Adult Learners with English as an Additional Language - Term Paper Example

The Adult in Learning English as an Additional or Second Language Introduction In a community of people with diverse cultural backgrounds, effective communication becomes a challenge. Aside from the influences of beliefs, values and practices, differences in the language used by people make the task of exchanging information on things extra difficult. As instructors are tasked to teach their students and facilitate the learning process, they become subjected to several theories laws and principles which they can utilize in assisting optimal learning and retention upon their students. These guidelines point out the needs and requirements that will allow them to do so. One of the most important factors that determines optimal learning is age. Since it is clear that communication is a relevant medium for the learning process to occur and age is an important determinant to its effectiveness, this paper will consider the adult learners in the context of learning English as an additional or secondary language (EAL/ESL) to enhance the communication skills of the said population. In adults’ quest to continuing education, especially in the classroom, instructors are faced not only with the burden of educating them but also of understanding their cultural background in addition to their individual traits. Several sources suggest varied issues that affect this subject. These include the students’ literacy skills of the mother tongue (McCaffery, et al., 2007), customs, and expectations, learning styles, confidence, motivation, and personal circumstances (McKay & Tom, 1999; Drury, 2010; Contento, 2011). The Unique Characteristics of an Adult Learner In the hope of understanding the factors involved and how they affect the adult learners as they attain education on EAL or ESL, it is deemed necessary to know the circumstances that surround them (adult learners) which affect their attitudes toward learning it. These circumstances may include but are not limited to their general characteristics as adult learners and the emerging trends acting upon it. The knowledge of these matters will assist instructors or educators as well the learners in their practice and in their daily living by formulating teaching and learning strategies to do so. According to Contento (2011), adult learners purposely make themselves involved in the learning process; they “can’t be threatened, coerced, or tricked into learning something new” (Contento, 2001, p.401). Hence, they are voluntary participants to education (Quinn, 2000, p.46). Moreover, their growth is considered already a part of a continuing process unlike the children’s which is still starting. They too have already a set of experiences and values, different interests, as well as an established learning style which separate them from the children who are also subjected to the different teaching-learning methods in the classroom setting (Quinn, 2000, p.46; Werner & DeSimone, 2009, p.84). Additionally, Cranton (2006 cited in Jacobs & Hundley, 2000, p.6) advocated that adult learners are “frequently collaborative and participative.” These traits suggest that even under the same circumstances, the adult learners differ from the children as they are already equipped with specific knowledge, attitude, and skills that can either aid or hinder the introduction of new information into their system. Nonetheless, literature suggests that even with such contrasting traits, the learning process of the adult learners can also be promoted with some of the materials and activities used in teaching children (International Association of Fire Chiefs & National Fire Protection Association, 2009, p.42); yet, the fallback lies in the inaccurate assumptions of some instructors and educators that all of the available strategies and resources used in teaching children can be applied in adult education which is definitely not the case (Marquis & Huston, 2009, p.373). Background of the Study Studies on teaching English or other language to people who have another first or mother language and how certain characteristics affect this have not been uncommon in the recent years. This part of the paper will consider those that tackled the use of several teaching and learning strategies for adults learning EAL or ESL, a relevant step to appreciating the importance of having proficient skills in using English as an additional or second language in a culturally-diverse community as it helps determine the society’s overall academic progress and social development (Li & Nes, 2001, p.50). As adults are characterized by a number of traits which deem them unique from the children who learn in the same structured setting (e.g., school), trends have surfaced manifesting that several “learning strategies (steps taken to facilitate acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information) influence the degree of proficiency obtained in a second language” of those subjected to the learning process (Ehrman & Oxford, 1988). The importance of the teaching strategies utilized by the educators, too, has been frequently emphasized in existing resources (Yang, 2005; Peyton & Crandall, n.d.; Condelli & Wrigley, n.d.). In addition, timing, social and interpersonal strategies also play a role in learning of and gaining literacy skills in English speaking (Goldstein, 1986). Age. Existing literature has established that age has a great influence in second language acquisition (Krashen, 1981 cited in Fitch, 1995). For adult learners, acquisition of an additional or second language aside from his or her first, native, or mother language becomes affected with the knowledge and literacy skills they have acquired prior to its introduction. In his book, Krashen (1981, p.7) stressed that this may be due to their tendency of “falling back on old knowledge when he or she has not yet acquired enough of the second language.” Unlike the people who have English as their mother or first language, with it being a part of their growing up, adult learners who are aiming to learn English aside from their mother or first language are perceived to have some level of difficulty as they deliberately commit themselves into “developing a command and control of the different components of the language: its phonology (the sound system), its morphology (the patterns and parts of words) and its syntax (the patterns of phrases and sentences)” (Verghese, 1989, p.18). Still, some sources also proposed that the second-language learners’ literacy skills in the use of their first language have an extensive impact on acquiring literacy skills on the second language (Koda, 2008, p.71). English as a Second Language: Teaching and Learning Strategies. Just as it has been emphasized earlier, the teaching and learning strategies of the teacher and adult learners are important determinants to the effectiveness of teaching EAL or ESL. Aside from the most common strategies discussed and are being utilized by English teachers which will be presented later, available sources point out the consequences of knowing or not knowing the cultural background of the adult learner and the integration of English literacy skills to the daily lives of these people, especially those who are living in predominantly English-using society. Cultural background is held as such an important factor to this because findings of both past and recent researches support that the adult learners’ culture significantly helps in identifying how they would interpret given information (Drucker, 2003). Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) addressed this as the schema theory. In 1992, Landson-Billings (p.142) also proposed what she called as culturally-relevant teaching in the introduction of the English language so that the teaching will not only “fit the school culture to the students’ culture but also to use students culture as the basis for helping students understand themselves and the others, structure social interactions, and conceptualize knowledge.” On the other hand, Drucker (2003) noted that some strategies are more helpful in teaching English to people who have a first language. Of these, shared reading and paired reading came out to be the most efficient methods. The shared-reading strategy is the act of reading together a text by both the teacher and the student. Whereas, paired reading is done by two learners reading together; the other being a “skilled reader” who reads the text first and serves as the role model for the less-skilled reader who will read the text the last (Li & Nes, 2001, p.51). Nevertheless, listening and reading of audio taped stories was also seen as a beneficial method to teaching EAL or ESL to adult learners as well as to the young ones (Drucker, 2003). The Teaching and Learning Strategies for Introducing English as a Language to Adult Learners Adult learners, as it has been emphasized earlier, are already equipped with sets of values, beliefs, practices, knowledge, attitude, and skills--factors that have great influences on the efficiency of the teaching and learning strategies that will be applied by both the teacher and the adult learner in learning English. This section of the paper will present the strategies which seem to have overcome the limitations imposed by the factors mentioned above. Teaching Strategies. By taking note of the characteristics of the adult learners, an efficient educator of EAL or ESL will be able to regard several points in teaching it. Generally, educators should (Wharton & Race, 1999, p.28): 1. Be aware of the anxieties that mature learners often have when first returning to studying. 2. Remember that mature learners may know a lot. 3. Some mature learners tend to be demanding. 4. Remember that mature learners may be unfamiliar with contemporary approaches to language learning. 5. Take care about you own assumptions. 6. Check out the needs and wants of your mature learners. 7. Give mature learners the chance to interact well with the rest of the group. While being aware of and having the ability to deal with these will help augment the teachers in delivering the lessons on English literacy, not being able to do so is perceived to increase the difficulty of the adult learners in achieving proficiency in the second-language acquisition. On the contrary, although several countries have created their own program models to suit the specialized needs of their non-English-speaking citizens (Murray, 2005, p.68), a number of studies have summarized them and were seen to work across the differences in the individuals’ personal and cultural background. Ernst-Slavit, et al. (2002) pointed out the four stages respectively: the (1) Preproduction Stage; (2) Early Production Stage; (3) Speech Emergence Stage; and the (4) Intermediate Fluency Stage. These stages of teaching which incorporate particular effective strategies in each stage are being pursued, and are seen useful by the English-language educators in the United States. These, furthermore, accommodate in them the cultural influences and considerations of while teaching literacy skills to the adult learners to learn the language as a second or an additional to their first or mother tongue. In the first or the Preproduction Stage wherein the adult learners are still exploring the new language, teaching strategies involve face-to-face conversations, building receptive and recycled vocabulary, listening to comprehension utilizing short texts and passages, and the use of visuals and manipulative objects. The second or Early Production stage which characterizes the learners as starting to comprehend the technicalities of learning another language and which are by then, also assimilating the basic skills in reading, speaking, and writing with the language, it is believed that strategies like provision of anticipation guides, key terms, and audiotapes before, on and after reading activities (respectively) are efficient in developing simple responses "to general questions about key vocabulary" (Ernst-Slavit, et al., 2002). In the third stage (Speech Emergence) wherein learners are already able to communicate using the English language with the other people in a small group, teachers are said to benefit from using Literature in further developing this by utilizing expanded vocabulary and asking open-ended questions. Whereas, in the fourth stage (Intermediate Fluency), during which the students have already the ability to converse and use connective narrative denoting “higher levels of language use,” teachers can: "add some direct instruction regarding basic study skills such as note-taking techniques, skimming text for specific information, scanning text for main ideas, recognizing specific attributes within a particular literary genre, and using those attributes to produce ones own representation of that genre, to name a few." (Ernst-Slavit, et al., 2002) Learning Strategies. Like teachers, adult learners also use specific learning styles in acquiring knowledge in English literacy and which may also be taught in the classroom. In a book, O’Malley and Chamot (1990, p.164) identified the following strategies that may help the adult, non-English learners in achieving proficiency in the English language. These include “focusing of attention, monitoring of comprehension, elaboration of prior knowledge, making use of inferences, using deduction to apply language rules, taking notes on listening and reading materials, asking questions for clarification, and cooperating with peers to accomplish a learning task.” Nevertheless, individual preferences on how to improve English literacy are also noted. References Carrell, P.L. & Eisterhold, J.C., 1983, Schema theory and ESL reading pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 4 December, 17 (4), pp. 553-573. Condelli, L. & Wrigley, H.S., n.d. Instruction, language and literacy: for adult ESL literacy students. 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Yang, Y., 2005. Teaching adult ESL learners. The Internet TESL Journal, March, 11 (3). Read More