Perceptions of different age groups

As a non-native English teacher, I’ve worked with many different age groups. From the beginning of my career, my directors saw me as a teacher that could have many kinds of groups, so the consequence of that was I had really young beginner children from the ages of 5 and 6, to more advanced levels of adults. Naturally, I loved it, as it meant more groups at the end of the month and therefore a better salary. I guess my struggle in saying ‘no’ also contributed to the highly heterogeneous mix of classes. When I became a coordinator, we tried to share the groups amongst the teachers bearing in mind teachers’ convenience and expertise. Whichever groups were hard to find teachers for, I came in. Simple.

Different perceptions I had of each age group then:

Kids: a love and hate relationship. It all depended on my level of enthusiasm and patience, and I guess also depended on the stars, because there were days when all kids just behaved in a very particular way. One hour in class with kids sometimes seemed to take up the same energy as teaching six classes of adults in a row.

Pre-teens: they were my favourite back then. A lot of energy, and they were still at the age that being friends with the teacher is cool. But I’ve always felt that teaching techniques didn’t really apply to this age group. I mean, trying a guided discovery approach ‘by the book’ didn’t prove to be very effective. For me, it was much more a matter of personality and using the rapport you built with them and trying to transfer some knowledge at the specific moments their brains were open. This moment didn’t usually last too long. With this age group, I’ve experienced the lowest marks on tests.

Teens: quite tough. Being nice to the teacher is not necessarily trendy anymore. Quite the opposite, being nasty to the teacher was many times a way of showing off and getting some laughter from peers. But I guess it really depended on the group, really. I’ve had some super nice groups, but the nastiest ones I’ve had in terms of classroom management definitely belonged to this group.

Adults: I’ve always liked teaching adults. I think mainly because if they’re sitting in the classroom, it’s because they want to be there. So inner motivation is easier to find here, and that makes a huge difference in the outcomes of a lesson. Self-discipline and higher attention span also made a positive impact in the lessons. The difficulty I found with adults in the beginning is that they were obviously more judgmental, and they can see clearly when you’re not well prepared, don’t really know what to do or when some nervousness comes in. So I’ve always felt that the pressure with adults was higher, but I enjoyed it. It motivated me to study and try new methodologies and approaches.

Nowadays I only get to teach adults, and I absolutely love it - and with time, I started to appreciate the content generated in each lesson. When students engage in the topic and start to chip in their ideas, you realize that you’re actually learning a lot from them. You have access to information that you didn’t before, different perspectives that you couldn’t see, and many times I catch myself reflecting on what they said.

What I like the most about my groups is finding the topics and creating discussion. It’s a pretty good position to be at, I’d say. You feel you have to be on top of things, kind of knowing a little about a whole range of topics, especially dealing with business students, in order to relate to what your students are saying. It’s a good feeling to know that I’m getting so much in return, even though I think my students don’t notice it. Perhaps I should tell them (note to self).