Hi Dominic

 

Some good ideas have been posted – we’re learning from this too. We get a few older students at Talk English but never en masse – our oldest has been 79. We’ve found they are highly committed and motivated, they love games and are painfully competitive. We’ve always had a lot of fun with our older students, so play and enjoy them. We have a small library of suitable books – locally published adult English literacy stories, romances (even for the men), cowboy novels and Readers’ Digests are most popular. Our older students read voraciously.

 

Best wishes

 

Julie

 

From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Rachel Stubley

Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 11:40 AM

To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Advice on teaching Congolese elders

 

What an interesting group Dominic, thanks for sharing!

Nice ideas from Philippa. I was thinking of stories too, especially their own stories e.g. (childhood) memories on all sorts of topics.

Rachel

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From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Philippa Grimes [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 July 2015 10:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Advice on teaching Congolese elders

Hi Dominic,

I looked at the class profile.  I think they will be a delight to teach.  I spent a couple of years teaching a group of students of pensionable age who had some similarities.  Obviously you'll need to avoid teaching what they learnt over the past few months.  Again, to state the obvious, you could ask them what they want to learn, though ss can't always articulate this easily.  For one lesson you could spend 5 or 10 minutes each on a number of topics and then ask them to vote on what they want to do more of.  Do these ss have to complete any accreditation at any point?  Bearing in mind that several of them want to support their grandchildren, you could adapt a variety of UK-primary-appropriate geography, history, RE, science and maths-related reading texts to read in class, introduced and followed-up with differentiated DARTS, inc. open-ended S&L and writing tasks.  You could also pick out, or ask them to pick out well-known figures they admire, and/or find some English versions of Congolese folk-takes to base work upon.

Let us all know what you decide and how you get on!

Regards,

Philippa

 

On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 9:07 AM, Dominic Clarke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello everyone

 

Over the Summer I will be teaching a group of

Congolese elders, the typical age of these students

being 75. I have attached a class profile from their

term-time tutor   which

gives useful information on the students and the

challenges they face in relation to learning. I would

be interested to hear your views and advice regarding

this. I have been advised that they want plenty of S&L

and that health would be a useful topic for them.

 

Regards

 

Dominic

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*********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html To contact the list owner, send an email to [log in to unmask]

*********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html To contact the list owner, send an email to [log in to unmask]

*********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html To contact the list owner, send an email to [log in to unmask]