DESCRIBING LEARNERS

FIL ANG 311, 27 October, 2008

Age

The age of our students is a major factor in our decision about how and what to teach.

Different needs, competences, cognitive skills.

“Acquisition is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter” (Stephen Pinker, 1994)

Age- some beliefs

Adolescents are unmotivated and uncooperative and therefore make poor language learners;

Adults have so many barriers to learning because of the slowing effects of ageing and because of their past experiences so that they only rarely have any success.

Age Difference

Young Children Adolescents Adults

Young children- up to the age of ten

They respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words;

They often learn indirectly rather than directly- they take in information from all sides, learing from everything around them rather then only focusing on the precise topic they are being taught;

Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from what they see and hear and, crucially, have a chance to touch and interact with;

Young children- up to the age of ten

They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity about the world around them;

They have a need for individual attention and approval from the teacher;

They are keen to talk about themselves, and respond well to learning that uses themselves and their own lives as main topics in the classroom;

They have a limitted attention span; unless the activities are extremely engaging they can easily get bored, losing interest after ten minutes or so.

Young learners- implications for ELT

A rich diet of learning experiences which encourages students to get information from a variety of sources;

Range of different activities; Flexibilty; Classroom- bright and colorful.

Adolescents

Why are they so much less motivated and why do they present outright discipline problems?

The search for individual identity- this search provides the key challenge for this age group;

Identity has to be forged among classmates and friends, peer approval may be considerably more important for the student than the attention of the teacher.

Adolescents

..”the teacher’s failure to build bridges between what they want and have to teach and their students’ worlds of thought and experience” (Puchta and Schratz)

Linking language teaching far more closely to the students’ everyday interests through, in particular, the use of humanistic teaching.

Adult learners

They can engage with abstract thought.

Those who succeed at language learning in later life “often depend on the conscious exercise of their considerable intellects, unlike children to whom language acquistion naturally happens” (Pinker)

Adult learners

They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on;

They have expectations about the learning process and may already have their set patterns of learning;

They tend to be more disciplined, and they are often prepared to struggle on despite boredom;

Adult learners

They often have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it;

They can be critical of teaching methods; their previous learning experiences may have predisposed them to one particular methodology style and conversely, they may be hostile to certain teaching and learning activities which replicate the teaching they received earlier in their educational careers;

Adult learners

They may have experienced failure or criticism at school which makes them anxious and under-confident about learning a language;

Many adults worry that their intellectual powers may be diminishing with age- they are concerned to keep their creative powers alive, to maintain a sense of generativity!

Learner Differences

1. Aptitude (skills) test: to measure general intellectual ability

2. Good Learner Characteristics: Tolerance of ambiguity Ego involvement High aspirations Goal orientation Creativity Perseverance (persistence), etc…

Learner Style

convergers conformists

concrete learners

communicative learners

Convergers

These are students who are by nature solitary, prefer to avoid groups, independent and confident in their own abilities;

They are analytic and can impose their own structures on learning.

They tend to be cool and pragmatic.

Conformists

These are the students who prefer to emphasise learning about language over learning to use it.

They tend to be dependent on those in authority and are perfectly happy to work in non-communicative classrooms, doing what they are told.

Concrete learners

They enjoy the social aspects of learning and like to learn from direct learning experience.

They are interested in language use and language as communication rather than language as a system.

They enjoy games and groupwork in class.

Communicative learners

They are language use oriented; They are comfortable out of class and

show a degree of confidence and willingness to take risks.

They are much more interested in social interaction with other speakers of the language than they are with analysis of how the language works;

They are perfectly happy to operate without the guidance of a teacher.

Language Levels

advanced

upperintermediate

mid-intermediate

lower intermediate/pre-intermediate

elementary

real beginner/ false beginner

Individual Variations

Multiple intelligence

Neuro-linguistic programming

Children are all unique learners

Gardner’s framework for multiple intelligencesHoward Gardner (Frames of Mind: Theory of Multiple

Intelligences) suggested that intelligence has no unitary character and is manifested in different ways in different children.

MI Inventory- individual assignment

Part IV/ Key:  Section 1 – This reflects your Naturalist strength

Section 2 – This suggests your Musical strengthSection 3 – This indicates your Logical strengthSection 4 – This illustrates your Existential strengthSection 5 – This shows your Interpersonal strengthSection 6 – This tells your Kinesthetic strengthSection 7 – This indicates your Verbal strengthSection 8 – This reflects your Intrapersonal strengthSection 9 – This suggests your Visual strength

MI Inventory Results

Remember: Everyone has all the intelligences! You can strengthen each

intelligence! This inventory is meant as a

snapshot in time - it can change! MI is meant to empower, not label

learners!

What are the implications of multiple

intelligences for language teaching?

Create a list of the implications in your group and identify a reporter to share with the class.

Motivation

1. Defining Motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic

2. Sources of Motivation

3. Initiating and sustaining motivation

Sources of Motivation

The society we live in

Significant others

The teacher

The method

Initiating and Sustaining Motivation

Goals and goal setting

Learning environment

Interesting classes