Respect the learner

Adult beginning English learners may be new to English, but they're not new to life.  They learn in the context of their life experience.

Adult education (also referred to as andragogy) is fundamentally different from educating children.  Adult beginning English learners, especially in a community literacy setting, are often:

• self-directed and highly motivated to learn, and

• managing multiple competing demands on their limited time, such as variable work schedules in multiple jobs, caring for family members, and relying on public transportation schedules.

Meet learners where they are

It can be terrifying and exhausting to navigate life in a country where you don't understand, read or speak the language.  When you add the trauma of leaving  one's country and extended family in a crisis, and/or living under the stress of undocumented immigration, and/or caring for family members who are also adjusting to a new country, our learners show tremendous strength and drive by simply showing up for class or a tutoring session.  

• Welcome your learners, thank them for coming, and ask how they are doing (use pictures at first).

• If possible, use communication tools that the learners already use.  Many of my learners use WhatsApp, so I use a class WhatsApp group with each class.  It's easy for learners to respond with emojis, gifs and pictures, even if they are not yet comfortable responding with text or voice messages.  For learners who choose not to use WhatsApp, I provide the same information in other formats.

• Whenever possible, ask learners to share their stories, culture, and interests.  This isn't always easy with early English learners, but even with limited vocabulary they can share pictures of special food or traditions that they enjoy, or pictures from their country of origin. 

Treat learners as adults

It's very easy to find ESOL material, games and videos designed for children.  Not only is the content often not relevant to our learners, some learners can also be demotivated and insulted by being asked to use material intended for children.  See this page for links to content designed for adult beginning English learners.

One exception is if you are working with learners who live or work with young children, and you are providing practice with an activity that they will share with young children.

The learning environment

If you're teaching via video conferencing (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.), be aware that many of your learners:

• are accessing the class on their phone while caring for other family members, and

• don't have the luxury of a separate quiet room where they can attend class.

First, make sure that any visuals that you share are easily viewed on a phone screen.  Try viewing the materials on Zoom on your phone.  Use a font size of at least 24 at the very minimum (30 or 36 are better).   Err on the side of less material per page (and more pages, if needed).

At the beginning of a course, teach learners how to mute and unmute their microphone.  They may not be aware of the noise in their background or the noise that they create in handling their phone.  In a class situation, you may need to mute them frequently at first so that other learners can hear, until they learn how to manage this for themselves.  Encourage learners to use earbuds with a built-in microphone to make it easier for them to hear the class and for the class to hear them.

Be open to cultural differences

Many people and cultures have a different relationship with time than people in the U.S. (and parts of northern Europe) do.  For many people, it's important to take the time to build or acknowledge a relationship before getting down to business. 

When I taught in Cyprus, I was the only person in the room who was bothered by a class or seminar that didn't start at the scheduled time.  The expectation was that the instructor would show up no earlier than 5 minutes after the scheduled start time, and that instruction would begin no earlier than 10 minutes after the scheduled start time (and often later).

Yes, it's important that our learners become aware of the U.S. fixation with starting and ending on time.  But in your classroom or your tutoring session, take a few minutes at the beginning of the session to re-connect with students.  In a class, plan review or social activities for at least the first 5 minutes, to give other students time to join class.

Ask about cultural and educational practices in your learners' countries of origin.  Do classes start and end at specific times?  Are students encouraged to talk in class?  To ask questions?  What do students do if they can't come to class, or if they come to class after the class has started?  (Use Google Translate if needed to have these discussions, but be aware that Google Translate is not perfect.  It translated the Dari words for a ceramics class as "arranging mud".)