I know best
One of the greatest advantages of teaching adults is of
course that their behaviour in class is generally much more easy to manage than
adolescents. We all agree on that. They also are generally quite well motivated–at least extrinsically (if not intrinsically)
by the need to achieve an immediate goal–such as gain entry to University
or pass a test to qualify as a Doctor or a Nurse (Occupational English Test or the IELTS test)
However, there are also many, many disadvantages of teaching
adults as they have so many misconceptions about the learning process itself. Often these stem from the
‘learning’ experience they have had in their home countries both as a child and
as an adult
Lets start with the most general misconceptions
‘I know how to learn
best’
The new learner arrives in Australia full of enthusiasm and apparent
cooperation and goodwill to everyone –including the teacher -. But, in my
experience, if the student finds the learning difficult this can all evaporate
quite quickly. When I have scratched below the surface I find things are
different to how they first appeared: I have found that many adults thinks they know
better than I do how to learn English.
Neither the fact that I can speak English perfectly nor the fact
that I have a list of teaching qualifications
as long as your arm., nor even my 40
years of experience of teaching seem to
impress. The human ego is so powerful it
is quite unmoved by any of that.
‘I know how I learn English better than you because I know
myself’ Its as simple is that!
This means that I have to waste a lot of time getting the
new learners to trust me–to believe in me. It can take days, weeks, even months,
and sometimes it never happens. Often they are only really beginning to believe
in me as the course ends (after 3 months).
Even the strong students who pass easily don’t really credit
me because they all think they know how to learn better than I do! When they
pass–they think it is because of their natural ability–and little to do with the teacher! In reality even many of these
strong students don’ t have the necessary skills to be autonomous learners because they still retain so many
mistaken beliefs about the learning process. But a really major mistaken belief
is that they know better how they can learn than the teacher does.
Why is this? Well-it could be the subject of research
but I suggest that it is often to do with the way in which these students are
taught-or perhaps not taught - in their home countries. The pedagogy is so dry
and, methodology and style of teaching are often didactic and passive . Although they are obliged to “respect the teacher’ to his face, it is not a surprise to me that they arrive in
Australia with a subconscious belief that teachers really don’t know what they
talking about! Every human being has a bullshit detector!
Younger high school students are usually more humble and more
trusting of the teacher-they actually believe the teacher can teach them. But adults
are much more cynical: even though the teacher has good status in many of their countries of
origin, the English teacher has relatively
lower status than that of Doctors, Engineers Accountants and IT professionals: their target
occupations.
There is little that can be done about this particular
mistaken belief,but I think it helps the teacher to be aware of it.
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