A suggestion for adults language education: On the basis of 'Critical Period'

Park, Mo rae al

Article

Journal of English Teaching through Movies and Media 2005;6(1):157-182.
Published online June 30, 2005.

A suggestion for adults language education: On the basis of 'Critical Period'

Mo rae al Park

성인 영어교육을 위한 제언

박모래알

Abstract

The Critical Period has been studied repeatedly using much of the related literature. The result has shown that there is a possibility that the successful language learning of a young child is related to his spending a long time in learning that language. On the other hand, an adult often fails to learn a foreign language because he cannot invest the proper time necessary to learn it. A teaching method for adults is being suggested. It does not require much time to learn a foreign language and guarantees a certain level of satisfaction and success in learning the language. The experiment consists of 3 stages. In the first stage, students read a text a lot and focus on how to read it. In the second stage, they study vocabulary, mainly verbs. The third stage requires them to make sentences using the verbs and to develop grammar awareness through other various sentence-making activities. The result showed that vocabulary learning was not inaccessible to the adults in the study and that the method was proved valid because the adults could learn and improve many aspects of English such as pronunciation, grammar, sentence analysis and writing skills through this kind of vocabulary learning.

Key Words: adult language education;critical period;grammar awareness;vocabulary learning