Teach English in Baiyangba Zhen - Enshi Tujiazu Miaozu Zizhizhou

English is one of the international languages, which is used all over the world and in many fields of our lives such as in Social, Economics, Politics, and especially Education. Therefore, English as a language in international communication is clearly needed by many learners to deliver thought and interact in a variety of situations. Because of the importance of English, the current English language teaching and learning context in Vietnam will show that the demand for English learning is very great. This is clearly seen in the majority of institutions and centers that offer English courses as well as in the great number of learners who go to English classes. Among these learners, adult learners have a big special group. Due to some of their characteristics, the teaching of English to this group of adult learners has some advantages and disadvantages as follows. The first advantage is that adult students have some degree of outside motivation. They may study English for a lot of reasons, but of course, they want to or need to. The motivation may be in the form of integrative motivation for some students because they expect to integrate themselves into the culture of an English-speaking country like America, Canada, or Australia. For others, the motivation is a successful key that the mastery of the English language is seen as an essential skill that can bring them a better job or position. When these adult learners go to school with some motivation they are easier to teach than those who have no motivation in the classroom. The second advantage is that adult students can bring those study skills and learning strategies they have reached in their first language to their study of English. Unlike children, adults have some of their own learning ways. They have finished their studies at least some in their own language, so they must have gained some basic skills like reading, summarizing, and applying formulae and information and such critical thinking skills as analyzing, synthesizing, etc. Moreover, they may also have some good strategies for learning better than children. Therefore, the English language teachers can make their job easier by creating conditions for adult students to reactivate these study skills and learning strategies and apply them to their study of a new language. One more advantage is that adult learners can make use of whatever kind of knowledge they have applied their own language. I’m sure that you cannot be seen this advantage in other groups of learners like children or adolescents. First, adult students have much experience of using a language, which is their mother tongue. Now that they start learning English, they can remember the new langue system better by making use of what they know about their own language. It is very popular to see learners comparing and contrasting their first language with the foreign language they are learning to find out areas in which the two languages are different or similar so that they can learn the new language more quickly. Second, adult students’ life experience, world knowledge, and professional knowledge can contribute much to their learning a foreign language. It can help them a lot when they have to read about or discuss complex or controversial topics in English. So the English teacher can engage adult learners more easily if he knows how to tap the knowledge they have gained over time. In contrast, there are also some disadvantages to the teaching of English to adult students. The first disadvantage is that English learning makes a strong need for adult learners in terms of time. As a matter of fact, it is really difficult for adult students to make time to learn English. As most institutions and centers teach English in the evening adult students have to study after work. The simple reason is that they all have their own lives to live outside the classroom or they all have other commitments in life than learning English. As a result, some students take as much time and make their effort in learning as they should. Of course, teachers will have difficulty following the performance and progress of those students who cannot attend class regularly. Another factor that can interrupt with adult students’ learning English is their fear of failure with lack of progress. Most adult students have a good position in their workplace. And now, at school, they are just normal students doing with tasks, assignments, examinations. As they have been excellent in their career, they do not want to give up their desired goal of mastering English. Other students may be puzzled on themselves in a different way. For example, the level of adult students is intermediate or advanced, those who already know a lot may find progress difficult to recognize. In this case, the teacher has more work to do: they have to help these students achieve the level of challenge right or view success in the future. In addition, the lack of well-qualified teachers and the poor physical conditions of the classrooms at some English language schools and centers can influence students' motivation. Nowadays, a great number of centers or schools provide English courses and they range from universities and their satellite centers to privately-owned centers in Vietnam. Such the increasing establishment of schools and centers is useful that it gives students a wide variety of programs to choose from. However, because of a lack of quality control, the reality of some schools and centers may fall short of student expectations. Some teachers are untrained or inexperienced, delivering boring or uninteresting lessons; the physical classroom conditions and resources for learning are just basic. All this cannot of course supply students in general and adult students in particular with any inside motivation, an important factor for successful language learning. In general, this analysis of the current context for teaching adult learners of English in Vietnam in general and of the characteristics of this group of learners in particular, which reflects the increasing demand for English language learning and mainly shows the advantages and disadvantages that adult learners have in their English study. Both teachers and students need to find out these findings of the analysis so that they can find some ways to increase the advantages and decrease the disadvantages. Only in this way can teachers deliver the quality of English language programs for students efficiently.