experience led me to develop thematic projects for adult learners based on their needs and interests. These projects have been aimed at engaging adult learners and helping them in the process of developing the target language. I would like to share with you what has inspired me in my professional development and also what I have been doing in my classes whilst teaching adults in one to one lessons at an oil and gas company in the city of Buenos Aires.
Some Theory
First, I would like to expand on the concepts mentioned above. Andragogy is a theory of education developed by the American educator Malcolm Knowles. Knowles (2001) held that “Andragogy” (meaning “man-leading”) should be distinguished from the the word “Pedagogy” (meaning “child-leading”). According to Knowles, adult learners are different from children and teenagers in several ways. Adults desire to take more control over their learning and need to be involved in its planning and evaluation. Adults draw upon their experiences and prior knowledge as a resource more than children or teenagers. In terms of motivation, adults tend to be more motivated than other learners. However, if motivation is not sustained, their self-confidence may diminish. Adults are more diverse than children in their interests and needs. Finally, adults´ role as learners is secondary to other roles they have. This role can create conflicting and competing demands on the adult.
Besides sharing these characteristics, adult learners of a foreign/second language encounter two main difficulties in the process: anxiety and inhibition. Alexander Guiora (1972, in Brown 1980) proposed what he called The Language Ego to explain why adults usually feel more inhibited and anxious than children. Guiora coined the term The Language Ego to account for the identity a person develops in reference to the language he speaks. Guiora suggested that the language ego may account for the difficulties adults have in learning a foreign language. The language ego clings to the security of the native language to protect the ego of the adult. When an adult is asked to speak another language, his language ego is threatened and inhibition and anxiety appear.
Social Constructivism is a theory of learning that has a very clear position as regards what the learner´s role should be in class, what teachers should do and what form assessment should take. For Social Constructivism the learner constructs knowledge, meaning and skills with the help of the teacher who acts as a scaffold. The learner does not regurgitate someone else´s meaning. The role of teachers is to help learners predict, analyse, interpret, make connections and search for meaning by scaffolding the knowledge to be acquired. “Scaffolding” refers to what teachers do in class to promote learning. As happens with the scaffolding on a building, the teacher should slowly withdraw allowing the learner to become autonomous. Constructivists also have a clear position as regards assessment. They are against standardized testing, and consider it fairer to assess process rather than product.
C.L.I.L. (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a new acronym to refer to Content-based Learning. Marsh (2002), one of Europe´s CLIL experts, defines it as a dual-focused methodological approach that embraces both language and non-language content and that focuses mainly on ‘meaning’. Meaningful learning will bring about meaningful language. According to Muñoz, (2002, in Marsh 2002) C.L.I.L. stretches the learners’ language and language learning potential through pushing learners to produce meaningful and complex language.
In a C.L.I.L. lesson there are four elements: content, communication, cognition and culture. Content is motivating. As mentioned by Carmen Muñoz (2002 in Marsh 2002:36) ”Motivation to learn content through the foreign language may foster and sustain motivation towards learning the foreign language itself.” In the case of adult learners who have reached a plateau in the process of learning a foreign language, learning content (besides language) provides them with a feeling of achievement that raises their self-esteem. In C.L.I.L., the language skills are integrated and the language is dictated by the context of the subject. Listening and reading provide the main source of input and speaking focuses on fluency. The language lesson does not consider structural grading. Language is approached lexically rather than grammatically and speaking focuses on fluency.
Putting Theory into Practice
Since 1997, I have been teaching English to several managers of an oil and gas company in the city of Buenos Aires. When I started, most of my students were pre-intermediate and had an urgent need to improve their competence in the target language and develop oral communication skills. This need may have served as a source of extrinsic motivation, but I felt that it was not enough to sustain their interest in the long-term. Working with traditional textbooks did not seem to help either, so I decided to start adding extra material. After doing some research to find out my students´ interests, I discovered that many of them liked history. It was then that I decided to devote a portion of the lesson to analysing historical figures and events that were of interest to them. Soon, I realized that my learners became more involved in what they called “history class” rather than in the textbook .So I started designing projects based on history such as “Shakespeare´s Days”, “A trip through the Sixties”, “ A Trip through the Twenties” and “The Greedy Eighties”. The results I obtained encouraged me to leave textbooks aside and implement thematic projects that greatly engaged my learners, calmed their anxieties, lowered inhibitions and developed their oral and communication skills. |
References:
Brown, D. (1980): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Prentice Hall.
Guiora, A., Brannon, R. & Dull, C. (1972): Empathy and Second Language Learning.Language Learning.22:111-130.
Knowles, M. (2001): Andragogía. El Aprendizaje de los Adultos. Oxford University Press.
Marsh D . (2002): CLIL. The European Dimension.University of Jyvaskyla. Finland.
Muñoz, Carmen (2002): The Relevance and Potencial of CLIL. In D. Marsh, CLIL. The European Dimension.University of Jyvaskyla. Finland. |
