 Re: Teaching older learners
I've had quite a few older learners. It doesn't present too much difficulty when it's a group of more mature students, though it can make building a good classroom dynamic difficult if you have mostly students in their twenties, with just one seventy five year old.
With quite a few of the older learners, I've noticed that they often prefer to be presented with fairly analytical formal grammar and to be given a lot of controlled practice, before heading off into more fluency-based communication activities with a particular language point.
In my experience, older learners don't have a very positive attitude towards making mistakes - they are too hard on themselves and perfectionist about minor grammar errors. It takes a conscious effort on the part of the teacher to create a relaxed and informal learning environment to help build confidence.
This is purely based on experience, not theory, though if any one finds any related articles, I'd be interested to hear of them. |