Presence of Andragogical Principles in English Language Teaching Practice

Presence of Andragogical Principles in English Language Teaching Practice

Kovačević, Ervin

The contemporary market demand implies that the institutions training English teachers need to equip them with the knowledge of teaching approaches and techniques to be used in compulsory and non – compulsory educational settings with the learner profiles ranging from preschool students to retirees. Malcolm S. Knowles in his The Adult Learner (2005; 1973), while contrasting the pedagogical and andragogical educational models, concludes: the pedagogical model excludes the andragogical assumptions; the andragogical model includes the pedagogical assumptions; and, an ideological andragogue should be able to use or apply the model whose assumptions are more realistic in a given situation. One of the implications is that the effective foreign language teachers are supposed to master both the models if they are to teach adult learners. The second one is that the teaching styles will oscillate on the continuum between highly teacher-centered and highly learnercentered one due to the teachers‘ abilities and willingness to draw from both the andragogical and pedagogical educational models. The assumptions have been tested through a survey revealing that the teaching styles of the majority of the English teachers of the language schools tend towards the teacher-centered pole, thus the pedagogical model.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

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