Teaching Summer School

Posted by Dorit Sasson Jun 29, 2007

Four summers ago I unexpectedly landed a summer job teaching adults English at an intensive six week summer program. They ranged from eighteen to sixty-five and many were apprehensive about improving their level of ESL reading skills; some hadn't studied English in years and wanted to study ESL as an enrichment course not necessarily coursework for an advanced degree.

Teaching adults is very different than teaching students in a formal school setting. They are cognitively more mature and motivated. Rod Ellis in Second Language Acquisition puts forth carefully reasoned arguments in his didactic and impressive study regarding how adults can also acquire high levels of language learning contrary to elementary school students who can soak up a second language language like a sponge.

However, I heard many 'I can't do it' voices in the first week of the summer session especially from the older adults, who were certain that English was simply a maze of grammatical forms and vebiage that they still couldn't grasp thirty years earlier when they were in High School.

In this particular type of situation, it is important to lay the ground rules while easing your adult students into a routine helping them all along the way.

How to Motivate (Adult) Students - A Few Ground Rules

1. Have a serious program and stick to it. The adult learners might complain, but stick to your reasoning about doing homework, coming to class on time, etc.

2. Bring in a lot of humor and a positive attitude into the classroom. It helps break the ice and adults really appreciate an instructor who is emotionally intelligent while imparting knowledge.

3. Supplement your instruction with various other side activities like worksheets or diversifying the curriculum with a computer program if you have a computer lab.

4. Bring a lot of love and care. Show them that you are on their side.

I had a fun time teaching this particular group of learners. Getting to know what ticks them is strongly recommended. I quickly learned that they enjoyed the frontal experiences as we went over exercises via transparencies on the overhead projector and they benefited from explanations.

Even if they didn't become proficient in reading at the end of six weeks, they asked for more English lessons. I guess that was a good sign.