G'day mate. How are ya? Today, I am going to talk about 4 challenges of learning English from adulthood and how to prevail over them. Simply as you get older, it's going to be more difficult to adapt yourself to new environments unlike children. If you want to start learning English from scratch, then I hope it might help. Let's begin.
It needs to be understood that as we age, neuroplasticity or flexibility of adult's brain will become more inflexible, which means that the ability to absorb new things seems to decline
Unfortunately, this ageing process is inevitable to some extent, and this is the nature of human being. But, it depends upon how you keep using brain on a daily basis. If you keep reading books in your own language every day, then it's possible to prevent from the rapid deterioration of neuroplasticity. When it comes to learning English, this phenomenon can minimise further, not only for keeping your brain healthy, but also for preventing brain issues. So, learning English from adulthood has more benefits than you might think. It's a kind of challenge of learning new language, using your brain in a different way helps boost the benefits.
Pulling out of a deep-seated "Katakana" English pronunciation is one of the hardest challenges for adult's English learners
We've been haunted by the fact that Katakana English pronunciation is believed to be wrong, but at the same time, it is somewhat correct?! I've got some students at the moment, and some of them are struggling to refine their pronunciation. I can detect what's incorrect fairly easily, but the hardest part of teaching is to discourage them to use Katakana language and forget about this completely. I do understand how difficult it is, but it is imperative that they should try to do so earlier on. I am not saying they should never use Katakana language, but at least, until they're able to pronounce some tricky English words accurately and confidently. It might take much longer time compared to children or teenagers.
More individual-based learning styles are needed for adult English learners than children
As children are diversified, so adults are more, I reckon, because children will go to school to learn languages and probably it's a bit easier to find a one-size-fits-all learning method within their schooling life. In contrast, once you've finished your school, it's going to be quite difficult to find the best method for learning English as you won't get involved in any institution, but just working in a company to earn money for life. That's the normal, right? And, these adults are looking for an opportunity to learn English from scratch, but they're not sure how and what they should learn.
In this respect, what I'm doing right now is to consult these kinds of adults via Skype chat, and I try to find the best and personalised learning method for them. If they agree with my constructive advice, I'm willing to offer a personalised online lesson program. I've been helping many adult English learners to find their issues and overcome them.
Adult English leaners tend to have a high expectation for English learning first, but their actual practicality does not go together unfortunately
The last challenge for adult English learners I want to say is lack of effort and practicality towards English learning. At first, many adult English learners have a high expectation towards the mastery of English language, but they're likely to give up quite easily before putting every effort into learning English seriously. I've seen many adults who wanted to learn English, but because they've had too high expectation and usually it was not really attainable and even feasible, they ended up not continuing to learn anymore. The higher expectation you embrace, the harder you could keep yourself motivated. So, don't expect too much, rather please have a small but consistent objective for English learning such as passing an exam and get a native-speaker's friend, etc.
If you have any concerns or learning issues, please feel free to contact me! I'm willing to help you out with!
That's all for today. Thanks for reading.
Have a good one mate!