This document discusses characteristics of adult language learners and suggestions for improving language teaching materials for adults. It notes that adults have more life experience, more immediate needs, and expect to be treated as mature. It suggests that materials for adults should use adult themes, roles, and language, rather than focusing solely on native speakers. It proposes reflecting the situations and language of second language users, not just native speakers. Finally, it suggests methods can go beyond 19th century principles, such as incorporating the first language more and emphasizing written language.

1. MATERIALS FOR ADULT
BEGINNERS FROM AN L2 USER
PERSPECTIVE
Hamidreza Ghobadi Rad
Under the Supervision of: Dr. Mazda Yasna
Yazd University
Spring 1397

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF ADULTS
AS LEARNERS AS COMPARED
WITH YOUTH

6. 1. ADULTS ARE OLDER.
They have lived longer and have a different perspective on
life.
They no longer see life through rose-colored glasses, but as a
set of realities.

7. 2. ADULTS HAVE HAD
MORE EXPERIENCE.
They have insights and see relationship not discerned by children
They have a sense of
what is likely to work and
what is not -
sort of accumulated wisdom.

8. 3. ADULTS HAVE NE E DS WHICH ARE MORE
CONCRETE AND IMMEDIATE THAN THOSE OF
CHIL DRE N.
They are impatient with long
discourses on theory and like
to see theory applied to
practical problems.

9. 4. ADULTS ARE USED TO
BEING TREATED AS MATURE
PERSONS AND RESENT
HAVING TEACHERS TALK
DOWN TO THEM.

10. 5. A COROLLARY OF FOUR IS
THAT ADULTS ENJOY HAVING
THEIR TALENTS AND
INFORMATION MADE USE OF IN
A TEACHING SITUATION.

11. 6. ADULT GROUPS ARE LIKELY TO BE
MORE HETEROGENEOUS THAN YOUTH
GROUPS.
 Differences increase with age and mobility.
 Adults come from a wider variety of backgrounds and intelligence levels than
youth.

12. 7. ADULTS CAN LEARN AS WELL
AS YOUTH; ALTHOUGH THEY
MAY NOT PERFORM SOME TASKS
AS RAPIDLY AS YOUTH.

13. ADULTS LEARN AS WELL AS
YOUNG PEOPLE.
People over the age of 40 have an advantage, when it
comes to learning material which calls for good
judgement or related to experience.
Adults can do “fast memorizing” more efficiently than
young children; however, youngsters retain the fact
longer.
The reasons adults may appear to learn not as well is
based on reaction time, not intelligence. If time is not a
factor, there is no difference in ability to learn.

14. THREE APPARENT ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
LANGUAGE TEACHING MATERIALS
FOR ADULTS:
adult students have adult minds and interests
The adult course book is catering for people who do not think,
speak, learn or behave in the same ways as children
The types of students aimed at
The topics discussed

15. SECOND LANGUAGE USERS ARE
PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN RIGHT
L2 users are not just monolingual native speakers
with an additional language but people with new
strengths and abilities.

16. L A N G UAG E T E AC H I N G H A S B E E N H E L D BAC K B Y
U N QU E S T I O N I N G AC C E P TA N C E O F T R A D I T I O N A L
N I N E T E E N T H - C E N T U RY P R I N C I P L E S
these principles are not particularly justified by current ideas about how
people learn second languages; for instance, avoiding the first language
assumes the ‘coordinate’ view of bilingualism that the languages are in
separate compartments rather than the ‘interconnected’ view that sees
them as continually linked in many ways, which underlies much modern
research (Cook, 2002a).

18. RELIANCE ON THE FIRST LANGUAGE
EMPHASIS ON THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE
 Suggestion I: Materials aimed at adults should be adult in theme, teaching
method and language
 Adultness has then a number of consequences for course books, such as:
 – talking about adult topics, not just functional exchanges
 – using adult roles.
 – engaging in adult activities
 Second language users are people in their own right

19. ADOPTION OF THE NATIVE SPEAKER
GOAL
In language teaching both language teachers and students
have often had a native speaker goal in mind; success is
measured by how close the students get to a native speaker
norm.

20. SUGGESTION II. MATERIALS BASED
ON THE L2 USER PERSPECTIVE
AIMED AT ADULTS SHOULD
REFLECT THE SITUATIONS, ROLES
AND LANGUAGE OF L2 USERS, NOT
JUST NATIVE SPEAKERS

21. If we accept that the students’ manifest destiny is to be L2 users, this
needs to be built in to courses both as the realistic target to aim at and as
a motivation for students.
The potential for L2 users is to become successful people with two
languages, both in the ability to use another language for their own L2
purposes and in the cognitive, cultural and social advantages that
knowing another language confers upon them.

22. L2 USER ROLES
Existing course books hardly ever mention L2 users, as we
have seen. Those that are encountered are students or tourists,
who are effectively powerless in the L2 situation.
Course books need to present favorable images of L2 users,
both the invented characters in their dialogues and the famous
characters that are paraded from time to time.

23. L2 USER SITUATIONS
Similarly, the situations to be presented need to cover the range of
L2 users, not just those of native speakers. What matters is what
happening in the doctor’s surgery when a native speaker doctor
encounters an L2 user patient or an L2 user doctor treats a
monolingual native speaker (increasingly the case in the United
Kingdom) or an L2 doctor sees an L2 patient, not what happens
when native doctor meets native patient.

24. L2 USER TARGET LANGUAGE
The consequence of rejecting the native speaker standard is
that the appropriate language to model to the students is that
of successful L2 users not native speakers.
International Students English (Jenkins, 2000) is one step in
the right direction but is limited by being only about
pronunciation and only about students.

26. THE TYPES OF SITUATION
PORTRAYED
Course books inevitably have to present
situations in which the second language is used.

27. SUGGESTION III: TEACHING
METHODS CAN GO BEYOND
THE PRINCIPLES OF
LANGUAGE TEACHING
FAMILIAR SINCE THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY

28. Use of the first language in the classroom
Applied to course books the first language can be used for:
conveying meaning
 explaining grammar
giving instructions and tests
using within teaching activities
 Use of the written language in the course book
