Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

Problems in teaching Advanced English
Most learners of advanced English are adults, and they require
a different teaching strategy from that used with younger age
groups. On the whole they will learn more quickly as they have
been trained in learning for many years. Less demonstration is
called for, and more explanation, since an adult mind demands
reasons for things and a clear formulation of the principles
involved. Hence the constant requests from an adult class for
the ‘rules’ of English grammar. New knowledge and skills are
integrated into his personality rapidly, although there is often
the much greater rigidity which comes with age and mature
thought patterns and habits to take into account. An adult

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Teaching English to Adults
196
learning a language from scratch will always have an accent, a
child may not. The danger in a predominantly explanatory
approach is that the adult might quickly pick up what he needs
to know about English, but his actual skill in using the
language falls far behind. This must not be allowed to happen,
unless he intends to become a theoretical linguist or
grammarian! Again, the teacher’s problem is to present his
material in varied and challenging ways. The following notes
deal with a limited selection of the difficulties widely
experienced by advanced learners. Most of them in fact are
problems of spoken, conversational English, and much of what
is said in Chapters 5 and 6 is relevant in dealing with them.