Teaching English to beginner adult students

Abstract

This paper relates the teaching experience with a group of adult students who attended an English course for beginners in an environment where they did not feel threatened by the presence of teenage classmates. Being together with the latter is quite a common situation at the first year classes of the elementary level in the English courses provided by the Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas (Spanish state language schools) – the officially authorised institutions in Spain for the teaching of modern languages. Firstly, the differences encountered between teaching adult and teenage students are revised, devoting special attention to what andragogy says to this respect. Then, the universal character of the ability of teaching is exemplified.