DESCRIBING

LEARNERS

Selected and adapted by Martha Liliana Torres

Guerrero
Anyone who stops learning
is old, whether at twenty
or eighty. Anyone who
keeps learning stays
young. The greatest thing
in life is to keep your
mind young. (Henry Ford)
 AGE
1. It is the major factor in deciding what
to teach and how to teach it.

2. Different ages have different needs,

competences and cognitive skills (e.g.
Children have facility in pronunciation).

3. It is admitted that teenagers are

often more effective learners (age 12)
 Young Children
Especially 9 and 10 years old children
learn differently in the following ways:

● They respond to meaning even if they

do not understand some words.

● They often learn more indirectly than

directly.
● Their understanding comes in several
ways: what they see and what they
hear.
● They find abstract concepts and
grammar rules difficult.
● Learning and curiosity.
● Need for individual attention and approval
from the teacher.
● Keen to talk about themselves and respond
well to learning about topics such as their
homes.
● They have limited attention span, they can
be bored if the activity is not interesting
enough.
 Adolescents
● Are often seen as problematic
students.
● Search for identity and self-esteem.
● Teachers failure to build bridges
between what they want and have to
teach and their students worlds of
thoughts and experience. (Herbert
Puchta and Michael Schratz)
● We must give them tasks which they
are able to do.
● Discuss abstract issues.
● Provoke intellectual activity by helping
them to be aware of contrasting ideas,
concepts.
 Adult learners
● They can engage with abstract thought.
● They posses a whole life experience.
● They have expectations about the
learning process.
● More disciplined than other age groups.
● They have a clear understanding of why
they are learning and what they want to
get.
 Difficulties
● They can be critical with some teaching
methods.
● They may have negative experiences in
learning a language.
● They might worry that their intellectual
powers may be diminishing with age.
 Learner Differences
Linguistic aptitude test ( 1950s - 1960s) -
Predict a student’s future progress.

Disadvantage:

● Measure general intellectual ability more

than linguistic talents.
● They were especially suited to people
who were analytic-type learner.
● They may discriminate between the
most and the least “intelligent”
students.

● Teachers tend to treat differently

those students with high scores
from those with low scores.
 Good Learner Characteristics
Neil Maimann

● Positive task
orientation.
● High aspirations.
● Goal orientations.
● Perseverance.
 Good Learner Characteristics
Johan Rubin & Irene Thompson

● Creative
● Make intelligent guesses.
● Make their own opportunity for practice.
● Make errors work for them not against
them.
● Use contextual clues.
 Good Learner Characteristics
Patsy Lightbown & Nina Spada

● Motivation
● Intellectual abilities.
● Learning preferences.
● Personality characteristics.(eg. “willing to
make mistakes”)
 Learning Styles Strategies
Tony Wright
The Oracular
The enthusiast

The Participator The Rebel

 Learning Styles Strategies
Keith Willing
Communicative
Concrete

Conformists Convergers
 Individual Variations
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Multiple Intelligences Theory (MI Theory)

 Methodology

● Some techniques and activities are suitable

for some levels, we should take our
student’s level into consideration.

● We will give more student’s support when

they are at beginners or intermediate
levels, than we need to do when they are
more advanced
 Language, task and topics

● Students acquire language partly as a

result of the comprehensible input they
receive especially from teachers.

● Teacher should adjust their language

according to their students level.
 Motivation
● Extrinsic
● Intrinsic

External sources of motivation

● The goal
● The society
● The people around us
● Curiosity
 Resources
Harmer, J. The practice of English
Language Teaching. Longman, 2010

Brown, D. Teaching by principles.

Longman, 2007.

Harmer, J. English Language Teaching.

Longman, 2006
Thanks a lot!