The document discusses different factors to consider when teaching language learners of various ages and backgrounds. For children, it notes they learn quickly through seeing, hearing, and touching, and enjoy talking about themselves. Teenagers are described as sometimes problematic but capable of abstract thought, and motivated by peer approval. Adults are said to engage well with abstract concepts but may have difficulties with pronunciation. Individual differences and motivation are important regardless of age. The document emphasizes understanding learners' perspectives to effectively teach different groups.

1.  Miguel Barquero
 Karolina Portuguez
 Ana María Posas

2. Teaching Children : Myth. Learn faster and more
effectively than any other group.
 Teaching Teenagers: Myth.Unmotivated and
uncooperative. They Are often more effective learners.
Teaching Adults: They may have greater difficulty in
approximating native speaker pronunciation
Much also depends upon individual learner differences and
upon motivation.

3.  Their understanding comes in several ways: what they
see, hear and touch
 They find abstract concepts and grammar rules difficult
 Need for individual attention and approval from the teacher
 Eager to talk about themselves and respond well to learning
about topics such as their home
 They can be bored if the activity is not interesting enough

4.  Are often seen as problematic students
 Great ability for abstract thought and passionate commitment
 Search for identity and self-esteem
 Peer approval is more important than the attention of the
teacher
 Herbert Puchta and Michael Schratz see problems from
teenagers as result of teachers failure to build bridges
between what they want and have to teach and their students
worlds of thoughts and experience
 We must give them tasks which they are able to do

5.  They can engage with
abstract thought
 They posses a whole life
experience
 They have expectations
about the learning process
 More disciplined than other
age groups
 Clear understanding of why
they are learning and what
they want to get out of it

6. On the other hand they have difficulties
too:
 They can be critical with some teaching methods
 They may have negative experience in learning a language
 They might worry that their intellectual powers may be
diminishing with age

7.  Linguistic aptitude tests (appeared in 50’s and 60’s) – predict
a student’s future progress.
Disadvantages:
 They measure the general intellectual ability more than the lisguistic
talents
 They were especially suited to people who were analytic-type
learner
 They may discriminate between the most and the least “intelligent”
students and they are less effective distinguishing between those
who fall between these two extremes
 Teachers tend to treat differently those students with high scores
from those with low scores.

8. Both teacher and
students should be
optimistic about all of
the people in the
class, although the
results of the tests are
good or not.

9. Neil Naiman Tolerance of ambiguity. Positive task orientation. Ego
involvement. High aspirations. Goal orientation.
Perseverance.
Joan Rubin & Irene
Thompson
Learning to live with uncertainty. Students who are
independent, creative, who make intelligent guesses,
who make their own opportunities for practice and
who use contextual clues.
Patsy Lightbown
and Nina Spada
Characteristics can be classified in several categories
(motivation, intellectual abilities, learning preferences),
and some, such as “willing to make mistakes”, can be
considered a personality characteristic.
Western-influenced
methodologies
Promote learner autonomy and self-reliance.
Encourage students to read texts for general
understanding wihtout stopping to look up all the
words they don’t understand. Students are asked to
speak communictively and involved in creative
writing.

10. According to Tony Wright:
1. Enthusiast: looks to the teacher as a point of
reference and is concerned with the goals of the
learning group.
2. Oracular: also focuses on the teacher but is more
oriented towards the satisfaction of personal goals.
3. Participator: tends to concentrate on group goals
and group solidarity.
4. Rebel: refers to the learning group as her/his point
of reference, is mainly concerned with the
satisfaction of his/her own goals.

11. • According to Keith Willing:
Convergers Students who are by nature solitary, prefer to avoid groups,
and who are independent and confident in their own abilities.
They are analytic and tend to be cool and pragmatic.
Conformists Students who prefer to emphasize learning “about language”
over learning to use it. Depende on those in authority. Feel
happy to work in non-communicative classrooms.
Concrete learners Enjoy the social aspects of learning. Like to learn from direct
experience. Interested in language as communication rather
than language as a system. enjoy games and groupwork in
class.
Communicative
learners
Language use oriented. They are comfortable out of class. Show
confidence and willingness to take risks. Much more interested
in social interaction with other speakers of the language.
Perfectly happy to operate without the guidance of a teacher.

12.  Frank Coffield, David Moseley, Elaine Hall and
Kathryn Ecclestone identify an extremely large
list of opposed styles which introduces a note
of caution into our evaluation of different
learner style descriptions.

13. • Neuro-Linguistic
Programming: most
people have one
“preferred primary
system” based on the
VAKOG formulation.
• NLP gives teachers the
chance to offer students
activities which suit their
pimary preferred
systems.

14. • MI theory: Howard
Gardner suggested
that we possess a
range of
“intelligences” instead
of a single one.
• All people have all of
these intelligences, but
in each person one (or
more) of them is more
pronounced.

15.  We can establish WHO the different students in our class
are and recognize HOW they are different through:
 observation
 formal devices; for example, questionnaires, tests,
and feedbacks.

16. Questionnaires: we might ask students what their
learning preferences are.
When answering comprehension about reading
passages I prefer to work:
A) on my own
B )with another student
C )with a group of students
Tests: we might try to find out which preferred sensory
system our students respond to
The Lead Vak Test/Read and imagine
Follow each instruction in your mind and give yourself a mark
0=impossible 1=difficult 2=OK 3=easy
___SEE a kangaroo ___HEAR a song ___FEEL excited
___SEE your toothbrush ___HEAR your own voice ___FEEL grass under your feet
___SEE a plate of food ___HEAR the birdsong ___FEEL your fingers on a piano
changes to a call alarm keyboard

17.  Feedback: either face to face or written. We
might find out how our students liked an
activity, we just performed in class.
Feedbacks, questionnaires, tests and our
observation will help us to build a picture of
the best kind of activities for the mix of
individuals in a particular class, but it does not
mean that everyone will be happy all the time
but most the class will be engaged with the
learning process.

18. Advanced
Upper intermediate
Mid-intermediate
Lower intermediate/pre-intermediate
Elementary
Real beginner False beginner

19. A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2
Can
complete
basic forms
and write
notes
including
times, dates
and places
Can
complete
forms and
write short
simple letters
or postcards
related to
person al
information
Can write
letters or
make notes
predictable
matters
Can make
notes while
someone is
talking or
write a letter
including
non-standard
questions
Can
prepare/draft
Professional
corresponden
ce, take
reasonable
accurate notes
in meetings or
write an essay
which shows
an ability to
communicate
Can write
letters on
any subject
and full
notes of
meetings or
seminars
with good
expression
or accuracy

20.  Some techniques and activities are suitable for some
levels; we should take our students’ level into
consideration while choosing techniques and activities.
 We will give to our students more support when they
are at beginners or intermediate levels, than we need to
do when they are more advanced.
 At Lower levels, we might have our students to repeat
sentences and phrases chorally. Furthermore,
repetition and drills can help get over this and allow
them to practice in a enjoyable and stress free way.