Question#1 Age levels

I am currently working with two different age groups: 1st graders in the 6 60 8 year range, and a class of adults, 18 to 40. Differences to consider include attention span, retention, interests, how fast they learn, motivation, and language ego. One obvious difference is the energy level. The 1st graders respond well to language stations, which allow them to physically and cognitively move through a variety of activities. This also deals with their short attention span. In contrast, my older learners have a more controlled attention span, but are not as spontaneous in their learning as the youngsters. The adults have more life experiences that you can work into lessons. The children are less inhibited when it comes to speaking; they like to participate in the language bits they know. Both groups need and appreciate recognition, and I find that the more I support them in making positive language communication, the more willing they are to engage in the learning process. I have also found that games and fun activities work equally well with both groups. While they all enjoy activities that let them interact with their classmates, I have observed that the adults collaborate better with each other. The children tend to battle for control, particularly when playing word games or competint to be the first one to answer questions. More structure and control is required to keep them on task.


One thing that I have found to be essential in working with both of my classes is taking the time to chat with the students and find out what they do in their free time and what they are interested in. In doing this I am better able to tutor and teach lessons based on topics they're interested in.


Returning to my observation that fun activities that work well with young learners can work equally well with adults, I think an interesting ESL lesson for both groups could be designed around the Kai-lan video I watched for the Blog #2 assignment. Let's say I wanted to have the classes communicate about the different ways people celebrate the New Year. Showing this episode to the class would be a good way to launch the communicative activities for this lesson. The 1st graders, I am guessing, would respond most enthusiastically. The focus here would be to guide them in identifying the things Kai-lan and friends did to observe this holiday. This could be done as a class exercise, followed by a visual depicting other countries' celebrations. The next activity would have them describe their own personal descriptions. They would now be ready to write down 3 to 5 ways people celebrate New Year. I would then ask for volunteers to give a little "talk" on New Year celebrations, using their list as a guide. Knowing this group, I would expect an almost 100% response.

The same activities could be carried out with not much adaptation in my adult class, albeit with more prompting and more encouragement to get them to engage. The main thing to bear in mind with any adaptation of materials for this lesson would be to peersonalize the tasks and keep it relevant to these learners.