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Adult ESL Education

Doris N. Gonzalez

HE 521: Teaching Adult Learners

Term: 1802D

Kaplan University

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to effectively teach an ESL student with a focus on contemporary practices, adult learning theories and models, adult cognitive development, and teaching methods and practices suitable for an ESL student.

Literature Review

The delivery of instruction in adult ESL context and institutional perspectives are highly diverse. These perspectives are impacted by the purpose and assumptions concerning the meaning of literacy, which can range from social, economic, and different patterns in nature (Atkinson, 2014). Most instructors are unaware of their beliefs in literacy, which forms a wide scope of implications. These beliefs have implications for the learning institutions and to the learners themselves. In most countries, governments are funding the ESL programs, which is slowly becoming a worldwide trend. This trend has been built on changes in economic and social patterns which affect people's lives. The enrollment in adult ESL in the global programs has bulged as a result.

Dynamics in the environment of learners has affected the enrollment and effectiveness of adult ESL programs. Such factors include personal motivation emanating from a large number of learned peers, many opportunities to learn outside of a formal instructional setting such as online classes and access to information and communication technologies have impacted the adult ESL programs (CAELA Network, 2016). Such factors have increased the literacy for adults with regards to ESL programs. Other emerging factors include the funding of major research programs in adult ESL, which have extended the coverage of the programs to the learners.

The dynamics in working environment has led to great implications to the adult ESL. Most learners in the current environments are forced to enroll in this program by prevailing circumstances. The authority or employers are directly or indirectly pushing learners to enroll in this type of program for them to fit in a given community or their working environment (Marko, 2004). Such employees are pushed to limits of learning and qualifying to avoid unemployment and marginalization.

Originally, adult's education was based on andragogy rather than the pedagogy used in children's education. Therefore, the traditional adult education practices were so much based on the principles of andragogy. For some time the only traditional education was the conventional adult education and then came the adult ESL education which had some differences in comparison to the practices of the traditional adult education. The comparison between the two types of adult education has some common characteristics. In both adult education systems, adults were taught based on the fact that they had volunteered to be educated and had not been forced to do so. In the traditional education, an adult learner was accepted if he joined classes voluntarily similar to the Adult ESL. Besides, in both of them, learning was efficient and involved the adult learners throughout the learning experience (Burt & Keenan, 2008). The two education systems made sure that they were focused on problem-based teaching; the adult ESL provided was focused on teaching the new language to the immigrants alone and nothing else. In addition, both education systems relied on the adult's experiences in order to provide knowledge and skills to the learner. However, there did exist some differences like, the traditional adult education was not an assessment based when compared to the adult ESL education which was.

Traditional adult education was advantageous because it was an effective way of imparting knowledge to the learner's because they grasped the concept better since it was voluntary. The practical nature of the two education systems also was instrumental. However, the fact that the two education systems gave the learners too much freedom in relation to their learning had a significant

disadvantage in the effective transmission of knowledge because they became resilient at some point. In order to improve on this, the adult education systems should no longer be voluntary and instead should be mandatory and should include assessments to ensure that the education systems are beneficial (Burt & Keenan, 2008).

Adults Learning Theories and Models

The adults’ ESL education has several impacts on both the traditional and contemporary theories. For example, due to the introduction of the adult ESL education, some changes occurred: the adult ESL cause the new adult education to put more emphasis on the non-cognitive factors of education rather than to pay more attention to the cognitive factors. The adult education was based on the student's initiatives which were initially being ignored during the educational practices. In addition, the ESL education ensured that education focused on some factors like stimulating the student's enthusiasm throughout the whole learning process. ESL education led to curriculum

integration, flexibility, and diversification in order to accommodate more adults from different backgrounds because the tools of learning were highly differentiated based on the student's background (Burt & Keenan, 2007). There was the introduction of more reforms on the teaching methodologies in the average adult education because they now incorporated the methodologies that were being applied to the adult ESL education. Finally, the ESL education caused the strengthening of the researchers and the experiments in the teaching modes.

Even though the adult ESL had impacts on both the contemporary and the traditional theories, the two still had some positive impacts on adult ESL. The observation of non-cognitive factors which came up in the adult ESL education was due to the principles of the traditional

learning theories. The observation of the non-cognitive factors proved to be very advantageous on the learning procedure.

Adult ESL education relates to the four dimensions of learning. Let’s begin with the relation of memory. Language learners used memory as an essential tool in the grasping of the language skill. The ESL education emphasized on the learning of long sentences rather than a single word to ensure that the learner's memory was put into good use because the memory of long English sentences would ensure that the learning process was faster compared to short sentences or single words. The adult ESL education related to the brain is that the brain is the central point of all learning practices. The basis of having the adult education as andragogy originated from the research of how different the adult brain works when compared to a child's brain. As far as the learner's intelligence, it is similar to all learning styles, the rate at which the learner grasps the content taught depends on the learner's knowledge. Although learning procedures have incorporated some methodologies to ensure that the learner efficiently grasped the content, intelligence remains a significant variant in the learning process. Adult ESL education had minimal relation to the wisdom of the adult because the new language learned had nothing to do with wisdom and however wise an adult was, it could not change the fact that he or she needed to be taught well to master English (Auerbach, 2013).