LinguistiCAL: The Adult ESL Profession: A Snapshot

In whose classrooms can you find highly educated professionals from Western Europe, farmers and nomadic tribes members from the Middle East, Central America, or South East Asia who have never been to school and who are illiterate in their own language, and everyone in between? Instructors of adults learning English as a second language (ESL) know that we are referring to them, of course.

ESL instruction is an important part of the adult education field. In 1998, 1,927, 210 adult English language learners were enrolled in programs that received funding from the U.S. Department of Education. This represented 48% of those enrolled in all adult education courses; a number almost equal to the combined total of those enrolled in adult basic education and those in adult secondary education.

What do adult ESL instructors need to know?
Instructors work with a population that is diverse in race, culture, native language, economic status, educational background, and motivation for learning the language. To do this, they need to know the following:
1. How adult learners learn best:

• Previous knowledge must be recognized and respected and new knowledge must be integrated with it through the active participation of the learner.
  
• Collaborative modes of teaching and learning enhance the self-concepts of those involved and result in more meaningful and effective learning.
  
• Adult learning is facilitated when teaching activities are connected to real life and when they promote question asking and answering, problem finding, and problem solving.
  
• Skill learning is facilitated when individual learners can assess their own skills and strategies and learning styles
  

2. How adults learn a second language. The factors that influence this include degree of literacy in the first language, type and amount of previous formal education, whether the first language uses the Roman alphabet system or not, the age and cultural background of the learner, and the learner’s motivation for learning the second language.
3. How to teach learners from a variety of cultures. Adult instructors learn from experience both how to manage their multicultural, multilevel classes and how to value this diversity and use it to enrich the language and cultural learning of everyone in the class.

What do adult ESL instructors do?
In addition to helping their learners develop English reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, instructors develop curricula and other teaching materials, assess and evaluate learners, and even counsel them or refer them to other service providers in the community. In many program settings, teachers also transmit content beyond the language instruction, such as employment skills, survival skill information, cultural information, or American history and citizenship facts.

Programs in which adult ESL teachers work vary widely in terms of setting—community based organization, correctional facility, private educational institution, workplace site, community college; program type—academic, nonacademic, prevocational, vocational, workplace, survival ESL, citizenship; approach—family literacy, participatory, whole language, tutorial; learner group—adults, college students, refugees, out-of-school youth, criminals, high-level professionals; and timing—part-time, full-time, day, evening. The field also offers options in administration and research, and positions in policy and nonprofit organizations that support adult ESL programs.

What are the challenges and rewards?
Teachers work in leftover spaces, with inappropriate materials, often outside the nine-to-five workday, for little money or professional status, with students who are often ignored and excluded by the dominant society. Most teachers are part-time, hourly employees teaching in more than one program. Turnover rates are high and burnout is common. Professional recognition and compensation are usually less than adequate and adult ESL professionals often feel that their programs are given a low status relative to other adult education components.

So why do people continue to cultivate careers in adult ESL? Why do so many professionals eagerly meet the demands for flexibility, creativity, sensitivity, and commitment? Many ESL teachers focus on rewards less tangible than financial compensation or professional status and recognition: social service, creativity, and sense of accomplishment. Practitioners of adult ESL generally have the desire and ability to learn from other cultures and strong feelings of commitment to and responsibility for their students.

With the growing numbers of adults learning English as a second language, more teachers are finding these students in their classrooms. The issues discussed in this article may help teachers begin to consider the challenges and appreciate the rewards of working with this group.