AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

teaching English, adult learners, andragogical process design

In this session, we will outline English language teaching practices from a private language school in Serbia. We will discuss these based on Knowles' andragogical process design, highlighting key steps and challenging issues from the perspectives of six language instructors and we will summarize practical implications based on our findings.

This session focuses on teaching English to adult learners in a private language school in Serbia. Considering the popularity of English as an international language and the increasing number of adults who need this skill to effectively communicate in international settings, there is a growing need to understand how to effectively teach this group. We used data based on qualitative interviews with six English language instructors from one private school in Serbia to understand how these individuals teach adult learners and analyzed them based on Knowles’ andragogical process design (Knowles et al., 2020). While the andragogical process design may not be as popular as Knowles’ six core adult learning principles, which summarize the unique characteristics of adult learners, the andragogical process design is equally important because it delineates the adult learning process, from preparing learners to evaluating learning outcomes. Specifically, our findings will shed light on the crucial steps in the andragogical process design and highlight possible challenges if the adult learning process is based on this design.

Knowles, M. S., Holton III, E. F., Swanson, R. A., & Robinson, P. A. (2020). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Routledge.