TEACHING WITH AUTHENTIC MATERIALS

TEACHING WITH AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
By David Heitler


The Practice of English Language Teaching, Jeremy Harmer.
Describing Learners
Adult Learners page 40

Adult language learners are notable for a number of special characterístics:
- They can engage with abstract thought. Those who succeed at language learning in latter life, according to Steven Pinker, '...often depend on the concious exercise of their considerable intellects, unlike children to whom language acquisition naturally happens' (Pinker 1994:29). This suggests that we do not have to rely exclusively on activities such as games and songs - though these may be appropriate for some experiences for some students.
They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on.
They have expectations about the learning process, and may already have their own set of patterns of learning.
Adults tend, on the whole, to be more disciplined than some teenagers, and crucially, they are often prepared to struggle on despite boredom.
They come into classrooms with a rich range of experiences which allow teachers to use a wide range of activities with them.
Unlike young children and teenagers, they often have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it. As we shall see in Section c below, motivation is a critical factor in successful learning, and knowing what you want to achieve is an important part of this. Many adults are able to sustain a level of motivation (see Section c3) by holding on to a distant goal in a way that teenagers find more difficult.

However, adults  are never entirely problem-free learners, and have a number of characteristics which can sometimes make learning and teaching problematic:
They can be critical of teaching methods. Their previous learning experiences may have predisposed them to one particular methodological style which makes them uncomfortable with unfamiliar teaching patterns. Conversely, they may be hostile to certain teaching and learning activities which replicate the teaching they received earlier in their educational careers.
They may have experienced failure or criticism at school which makes them anxious and under-confident about learning a language.
Many olders adults worry that their creative powers may be disminishing with age - they are concerned to keep their creative powers alive, to maintain a 'sense of generativity' (Willian and Burden 1997:32). However, as Alan Rogers points out, this generativity is directly related to how much learning has been going on in adult life before they come to a new learning experience (1996:54).